scholarly journals On the Subject of Objects: Four Views on Object Perception and Tool Use

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarja Susi ◽  
Tom Ziemke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Theoretical Biology ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Von Uexküll ◽  
Functional Tone

This paper addresses the relation between an agent and its environment, and more specifically, how subjects perceive object/artefacts/tools and their (possible) use. Four different conceptions of the relation between subject and object are compared here: functional tone (von Uexküll), equipment (Heidegger), affordance (Gibson), and entry point (Kirsh). even as these concepts have developed within different disciplines (theoretical biology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science) and in very different historical contexts, they are used more or less interchangeably in much of the literature, and typically conflated under the label of ‘affordance’. However, at closer inspection, they turn out to have not only similarities, but also substantial differences, which are identified and discussed here. Given that the relation between subjects and their objects is crucial to understanding human cognition and interaction with tools and technology, as well as robots’ interaction with their environment, we argue that these differences deserve some more attention than they have received so far.

scholarly journals On the Subject of Objects: Four Views on Object Perception and Tool Use

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarja Susi ◽  
Tom Ziemke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Theoretical Biology ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Von Uexküll ◽  
Functional Tone

This paper addresses the relation between an agent and its environment, and more specifically, how subjects perceive object/artefacts/tools and their (possible) use. Four different conceptions of the relation between subject and object are compared here: functional tone (von Uexküll), equipment (Heidegger), affordance (Gibson), and entry point (Kirsh). even as these concepts have developed within different disciplines (theoretical biology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science) and in very different historical contexts, they are used more or less interchangeably in much of the literature, and typically conflated under the label of ‘affordance’. However, at closer inspection, they turn out to have not only similarities, but also substantial differences, which are identified and discussed here. Given that the relation between subjects and their objects is crucial to understanding human cognition and interaction with tools and technology, as well as robots’ interaction with their environment, we argue that these differences deserve some more attention than they have received so far.

scholarly journals The Natural Medium as Carrier of Meanings and Their Decoding by Living Beings: Biosemiotics in Action

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-218
Author(s):  
Helena Knyazeva
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Theoretical Biology ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Cognitive Agent ◽  
Life Activity ◽  
Autopoietic System ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Von Uexküll

The synthetic, integrative significance of biosemiotics as a modern interdisciplinary research program is under discussion in the article. Aimed at studying the cognitive and life activity of living beings, which are capable of recognizing signals and extracting the meanings, biosemiotics serves as a conceptual node that combines some important notions of theoretical biology, evolutionary epistemology, cognitive science, phenomenology, neuroscience and neurophilosophy as well as the theory of complex adaptive systems and network science. Worlds of perception and actions of living beings are built in the process of co-evolution, in structural coupling and in enactive interaction with the surrounding natural environment (Umwelt). Thereby the biosemiotic theories developed by the founders of biosemiotics (J. von Uexküll, Th. Sebeok, G. Prodi, H. Pattie) are conceptually closed to the system-structural evolutionary approach developed in synergetics by H. Haken and S.P. Kurdyumov, the conception of autopoiesis (H. Maturana and F. Varela), second-order cybernetics (H. von Foerster), the conception of enactivism in cognitive science (F. Varela, E. Thompson, A. Noë). The key to comprehending the processes of extracting and generating meanings is that every living organism lives in the subjectively built world (Umwelt), so that its Umwelt and its internal psychic organization become parts of a single autopoietic system. According to the well-known expression of G. Bateson, information is a not indifferent difference or a difference that makes a difference. Differences become information when a cognitive agent as an interpreter, acting as part of an autopoietic system, sees signs in these differences that make meanings.

Language as a mental travel guide

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles P. Davis ◽  
Gerry T. M. Altmann ◽  
Eiling Yee
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Travel Guide

Abstract Gilead et al.'s approach to human cognition places abstraction and prediction at the heart of “mental travel” under a “representational diversity” perspective that embraces foundational concepts in cognitive science. But, it gives insufficient credit to the possibility that the process of abstraction produces a gradient, and underestimates the importance of a highly influential domain in predictive cognition: language, and related, the emergence of experientially based structure through time.

THE METADIALOGUE CONCEPT IN ITS LINGUISTIC ASPECT

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 721-726
Author(s):  
Yu.V. Kupriyanova ◽  
I.M. Vasilyanova
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Dynamic Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Linguistic Aspect

The article summarizes the key points in the development of the metadialogue phenomenon from a linguistic point of view. Some stages of the development of this concept and the difficulties associated with its structuring are covered. The main research findings of modern foreign and domestic experts on its study are considered. Some characteristics of the subject of the research from the standpoint of various pragmatic installations are given. On the basis of the dynamic structure of the metadialogue development, certain principles of semantic relations connected with the dialectical nature of human cognition are presented. Excursion into the history and evolution of the concept is presented. Several types of formulation of the subject matter are given. In accordance with the goal of speech exposure, internal problems of the development of metadialogue are highlighted and the critical points related to solving these problems are described. The rules of metadialogue flow are explained at the level of steps, the success/failure of which directly affects the final result of communication. The prospects of development of the concept research in accordance with various types of discourse are indicated.

scholarly journals Comprehension and Eye Movements in the Processing of Subject- and Object-Relative Clauses: Evidence from Dyslexia and Individual Differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 915
Author(s):  
Marianna Stella ◽  
Paul E. Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Processing Difficulty ◽  
Object Relative

In this study, we examined eye movements and comprehension in sentences containing a relative clause. To date, few studies have focused on syntactic processing in dyslexia and so one goal of the study is to contribute to this gap in the experimental literature. A second goal is to contribute to theoretical psycholinguistic debate concerning the cause and the location of the processing difficulty associated with object-relative clauses. We compared dyslexic readers (n = 50) to a group of non-dyslexic controls (n = 50). We also assessed two key individual differences variables (working memory and verbal intelligence), which have been theorised to impact reading times and comprehension of subject- and object-relative clauses. The results showed that dyslexics and controls had similar comprehension accuracy. However, reading times showed participants with dyslexia spent significantly longer reading the sentences compared to controls (i.e., a main effect of dyslexia). In general, sentence type did not interact with dyslexia status. With respect to individual differences and the theoretical debate, we found that processing difficulty between the subject and object relatives was no longer significant when individual differences in working memory were controlled. Thus, our findings support theories, which assume that working memory demands are responsible for the processing difficulty incurred by (1) individuals with dyslexia and (2) object-relative clauses as compared to subject relative clauses.

Précis ofUnified theories of cognition

1992 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Newell
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Syllogistic Reasoning ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Unified Theories

AbstractThe book presents the case that cognitive science should turn its attention to developing theories of human cognition that cover the full range of human perceptual, cognitive, and action phenomena. Cognitive science has now produced a massive number of high-quality regularities with many microtheories that reveal important mechanisms. The need for integration is pressing and will continue to increase. Equally important, cognitive science now has the theoretical concepts and tools to support serious attempts at unified theories. The argument is made entirely by presenting an exemplar unified theory of cognition both to show what a real unified theory would be like and to provide convincing evidence that such theories are feasible. The exemplar is SOAR, a cognitive architecture, which is realized as a software system. After a detailed discussion of the architecture and its properties, with its relation to the constraints on cognition in the real world and to existing ideas in cognitive science, SOAR is used as theory for a wide range of cognitive phenomena: immediate responses (stimulus-response compatibility and the Sternberg phenomena); discrete motor skills (transcription typing); memory and learning (episodic memory and the acquisition of skill through practice); problem solving (cryptarithmetic puzzles and syllogistic reasoning); language (sentence verification and taking instructions); and development (transitions in the balance beam task). The treatments vary in depth and adequacy, but they clearly reveal a single, highly specific, operational theory that works over the entire range of human cognition, SOAR is presented as an exemplar unified theory, not as the sole candidate. Cognitive science is not ready yet for a single theory – there must be multiple attempts. But cognitive science must begin to work toward such unified theories.

scholarly journals Neo-mechanistic explanatory integration for cognitive science: the problem of reduction remains

Sofia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Azevedo Leite
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Models ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Multi Level

One of the central aims of the neo-mechanistic framework for the neural and cognitive sciences is to construct a pluralistic integration of scientific explanations, allowing for a weak explanatory autonomy of higher-level sciences, such as cognitive science. This integration involves understanding human cognition as information processing occurring in multi-level human neuro-cognitive mechanisms, explained by multi-level neuro-cognitive models. Strong explanatory neuro-cognitive reduction, however, poses a significant challenge to this pluralist ambition and the weak autonomy of cognitive science derived therefrom. Based on research in current molecular and cellular neuroscience, the framework holds that the best strategy for integrating human neuro-cognitive theories is through direct reductive explanations based on molecular and cellular neural processes. It is my aim to investigate whether the neo-mechanistic framework can meet the challenge. I argue that leading neo-mechanists offer some significant replies; however, they are not able yet to completely remove strong explanatory reductionism from their own framework.

scholarly journals Why to build university spaces? How to discuss them? Appearance of a new lens

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Alanlı
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Extreme Points ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
University Spaces ◽  
The University

Since the 1990s, the university space has been the subject of many discussions due to the introduction of communication technologies to the learning process,which has become significantly visible after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic nowadays. These debates focus on the two extreme points ofwhether university space is necessary or not. In this regard, this research claims that the arguments on this topic are based on subject-object duality. It aims to develop a ground covering the discussions that oscillate between the two extremes by referring to sociomateriality, which advocates the interwovenness of subject and object. Adopting a retrospective perspective, itrediscovers the debates from the 1960s at the onto-epistemological levelthrough a sociomaterial lens. Finally, it situates the discussion on university space within the past-present-future dialogue.

scholarly journals On the Cognitive Foundation of Lexical Classification of the Subject World

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Alexey D. Koshelev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Cognition ◽  
Language Of Thought ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lexical Classification

The paper presents a language of thought (a set of cognitive units and relations) used to provide non-verbal definitions for the following five concepts: ARMCHAIR, MUG, RAVINE, LAKE, TREE. These definitions make it possible to describe concepts on two levels of specificity. On the first level, a concept is presented as a holistic cognitive unit. On the second, more specific, level, the same concept is viewed as a partitive system, i.e. a hierarchical system of its parts, the latter being smaller concepts into which the original holistic unit is decomposed. A hypothesis is advanced that such structure is inherent to all visible objects. The partitive system is argued to play a major role in human cognition. It, first, provides for an in-depth understanding of the perceived objects through understanding the role of their parts, and, second, underlies the formation of the hierarchy of concepts with respect to their generality. Besides, it can be considered as one of the defining properties of the human species as it accounts for the human ability to purposefully change the world.

scholarly journals Embedding Marxist Epistemology: A Contemporary Interpretation of Shao Yong’s Thought on “Observing Things”

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-153
Author(s):  
Dong Cao
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Contemporary Interpretation ◽  
Object Of Knowledge

The cognition method of “observing things” by the famous Confucian, Shao Yong from the early Song Dynasty has an extremely broad and profound meaning. It overlaps and also has similarities with Marxist epistemology. This article attempts to examine it from the perspective of Marxist epistemology; beginning with the subject and object of knowledge, the method of knowledge, and the purpose of knowledge to interpret and reflect on Shao Yong’s thought of “observation.”

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