---
abstract: 'Information processing theories of memory and skills can be reformulated in terms of how categories are physically and temporally related, a process called conceptual coordination. Dreaming can then be understood as a story understanding process in which two mechanisms found in everyday comprehension are missing: conceiving sequences (chunking categories in time as a higher-order categorization) and coordinating across modalities (e.g., relating the sound of a word and the image of its meaning).  On this basis, we can readily identify isomorphisms between dream phenomenology and neurophysiology, and explain the function of dreaming as facilitating future coordination of sequential, cross-modal categorization (i.e., REM sleep lowers activation thresholds, “unlearning”).'
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creators_name:
  - family: Clancey
    given: William
    honourific: ''
    lineage: ''
date: 2000-12
date_type: published
datestamp: 2003-06-03
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eprintid: 1989
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/1989/3/ClanceySleepDreams.pdf
full_text_status: public
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keywords: |-
  sleep
  dreaming
  conceptualization
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:51
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metadata_visibility: show
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number: 3
pagerange: 919-922
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publication: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
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refereed: TRUE
referencetext: |
  Clancey, W. J. (1997) Situated cognition: On human knowledge and computer representations.  Cambridge University Press. 
  
  Clancey, W.J. (1999) Conceptual coordination: How the mind orders experience in time. Erlbaum.
  
  Crick, F. & Mitchison, G. (1983) The function of dream sleep. Nature, 304(14, July), 111-115.  
  
  Donald, M. (1991) Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Harvard University Press. 
  
  Edelman, G. M. (1987) Neural Darwinism: The theory of neuronal group selection. Basic Books. 
  
  Freud, S. ([1900]1965) The interpretation of dreams. Avon Books. 
  
  Larkin, J. H. & Simon, H. A. (1987) Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words. Cognitive Science, 11(1), 65-100.  
  
  Rosenfield, I. (1992) The strange, familiar, and forgotten. Vintage Books. 
  
  Sacks, O. (1987) The man who mistook his wife for a hat. Harper & Row. 
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 12
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source: ~
status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:42:15
subjects:
  - BBS
  - cog-psy
  - neuro-psy
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
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thesistype: ~
title: Conceptual coordination bridges information processing and neurophysiology
type: journalp
userid: 26
volume: 26
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