Language, culture, and image-driven interpretations in translation: A case for the university translation classroom in Ukraine

In this paper, we develop a theory of image-driven interpretations for the translation studies domain. Interpretations make the core of translation and are explained in terms of mental images. An image-driven interpretation gives a meaning to a source-language word and finds in the target language the word to capture this meaning, which is a creative act and a cross-cultural transfer. An interpretation is ‘drawing’ images in the human mind by the powers of the mind’s representational content. Our theory proposes a role for etymological insight in boosting translation students’ interpretive skills via exposed inner word forms. These archaic archetypal images contain culture-specific information transmitted through human generations with the help of language. Inner word forms are non-trivial triggers in cultural exposure that raise students’ awareness of the native and foreign cultures and add an in-depth dimension to regular vocabulary work and other good practices in the translation classroom. We pin down some of the influences that native Ukrainian words and borrowings have had on the Ukrainians’ interpretive mind.

A continuum of intentionality: linking the biogenic and anthropogenic approaches to cognition

Biogenic approaches investigate cognition from the standpoint of evolutionary function, asking what cognition does for a living system and then looking for common principles and exhibitions of cognitive strategies in a vast array of living systems—non-neural to neural. One worry which arises for the biogenic approach is that it is overly permissive in terms of what it construes as cognition. In this paper I critically engage with a recent instance of this way of criticising biogenic approaches in order to clarify their theoretical commitments and prospects. In his critique of the biogenic approach, Fred Adams (Stud Hist Philos Sci 68:20–30, 10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.11.007, 2018) uses the presence of intentional states with conceptual content as a criterion to demarcate cognition-driven behaviour from mere sensory response. In this paper I agree with Adams that intentionality is the mark of the cognitive, but simultaneously reject his overly restrictive conception of intentionality. I argue that understanding intentionality simpliciter as the mark of the mental is compatible with endorsing the biogenic approach. I argue that because cognitive science is not exclusively interested in behaviour driven by intentional states with the kind of content Adams demands, the biogenic approach’s status as an approach to cognition is not called into question. I then go on to propose a novel view of intentionality whereby it is seen to exist along a continuum which increases in the degree of representational complexity: how far into the future representational content can be directed and drive anticipatory behaviour. Understanding intentionality as existing along a continuum allows biogenic approaches and anthropogenic approaches to investigate the same overarching capacity of cognition as expressed in its different forms positioned along the continuum of intentionality. Even if all organisms engage in some behaviour that is driven by weak intentional dynamics, this does not suggest that every behaviour of all organisms is so driven. As such, the worry that the biogenic approach is overly permissive can be avoided.

The Noumenal Morass: Post-Kantian Representationalism and Its Relationalist Critique in the Light of Strong Disjunctivism

This epistemological essay addresses the issue of representational content’s existence in the case of true direct knowledge. Contrary answers to it are considered as a basis for the distinction between representationalism and relationalism. The first part of the essay contains a critical analysis of the fundamental features of German Idealism as a kind of representationalism, which determined the main epistemological trend of continental philosophy in the form of post-Kantian representationalism. In the second part, after a brief excursion into certain contemporary continental issues, the current discussion between representationalism and relationalism in analytical philosophy is considered. It is concluded that relationalism, while correctly recognizing the nature of direct perception as being without representational content, is incapable of ensuring the unity of direct perception and a perceptual judgment, and a solution is proposed that could lead out of this epistemological impasse.

Object-scene conceptual regularities reveal fundamental differences between biological and artificial object vision

Human vision is still largely unexplained. Computer vision made impressive progress on this front, but it is unclear to what extent artificial neural networks approximate human brain strategies. Here, we confirm this gap by testing how biological and artificial systems encode object-scene contextual regularities in natural images. Both systems represent these regularities, but the underlying information processing is markedly different. In human vision, objects and backgrounds are represented separately, with rich domain-specific representations characterizing human visual cortex. Interaction between these components occurs downstream in frontoparietal areas. Conversely, neural networks represent image components in a single entangled representation revealing reduced object-segregation abilities and impoverished domain-specific object spaces. These results show the uniqueness of human vision that allows understanding that images are not just a collection of features and points to the need for developing neural network models with a similar richness of representational content.

Memory for affixes in a long-lag priming paradigm

Psycholinguistic research on the processing of morphologically complex words has largely focused on debates about how/if lexical stems are recognized, stored and retrieved. Comparatively little processing research has investigated similar issues for functional affixes. In Word or Lexeme Based Morphology (Aronoff, 1994), affixes are not representational units on par with stems or roots. This view is in stark contrast to the claims of linguistic theories like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz, 1993), which assign rich representational content to affixes. We conducted a series of eight visual lexical decision studies, evaluating effects of derivational affix priming along with stem priming, identity priming, form priming and semantic priming at long and short lags. We find robust and consistent affix priming (but not semantic or form priming) with lags up to 33 items, supporting the position that affixes are morphemes, i.e., representational units on par with stems. Intriguingly, we find only weaker evidence for the long-lag stem priming effect found in other studies. We interpret this asymmetry in terms of the salience of different morphological contexts for recollection memory.

Affects

This chapter is concerned with affects. It argues that Nietzsche conceives of affects as having a distinct phenomenology, a somatic dimension consisting in their immediate effect on the motor system, and a (positively or negatively) valenced representational content. After discussing the nature of affects, the chapter turns to consider the work of Chris Fowles and Peter Poellner on this subject. It registers its agreement with the reading of Nietzsche’s view on affects recently put forward by Fowles, albeit with a minor modification. However, it argues that the alternative account proposed by Poellner fails to capture Nietzsche’s own position. Finally, it offers a preliminary sketch of how, according to Nietzsche, drives and affects are supposed to work together.

Two distinct networks containing position-tolerant representations of actions in the human brain

Humans can recognize others actions in the social environment. This recognition ability is tolerant to drastic variations in the visual input caused by the movements of people in the environment. What neural underpinnings support this position-tolerant action recognition? In the present study, we aimed to identify regions in the brain that contain position-tolerant representations of actions and explore the representational content of these regions. We recorded fMRI data from twenty-two subjects while they observed video clips of ten different human actions in Point Light Display format. Each stimulus was presented in either the upper or the lower visual fields. We used multivoxel pattern analysis and a searchlight technique to identify brain regions that contain position-tolerant action representation. In a generalization test, linear support vector machine classifiers were trained with fMRI patterns in response to stimuli presented in one position and tested with stimuli presented in another position. Results showed above-chance classification in the left and right lateral occipitotemporal cortex, right inferior intraparietal sulcus, and right superior intraparietal sulcus. To investigate the representational content of these regions, we constructed models based on the objective measures of movements and human subjective judgments about actions. We then evaluated the brain similarity matrix from the cross-position classification analysis based on these models. Results showed cross-position classifications in the lateral occipito-temoiral ROIs was more strongly related to the subjective judgements while those in the dorsal parietal ROIs were more strongly related to the objective movements. An ROI representational similarity analysis futher revealed separation of dorsal and lateral regions. These results suggest the existence of two networks that contain abstract representations of human actions with distinct representational content.

The locus of recognition memory signals in human cortex depends on the complexity of the memory representations

Representational theories predict that brain regions contribute to cognition according to the information they represent (e.g., simple versus complex), contradicting the traditional notion that brain regions are specialized for cognitive functions (e.g., perception versus memory). In support of representational accounts, substantial evidence now attests that the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) is not specialized solely for long-term declarative memory, but underpins other functions including perception and future-imagining for complex stimuli and events. However, a complementary prediction has been less well explored, namely that the cortical locus of declarative memory may fall outside the MTL if the to-be-remembered content is sufficiently simple. Specifically, the locus should coincide with the optimal neural code for the representations being retrieved. To test this prediction, we manipulated the complexity of the to-be-remembered representations in a recognition memory task. First, participants in the scanner viewed novel 3D objects and scenes, and we used multivariate analyses to identify regions in the ventral visual-MTL pathway that preferentially coded for either simple features of the stimuli, or complex conjunctions of those features. Next, in a separate scan, we tested recognition memory for these stimuli and performed neuroimaging contrasts that revealed two memory signals ‒ feature memory and conjunction memory. Feature memory signals were found in visual cortex, while conjunction memory signals emerged in MTL. Further, the regions optimally representing features via preferential feature-coding coincided with those exhibiting feature memory signals. These findings suggest that representational content, rather than cognitive function, is the primary organizing principle in the ventral visual-MTL pathway.

Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies

We advance a critical examination of two recent branches of the enactivist research program, namely, Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies. We argue that, although these approaches may look like diverging views within the wider enactivist program, when appraised in a conciliatory spirit, they can be interpreted as developing converging ideas. We examine how the notion of know-how figures in them to show an important point of convergence, namely, that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how. Radical enactivism emphasizes the diachronic dimension of shared know-how, and linguistic bodies emphasize the synchronic one. Given that know-how is a normative notion, it is subject to success conditions. We then argue it implies basic content, which is the content of the successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not imply accuracy conditions and representational content, so it evades Hutto and Myin’s Hard Problem of Content. Moreover, this account is amenable to the central claim by Di Paolo et al. that the participatory sense-making relations at play in linguistic exchanges are explained in continuity with explanations of biological organization and sensorimotor engagements.

Nonconceptualism and content independence

State Nonconceptualism is the view that perceptual states (not perceptual content) are different in kind from cognitive states (not cognitive content), insofar as a subject could be in perceptual states even if she lacked the concepts necessary to describe those states. Although this position has recently met serious criticism, this piece aims to argue on its behalf. A point I specifically want to highlight is that, thanks to State Nonconceptualism, it is possible to characterize perceptual experiences as nonconceptual or concept-independent without relying on the notion of perceptual content - a feature I term here the content independence of State Nonconceptualism. I think one should welcome this result: for, although a nonconceptualist characterization of perceptual experience is quite plausible, nonrepresentationalist approaches to perception have persuasively challenged the thought that perceptual experiences have representational content. This brief piece is divided into three parts: (i) I introduce two versions of Perceptual Nonconceptualism, namely, Content and State Nonconceptualism; (ii) I go on to stress State Nonconceptualism’s content independence; and (iii), I briefly address three prominent objections against the state nonconceptualist.