scholarly journals Pragmatic Prediction in the Processing of Referring Expressions Containing Scalar Quantifiers

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinicius Macuch Silva ◽  
Michael Franke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Critical Term ◽  
Linguistic Abstraction ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
Visual Scenes ◽  
Different Levels

Previous research in cognitive science and psycholinguistics has shown that language users are able to predict upcoming linguistic input probabilistically, pre-activating material on the basis of cues emerging from different levels of linguistic abstraction, from phonology to semantics. Current evidence suggests that linguistic prediction also operates at the level of pragmatics, where processing is strongly constrained by context. To test a specific theory of contextually-constrained processing, termed pragmatic surprisal theory here, we used a self-paced reading task where participants were asked to view visual scenes and then read descriptions of those same scenes. Crucially, we manipulated whether the visual context biased readers into specific pragmatic expectations about how the description might unfold word by word. Contrary to the predictions of pragmatic surprisal theory, we found that participants took longer reading the main critical term in scenarios where they were biased by context and pragmatic constraints to expect a given word, as opposed to scenarios where there was no pragmatic expectation for any particular referent.

Neuroscience and the explanation of psychological phenomena

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 847-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Revonsuo
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Actual Problem ◽  
Philosophy Of Neuroscience ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Biological Explanations ◽  
Different Levels

Explanatory problems in the philosophy of neuroscience are not well captured by the division between the radical and the trivial neuron doctrines. The actual problem is, instead, whether mechanistic biological explanations across different levels of description can be extended to account for psychological phenomena. According to cognitive neuroscience, some neural levels of description at least are essential for the explanation of psychological phenomena, whereas, in traditional cognitive science, psychological explanations are completely independent of the neural levels of description. The challenge for cognitive neuroscience is to discover the levels of description appropriate for the neural explanation of psychological phenomena.

Cognitively Informed Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Eshaa M. Alkhalifa
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
System Design ◽  
Perceptual System ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Future System ◽  
Efficient Communication ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Different Levels

Cognitively informed systems as introduced by Alkhalifa (2005b) is a perspective that encourages system designers to consider the findings of cognitive science as informative to the design of their systems. This relies on an underlying assumption that the presentation, interaction abilities, as well as the system structure, are likely to achieve more efficient communication if the design is aligned with the expectations of the human cognitive machine. In other words, this perspective deals with issues such as how to best present materials for the perceptual system to isolate the required differences and focus on the correct points in the image, how to offer sufficient interaction to enhance learning, or how to elicit different levels of cognitive engagement with the system. This chapter offers a survey of the main areas of the field and examples are given of how these areas can inform particular aspects of future system design. A case study is also presented as support to this perspective. The main conclusion thatcan be drawn is that this new perspective is not only practical but also worthwhile.

The Evolution of Mutualistic Dependence

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 409-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Chomicki ◽  
E. Toby Kiers ◽  
Susanne S. Renner
Keyword(s):  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Context Dependence ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

While the importance of mutualisms across the tree of life is recognized, it is not understood why some organisms evolve high levels of dependence on mutualistic partnerships, while other species remain autonomous or retain or regain minimal dependence on partners. We identify four main pathways leading to the evolution of mutualistic dependence. Then, we evaluate current evidence for three predictions: ( a) Mutualisms with different levels of dependence have distinct stabilizing mechanisms against exploitation and cheating, ( b) less dependent mutualists will return to autonomy more often than those that are highly dependent, and ( c) obligate mutualisms should be less context dependent than facultative ones. Although we find evidence supporting all three predictions, we stress that mutualistic partners follow diverse paths toward—and away from—dependence. We also highlight the need to better examine asymmetry in partner dependence. Recognizing how variation in dependence influences the stability, breakdown, and context dependence of mutualisms generates new hypotheses regarding how and why the benefits of mutualistic partnerships differ over time and space.

The use of visual context during the production of referring expressions

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (9) ◽  
pp. 1700-1715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumiko Fukumura ◽  
Roger P. G. van Gompel ◽  
Martin J. Pickering
Keyword(s):  
Visual Context ◽  
Referring Expressions

scholarly journals How hard is cognitive science?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Rich ◽  
Ronald de Haan ◽  
Todd Wareham ◽  
Iris van Rooij
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Complexity Analysis ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
Computational Cognitive Science ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Computational Level ◽  
Do So

Cognitive science is itself a cognitive activity. Yet, computational cognitive science tools are seldom used to study (limits of) cognitive scientists’ thinking. Here, we do so using computational-level modeling and complexity analysis. We present an idealized formal model of a core inference problem faced by cognitive scientists: Given observations of a system’s behaviors, infer cognitive processes that could plausibly produce the behavior. We consider variants of this problem at different levels of explanation and prove that at each level, the inference problem is intractable, or even uncomputable. We discuss the implications for cognitive science.

scholarly journals Building and Understanding the Minimal Self

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Forch ◽  
Fred H. Hamker
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Robotics ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Developmental Robotics ◽  
Embodied Learning ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Minimal Self ◽  
Learning Machines ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Levels

Within the methodologically diverse interdisciplinary research on the minimal self, we identify two movements with seemingly disparate research agendas – cognitive science and cognitive (developmental) robotics. Cognitive science, on the one hand, devises rather abstract models which can predict and explain human experimental data related to the minimal self. Incorporating the established models of cognitive science and ideas from artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, on the other hand, aims to build embodied learning machines capable of developing a self “from scratch” similar to human infants. The epistemic promise of the latter approach is that, at some point, robotic models can serve as a testbed for directly investigating the mechanisms that lead to the emergence of the minimal self. While both approaches can be productive for creating causal mechanistic models of the minimal self, we argue that building a minimal self is different from understanding the human minimal self. Thus, one should be cautious when drawing conclusions about the human minimal self based on robotic model implementations and vice versa. We further point out that incorporating constraints arising from different levels of analysis will be crucial for creating models that can predict, generate, and causally explain behavior in the real world.

Language proximity and speech perception in young bilinguals

2018 ◽  
pp. 353-366
Author(s):  
Laura Bosch
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Phonological Representation ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Phonological Encoding ◽  
Language Differentiation ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
Perceptual Narrowing ◽  
Different Levels

Linguistic experience shapes speech perception from the earliest stages of development. Infants growing up in bilingual contexts are exposed to a more complex linguistic input from which they will gradually build language-specific phonetic and phonological categories, eventually characterizing words in their early lexicons. Input languages can show different levels of proximity relative to their rhythmic, phonetic, phonological, or lexical properties. Does language proximity affect early speech perception processes, from language differentiation to perceptual narrowing and phonological representation of words in the bilinguals’ vocabulary? Data from infants growing up in Catalan-Spanish contexts, acquiring a close pair of Romance languages, are reviewed and contrasted with data from infants exposed to more distant language pairs. It is argued that language proximity can determine specific adjustments in bilinguals’ early phonetic perception and phonological encoding of words. Language proximity factors can account for differences among bilingual infants’ trajectories previously reported in the literature.

Molecules, Systems, and Behavior: Another View of Memory Consolidation

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bechtel
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Memory Consolidation ◽  
Cellular Processes ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Behavioural Aspects ◽  
The Brain ◽  
With Memory ◽  
Different Levels

This article examines the behavioural aspects and the molecular and cellular processes in the brain associated with memory consolidation. It suggests that ruthless reduction and mechanistic reduction are both reductionist in that they recognize the importance of seeking knowledge of brain processes at different levels of organization to understand cognitive function. They are also united in standing opposed to the attempts to divorce psychology and cognitive science from being constrained by our rapidly growing knowledge of brain processes and they both agree that information about molecular and cellular processes is also of potentially great relevance to understanding memory consolidation.

Moved to Think

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Bartsch ◽  
Anja Kalch ◽  
Mary Beth Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Film Version ◽  
Being Moved ◽  
Different Levels

Recent conceptualizations of eudaimonic entertainment and aesthetic experience highlight the role of emotions in stimulating rewarding experiences of insight, meaning, and reflectiveness among entertainment audiences. The current evidence is mainly correlational, however. This study used an experimental approach to examine the assumed causal influence of being moved, on reflective thoughts. Participants were randomly assigned to see one of two versions of a short film that elicited different levels of feeling moved, while keeping the cognitive, propositional content constant. Feeling moved was conceptualized and operationalized as an affective state characterized by negative valence, moderate arousal, mixed affect, and by the labeling of the experience in terms of feeling moved. As expected, the more moving film version elicited more reflective thoughts, which in turn predicted individuals’ overall positive experience of the film. The effect of the film stimulus on reflective thoughts was fully mediated by individuals’ affective state.

Interactions between environmental pollutants and dietary nutrients: current evidence and implications in epidemiological research

2020 ◽  
pp. jech-2020-213789
Author(s):  
Germán Cano-Sancho ◽  
Maribel Casas
Keyword(s):  
Serum Lipids ◽  
Environmental Pollutants ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Biological Functions ◽  
Epidemiological Evidence ◽  
Nutrient Metabolism ◽  
Epidemiological Research ◽  
Dietary Nutrients ◽  
Preventive Effects ◽  
Different Levels

Environmental pollutants and nutrients may be present in the same foodstuffs or dietary patterns; share internal mechanisms of transport, metabolism and cellular uptake; or target the same molecular signalling pathways and biological functions. Lipophilic pollutants and nutrients, like dioxins and polyunsaturated fatty acids, may often converge at all aforementioned levels and thus the interactions become more likely. Despite this fact, the topic seems overlooked in mainstream epidemiological research. In this essay, we illustrate different levels of documented interactions between pollutants and nutrients with experimental, interventional and epidemiological evidence, paying special attention to lipophilic chemicals. We first describe common pollutants and nutrients encountered in diets and the internal lipophilic interface such as adipose tissue and serum lipids. Next, we discuss the preventive effects of nutrients against absorption and the toxic effects of pollutants, as well as the pollutant-induced perturbation of nutrient metabolism. Finally, we discuss the implications of nutrient–pollutant interactions in epidemiology, providing some examples of negative confounding, modification effect and statistical interactions reported for different outcomes including fetal growth, diabetes and cancer. The evidence discussed in this essay supports that the health impacts of chemicals have likely been underestimated due to the high risk of residual and coexposure confounding in diseases where interactions between pollutants and nutrients may occur.

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