Cogprints: No conditions. Results ordered Title. 2018-01-17T14:19:51ZEPrintshttp://cogprints.org/images/sitelogo.gifhttp://cogprints.org/2001-06-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1643This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16432001-06-26ZThe (Refereed) Literature-Liberation MovementThe refereed journal literature can be freed of all access-tolls on-line if authors self-archive all their
pre- and post-refereeing papers in institutional Eprint Archives, interoperable and OAI-compliant
http://www.eprints.orgStevan Harnad2001-06-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1641This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16412001-06-26ZAAAS's Response: Too Little, Too LateThe release of the contents of Science after a delay of 12-months is too little, too late. Stevan Harnad2002-01-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2036This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20362002-01-16ZThe adaptive advantage of symbolic theft over sensorimotor toil: Grounding language in perceptual categoriesUsing neural nets to simulate learning and the genetic algorithm to simulate evolution in a toy world of mushrooms and mushroom-foragers, we place two ways of acquiring categories into direct competition with one another: In (1) "sensorimotor toil,” new categories are acquired through real-time, feedback-corrected, trial and error experience in sorting them. In (2) "symbolic theft,” new categories are acquired by hearsay from propositions – boolean combinations of symbols describing them. In competition, symbolic theft always beats sensorimotor toil. We hypothesize that this is the basis of the adaptive advantage of language. Entry-level categories must still be learned by toil, however, to avoid an infinite regress (the “symbol grounding problem”). Changes in the internal representations of categories must take place during the course of learning by toil. These changes can be analyzed in terms of the compression of within-category similarities and the expansion of between-category differences. These allow regions of similarity space to be separated, bounded and named, and then the names can be combined and recombined to describe new categories, grounded recursively in the old ones. Such compression/expansion effects, called "categorical perception" (CP), have previously been reported with categories acquired by sensorimotor toil; we show that they can also arise from symbolic theft alone. The picture of natural language and its origins that emerges from this analysis is that of a powerful hybrid symbolic/sensorimotor capacity, infinitely superior to its purely sensorimotor precursors, but still grounded in and dependent on them. It can spare us from untold time and effort learning things the hard way, through direct experience, but it remain anchored in and translatable into the language of experience.Angelo CangelosiStevan Harnad2007-09-28T23:23:12Z2011-03-11T08:56:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5722This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/57222007-09-28T23:23:12ZAnalgesic Efficacy of Orally Administered
Buprenorphine in RatsThe analgesic effect of orally administered buprenorphine was compared with that induced by a standard
therapeutic injected dose (0.05 mg/kg of body weight, s.c.) in male Long-Evans rats. Analgesia was assessed by
measuring pain threshold, using the hot-water tail-flick assay before and after administration of buprenorphine.
The results suggest that a commonly used formula for oral buprenorphine in flavored gelatin, at a dose of 0.5
mg/kg, does not increase pain threshold in rats. Instead, oral buprenorphine doses of 5 and 10 mg/kg were
necessary to induce significant increases in pain threshold. However, these doses had to be administered by
orogastric infusion because the rats would not voluntarily eat flavored gelatin containing this much buprenorphine.
The depth of analgesia induced by these infused doses was comparable to that induced by the clinically effective
s.c. treatment (0.05 mg/kg).Dr. Lisa B.E. MartinDr. Alexis C. ThompsonDr. Thomas MartinDr. Mark B. Kristalkristal@buffalo.edu2001-09-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1798This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17982001-09-13ZAnswering Subcognitive Turing Test Questions: A Reply to FrenchRobert French has argued that a disembodied computer is incapable of
passing a Turing Test that includes subcognitive questions. Subcognitive
questions are designed to probe the network of cultural and perceptual
associations that humans naturally develop as we live, embodied and
embedded in the world. In this paper, I show how it is possible for a
disembodied computer to answer subcognitive questions appropriately,
contrary to Frenchs claim. My approach to answering subcognitive
questions is to use statistical information extracted from a very large
collection of text. In particular, I show how it is possible to answer a
sample of subcognitive questions taken from French, by issuing queries to
a search engine that indexes about 350 million Web pages. This simple
algorithm may shed light on the nature of human (sub-) cognition, but the
scope of this paper is limited to demonstrating that French is mistaken: a
disembodied computer can answer subcognitive questions.Peter Turney2001-05-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1477This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14772001-05-08ZArtificial Societies of Intelligent Agents In this thesis we present our work, where we developed artificial societies of intelligent agents, in order to understand
and simulate adaptive behaviour and social processes. We obtain this in three parallel ways: First, we present a
behaviours production system capable of reproducing a high number of properties of adaptive behaviour and of
exhibiting emergent lower cognition. Second, we introduce a simple model for social action, obtaining emergent
complex social processes from simple interactions of imitation and induction of behaviours in agents. And third, we
present our approximation to a behaviours virtual laboratory, integrating our behaviours production system and our
social action model in animats. In our behaviours virtual laboratory, the user can perform a wide variety of
experiments, allowing him or her to test the properties of our behaviours production system and our social action
model, and also to understand adaptive and social behaviour. It can be accessed and downloaded through the Internet.
Before presenting our proposals, we make an introduction to artificial intelligence and behaviour-based systems, and
also we give notions of complex systems and artificial societies. In the last chapter of the thesis, we present
experiments carried out in our behaviours virtual laboratory showing the main properties of our behaviours
production system, of our social action model, and of our behaviours virtual laboratory itself. Finally, we discuss
about the understanding of adaptive behaviour as a path for understanding cognition and its evolution.Carlos Gershenson2007-05-08Z2011-03-11T08:56:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5543This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/55432007-05-08ZAssociation-Interpretation: A research technique in cultural and cognitive linguistics
There has been growing interest in the study of the human conceptual system across several disciplines and sub-disciplines in the last two decades. Cognitive scientists have been involved in modeling the architecture of the human conceptual system. For instance, a fairly recent paradigm in cognitive science called "connectionism" models the human conceptual system as a network composed of a large number of units joined together in a pattern of connections (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986). Cognitive linguists, on the other hand, have been investigating the contents of the human conceptual system and how they are reflected in language (Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Langacker, 1987, 1991, 2000).
Cultural linguists (Palmer, 1996) and cognitive anthropologists (Strauss & Quinn, 1997; D'Andrade, 1995) have recognized that knowledge embodied in conceptual systems and reflected in language is in fact deeply ensconced in culture and thus maintain that a thorough account of language should not only unravel cognitive-conceptual structures but should also provide insights into cultural knowledge and its influence on the more general patterns of conceptualization.
The human conceptual system is made up of concepts that are associated with each other in various ways. Terms such as "category" and "schema" have in fact been used to capture two general types of associative relationships. Categories reveal a hierarchical structure of superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels, whereas schemas mainly reveal thematic, event-based, or sequential relationships. 'Food' and 'restaurant' are associated with each other schematically, while 'food' is associated with 'pasta' categorically.
'Category' and 'schema' have been two pivotal notions in studies of culture and conceptualization. Scholars in this area have been closely examining how different cultures develop and organize their categories and schemas (e.g., Rosch, 1975; Lakoff, 1987; Palmer, 1996). The notions of cultural schema and cultural category have in fact evolved from such endeavors. This paper elaborates on these two notions.
Dr Farzad Sharifian2001-04-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1441This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14412001-04-10ZAssociative Neural NetworkAn associative neural network (ASNN) is a combination of an ensemble of the feed-forward neural networks and the K-nearest neighbor technique. The introduced network uses correlation between ensemble responses as a measure of distance amid the analyzed cases for the nearest neighbor technique and provides an improved prediction by the bias correction of the neural network ensemble. An associative neural network has a memory that can coincide with the training set. If new data become available, the network further improves its predicting ability and can often provide a reasonable approximation of the unknown function without a need to retrain the neural network ensemble.Igor Tetko2007-03-22Z2011-03-11T08:56:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5463This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/54632007-03-22ZAn Attempt to Predict Behavior: How
Does organizer of Mindamic Generate
‘ Causalities ’ in InteractionThe rearch is a sequel to former attempts to
inquire dynamic of the mind or mindamic with
probability theory. Other types of information was
dealt with, formerly. So the turn was that of social
information. It was assumed: How does organizer of
mindamic generate ‘causalities’ in interaction? The
subjects were 259 persons; 166 were men and 93 women.
The age of persons varied from 18 to 72 years. The
data were obtained from the videotapes of 37 sessions
with a set of the observation categories. The
statistical analysis comprised of the Bayesian
probabilities, and the application of the chain rule
of the matrix calculus. The results indicated an
alternation between the dynamic causes in the
organizer of the persons and the overt behavior. The
tightness of the most probable causes generate
inhibition of the overt behavior. The looseness of
the causes in the organizer generate more frequent
overt behavior such as the evasive behavior, the
rewarding behavior, the straightforward behavior, and
the annulment of the former behaviorEd.D Raimo Juhani Laasonen06-27-1944-10722002-06-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2249This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22492002-06-10ZAttentional and Semantic AnticipationsWhy are attentional processes important in the driving of anticipations? Anticipatory processes are fundamental cognitive abilities of living systems, in order to rapidly and accurately perceive new events in the environment, and to trigger adapted behaviors to the newly perceived events. To process anticipations adapted to sequences of various events in complex environments, the cognitive system must be able to run specific anticipations on the basis of selected relevant events. Then more attention must be given to events potentially relevant for the living system, compared to less important events.
What are useful attentional factors in anticipatory processes? The relevance of events in the environment depend on the effects they can have on the survival of the living system. The cognitive system must then be able to detect relevant events to drive anticipations and to trigger adapted behaviors. The attention given to an event depends on i) its external physical relevance in the environment, such as time duration and visual quality, and ii) on its internal semantic relevance in memory, such as knowledge about the event (semantic field in memory) and anticipatory power (associative strength to anticipated associates).
How can we model interactions between attentional and semantic anticipations? Specific types of distributed recurrent neural networks are able to code temporal sequences of events as associated attractors in memory. Particular learning protocol and spike rate transmission through synaptic associations allow the model presented to vary attentionally the amount of activation of anticipations (by activation or inhibition processes) as a function of the external and internal relevance of the perceived events. This type of model offers a unique opportunity to account for both anticipations and attention in unified terms of neural dynamics in a recurrent network.
Frédéric LavigneSylvain Denis2003-10-04Z2011-03-11T08:55:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3188This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/31882003-10-04ZAutism and the Motor Theory of LanguageAutism is a puzzling and distressing state which affects a considerable number of children world-wide. Autistic children display a range of deficiencies and often present bizarre patterns of behaviour. There is no consensus about the causes or treatment of autism. There may be a genetic element and autism may be a manifestation of errors in the programming of neural development pre- and post-natally. One of the central and most discussed aspects of autism is deficiencies in speech development; absence or distortion of the use of words and of syntax make communication difficult for autistic children. Coupled with their notable lack of social empathy, this intensifies the isolation from which the children suffer. No clearly successful treatment for their language or other difficulties has as yet emerged. Given this, it seems desirable to examine whether the different ideas about the origin and functioning of language offered by the motor theory may be relevant in understanding the nature of autism or suggesting ways in which these unfortunate children might be helped, in tackling their language deficiencies or more widely. Robin Allott2001-02-07Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1283This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12832001-02-07ZBibliography of computational models of rat spatial behaviorA bibliography of computational models of rat spatial behavior.Christopher G. Prince2001-01-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1240This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12402001-01-16ZBinding and Normalization of Binary Sparse Distributed Representations by Context-Dependent ThinningDistributed representations were often criticized as inappropriate for encoding of data with a complex structure. However Plate's Holographic Reduced Representations and Kanerva's Binary Spatter Codes are recent schemes that allow on-the-fly encoding of nested compositional structures by real-valued or dense binary vectors of fixed dimensionality.
In this paper we consider procedures of the Context-Dependent Thinning which were developed for representation of complex hierarchical items in the architecture of Associative-Projective Neural Networks. These procedures provide binding of items represented by sparse binary codevectors (with low probability of 1s). Such an encoding is biologically plausible and allows a high storage capacity of distributed associative memory where the codevectors may be stored.
In contrast to known binding procedures, Context-Dependent Thinning preserves the same low density (or sparseness) of the bound codevector for varied number of component codevectors. Besides, a bound codevector is not only similar to another one with similar component codevectors (as in other schemes), but it is also similar to the component codevectors themselves. This allows the similarity of structures to be estimated just by the overlap of their codevectors, without retrieval of the component codevectors. This also allows an easy retrieval of the component codevectors.
Examples of algorithmic and neural-network implementations of the thinning procedures are considered. We also present representation examples for various types of nested structured data (propositions using role-filler and predicate-arguments representation schemes, trees, directed acyclic graphs) using sparse codevectors of fixed dimension. Such representations may provide a fruitful alternative to the symbolic representations of traditional AI, as well as to the localist and microfeature-based connectionist representations.
Dmitri A. RachkovskijErnst M. Kussul2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2384This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23842002-08-08ZThe Brachial Plexus: Development and Assessment of a Computer Based Learning Tool
The objective of the present study is to evaluate the use of multimedia technology to simplify study of the brachial plexus. A combination of newly-rendered illustrations, animations, explanatory text, and a set of printable sample questions were combined into a program to provide a tutorial for the brachial plexus. One aspect of the program is an animation showing the development of the brachial plexus from its developmental origins that illustrates limb rotation and the resulting adult anatomy and dermatomal arrangement. The cross-platform program requires Quicktime 3.0 and is packaged on CD-ROM. Student evaluation of the program highlights its ease of use and intuitive navigation. User evaluation provides validation that the use of illustrations and animations is beneficial to user’s understanding and retention of the material. Future plans involve incorporation of pathologic images in order to enhance the clinical relevance of the product.
Douglas J. Gould PhD2005-05-02Z2011-03-11T08:56:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4328This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/43282005-05-02ZBrugada Syndrome: The Syndrome of Right Bundle Branch Block, ST segment Elevation in V1 to V3 and Sudden DeathIn 1992 a new syndrome consisting of syncopal episodes and/or sudden death in patients with a structurally normal heart and a characteristic electrocardiogram (ECG) with a pattern of right bundle branch block with an ST segment elevation in leads V1 to V3 was described 1 In 1998 the poor prognosis of patients with the syndrome not receiving an implantable defibrillator was reported 2,3 In 1998 the genetic nature of the disease and its assotiation to a mutation in the cardiac sodium channel gene was described 4 . Because the diagnosis is easily made by means of the ECG, an increasing number of patients with the ECG pattern are being identified worldwide. In this article we will review our present knowledge concerning patients with the classical ECG pattern of the disease. Josep BrugadaPedro BrugadaRamon Brugada2004-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3592This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35922004-04-30ZCan culture be solely inferred from the absence of genetic or environmental factors ?Rendell & Whitehead's minimalist definition of culture does not allow for the important gaps between cetaceans and Inimans. A more complete analysis reveals important discontinuities that may be more instnictive
for comparative purposes than the continuities emphasized by the authors.
T RipollJ Vauclair2006-08-01Z2011-03-11T08:56:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5006This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/50062006-08-01ZChanges in Striatal N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) Stimulation of Dopamine Release and Receptor Subunit Expression During Expression of and Recovery from MPTP-Induced ParkinsonismNormal and 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine(MPTP)-treated cats were used to examine changes in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor function. In vivo microdialysis studies showed that NMDA-stimulated dopamine (DA) release was similar in the normal dorso-lateral and ventro-medial caudate nucleus. In symptomatic animals, NMDA-stimulated DA release was significantly decreased in both striatal regions. In symptomatic animals, NMDA-stimulated dopamine release was significantly decreased in both striatal regions. In recovered animals, the dorsal striatum and ventral striatum demonstrated an upregulation in NMDA-stimulated dopamine release compared to symptomatic animals. Receptor autoradiography showed no significant differences in NMDA receptor binding between normal, symptomatic, and recovered animals in the dorso-lateral caudate. NMDA receptor binding was, however, upregulated in the ventro-medial caudate of recovered animals. With Western analysis, NR1 and NR2A subunit levels in the dorso-lateral caudate were shown to decrease significantly in symptomatic animals compared to normal and then increase in recovered animals compared to symptomatic animals. In the ventro-medial caudate, NR1 and NR2A levels in the symptomatic group were significantly increased compared to normal and recovered groups. These data suggest that there may be recovery-induced changes in the functional regulation of the NMDA receptors in the striatum contributing to the behavioral recovery seen in this model.
Dr. Anup DesaiDr. David RothblatDr. Jay Schneider2012-04-25T13:00:33Z2012-04-25T13:00:33Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8186This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81862012-04-25T13:00:33ZChanging incidence of oral and maxillofacial tumours in East Java, Indonesia, 1987-1992. Part 2: Malignant tumoursA total of 2193 tumours of the mouth and jaw diagnosed at the Laboratorium Patologi Anatomi Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia from 1987 to 1992, inclusive, was studied. Malignant tumours constituted 45.3 of the lesions. Almost 71 of the malignant tumours were squamous cell carcinomas. The remainder were salivary gland tumours (21.5) and sarcomas (4.5). The male to female ratio for malignant tumours was 5.1:4.7. The incidence of malignant tumours per 100,000 population over the 6-year study period was 2.64. The yearly incidence seemed to increase except in 1990, when it dropped. The incidence of squamous cell carcinoma over the 6 years was 2.1. Calculation of the odds ratio suggested that people aged 40 and over are 5.8 times more likely to develop squamous cell carcinoma. Copyright 2001 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.T.I. BudhyS.D. SoenartoH.B. YaacobDr. W.C. Ngeowngeowy@um.edu.my2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2376This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23762002-08-08ZClinical Teaching and OSCE in Pediatrics
Emphasis is being given to early contact by medical students with patients, and curricula are being designed to address this trend. Although teaching of clinical skills mostly depends on the traditional "apprenticeship" model, there is insufficient supervision of students while they examine the patients. This leads to the lack of acquisition of good clinical skills and some patient-student frustrations during examination by inexperienced students. The problem is greater in pediatric departments. One way to overcome this is to observe the students while they take a history and do a physical examination and to give them feedback. On the other hand, objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) should be used more in pediatric examinations to make use of the steering effect such examinations have on student achievement. However, OSCEs should not be the only student assessment tool, but should be complemented by other examination methods.
Sabri Kemahli MD2001-08-15Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1734This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17342001-08-15ZThe Cochlear Amplifier is a Surface Acoustic Wave ResonatorA companion paper (Bell, 2001) formulated a model of the cochlea as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator. This supporting paper seeks to give a working account of the sensing elements in the ear and how they operate together to create a SAW resonator. A key feature of any such device is that the interdigital transducers alternate in polarity, an arrangement ideal for launching and detecting surface waves. Translated to the ear, the three rows of outer hair cells (OHCs) are conjectured to be the interdigital transducers. In the simplest (degenerate) SAW resonator, only a single set of three electrodes is required to create resonance between the fingers, a situation presumed to apply in the cochlea, where OHC2 is assumed to respond in antiphase to OHC1 and 3. The antiphasic response is not to displacement, but to intracochlear fluid pressure. An examination of the literature interprets OHCs as responding directly to pressure via their cell bodies, and two populations, with opposite response polarities, are observed. Whether an OHC behaves in one way or the other depends on its membrane potential and turgor pressure, so it is conjectured that OHC1/3 operate at a membrane potential of about 70 mV, whereas in OHC2 it is about 50 mV. At low sound pressure levels, two mechanisms for creating an electrical response in OHCs are identified: one involves the piezoelectric response of the OHC wall to pressure, the other a transient sodium current which acts as a biological transistor to amplify the transducer voltage.Andrew Bell2001-02-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1291This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12912001-02-08ZCognitive Relatives and Moral RelationsThe close kinship between humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans is a central theme among participants in the debate about human treatment of the other apes. Empathy is probably the single most important determinant of actual human moral behavior, including the treatment of nonhuman animals. Given the applied nature of questions about the treatment of captive apes, it is entirely appropriate that the close relationship between us should be highlighted. But the role that relatedness should play in ethical theory is less clear. To the extent that legal and regulatory challenges to keeping apes in captivity are likely to be based on principles of theory, it is important to understand what roles evolutionary theory can play in deriving such principles. The development of ethically correct policies for captivity of animals will depend on taking into account both species-specific and individual differences in the ways that individuals perceive and conceptualize the spaces in which they live, and the choices with which they are presented. A fully evolutionary approach to cognition, a cognitive ethology, that is not just limited to the great apes or to primates is the best hope we have for understanding such perceptions and conceptions.Colin Allen2004-08-10Z2011-03-11T08:55:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3749This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/37492004-08-10ZColor Realism: Toward a Solution to the "Hard Problem"This article was written as a commentary on an article by Peter W. Ross entitled "The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism" [Consciousness and Cognition 10(1), 42-58 (2001)], and was published together with that article (and with other commentaries, and Ross's reply). However, it is by means essential for you to have read Ross's piece in order to understand the approach to the "hard problem" of consciousness proposed here. Ross's article defends a view called "color physicalism" or color realism that holds (simplifying somewhat) that colors are real physical properties (in typical cases, spectral reflectances of object surfaces). This is in opposition to what is probably a more widely held "subjectivist" view of color, that holds that color qualities exist only in the mind. In my commentary I suggest that a realist view of qualitative properties, such as Ross's, together with a direct, active view of perception, and a concept of "extended mind" (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) may provide the materials for a real solution to the notorious "hard problem" of consciousness. I sketch this solution in outline.Nigel J.T. Thomas2006-08-01Z2011-03-11T08:56:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5020This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/50202006-08-01ZColor Realism: Toward a Solution to the "Hard Problem"This article was written as a commentary on an article by Peter W. Ross entitled "The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism" [Consciousness and Cognition 10(1), 42-58 (2001)], and was published together with that article (and with other commentaries, and Ross's reply). However, it is by means essential for you to have read Ross's piece in order to understand the approach to the "hard problem" of consciousness proposed here. Ross's article defends a view called "color physicalism" or color realism that holds (simplifying somewhat) that colors are real physical properties (in typical cases, spectral reflectances of object surfaces). This is in opposition to what is probably a more widely held "subjectivist" view of color, that holds that color qualities exist only in the mind. In my commentary I suggest that a realist view of qualitative properties, such as Ross's, together with a direct, active view of perception, and a concept of "extended mind" (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) may provide the materials for a real solution to the notorious "hard problem" of consciousness. I sketch this solution in outline.Nigel J.T. Thomas2001-11-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1901This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19012001-11-19ZComments to NeutrosophyAny system based on axioms is incomplete because the axioms cannot be
proven from the system, just believed. But one system can be less-incomplete than
other. Neutrosophy is less-incomplete than many other systems because it contains
them. But this does not mean that it is finished, and it can always be improved. The
comments presented here are an attempt to make Neutrosophy even less-incomplete.
I argue that less-incomplete ideas are more useful, since we cannot
perceive truth or falsity or indeterminacy independently of a context, and are
therefore relative. Absolute being and relative being are defined. Also the "silly
theorem problem" is posed, and its partial solution described. The issues arising
from the incompleteness of our contexts are presented. We also note the relativity
and dependance of logic to a context. We propose "metacontextuality" as a
paradigm for containing as many contexts as we can, in order to be less-incomplete
and discuss some possible consequences.Carlos Gershenson2002-02-23Z2011-03-11T08:54:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2101This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21012002-02-23ZConcepts, Introspection, and Phenomenal Consciousness: An Information-Theoretical ApproachThis essay is a sustained information-theoretic attempt to bring new light on some of the perennial problems in the philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection. Following Dretske (1981), we present and develop an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call <em>sensory concepts</em>, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call <em>phenomenal concepts</em>: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, like RED. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them.Murat AydedeGuzeldere Guven2002-01-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2051This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20512002-01-29ZConditioned blocking and schizophrenia: a replication and study of the role of symptoms, age, onset-age of psychosis and illness-durationIntroduction:
Measures of selective attention processing like latent inhibition (LI) and conditioned blocking (CB) are disturbed in some patients with schizophrenia. (LI is the delay in learning about the associations of a stimulus that has been associated with no event [vs. de novo learning]; CB is the delay in learning the associations of a stimulus-component when the other component has already started to acquire these associations.) We proposed, -
a) to replicate the reported decreases of CB in patients without paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms,
b) to see if CB depends on the age of illness-onset and its duration, as reported for LI.
Methods:
We studied 101 young and old, acute and chronically ill patients with schizophrenia, of whom 62 learned a modified 'mouse-in-house' CB task, and compared them with 62 healthy controls matched for age, education and socio-economic background.
Results:
1/ CB was more evident in patients with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia than other subtypes.
2/ An unusual persistence of high CB scores through testing was associated with productive symptoms (including positive thought disorder).
3/ Reduced CB related to the increased expression of a) Schneider's first rank symptoms of ideas-of-reference and b) to negative symptoms like poor rapport and poor attention.
4/ CB was less evident in the older patients (age range 9.5-63.3y) and those with an earlier illness-onset (range 8.5-45.8y).
Conclusions:
In contrast to the similar LI test of selective attention CB is found in patients with paranoid schizophrenia and, unlike LI, the expression of CB by patients with schizophrenia is not related closely to illness-duration.
Reduced CB tended to be found in those with an earlier onset, a group often noted for more severe cognitive problems. These results imply that CB and LI reflect the activity of different underlying processes.
We suggest that reduced CB on the first few test-trials in nonparanoid schizophrenia reflects the unusual persistence of controlled information processing strategies that would normally become automatic during conditioning. In contrast continued CB during testing in patients with positive (paranoid) symptoms reflects an unusual persistence of automatic processing strategies.
Bender Müller Oades Sartory2002-07-31Z2011-03-11T08:54:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2357This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23572002-07-31ZConducting Web-Based Surveys Web-based surveying is becoming widely used in social science and educational research. The Web offers significant advantages over more traditional survey techniques however there are still serious methodological challenges with using this approach. Currently coverage bias or the fact significant numbers of people do not have access, or choose not to use the Internet is of most concern to researchers. Survey researchers also have much to learn concerning the most effective ways to conduct surveys over the Internet. While in its early stages, research on Internet-based survey methodology has identified a number of factors that influence data quality. Of note, several studies have found Internet surveys have significantly lower response rates than comparable mailed surveys. Several factors have been found to increase response rates including personalized email cover letters, follow-up reminders, pre-notification of the intent to survey and simpler formats. A variety of software tools are now available for conducting Internet surveys and they are becoming a increasing sophisticated and easy to use. While there is a need for caution, the use of Web-based surveying is clearly going to grow. David J Solomon2004-10-08Z2011-03-11T08:55:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3865This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/38652004-10-08ZConnecting adaptive behaviour and expectations in models of innovation: The Potential Role of Artificial Neural NetworksIn this methodological work I explore the possibility of explicitly modelling expectations conditioning the R&D decisions of firms. In order to isolate this problem from the controversies of cognitive science, I propose a black box strategy through the concept of “internal model”. The last part of the article uses artificial neural networks to model the expectations of firms in a model of industry dynamics based on Nelson & Winter (1982).Murat Yildizogluyildi2001-09-04Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1788This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17882001-09-04ZConnectionist Inference ModelsThe performance of symbolic inference tasks has long been a challenge to connectionists. In this paper, we present an extended survey of this area. Existing connectionist inference systems are reviewed, with particular reference to how they perform variable binding and rule-based reasoning, and whether they involve distributed or localist representations. The benefits and disadvantages of different representations and systems are outlined, and conclusions drawn regarding the capabilities of connectionist inference systems when compared with symbolic inference systems or when used for cognitive modeling.
Antony BrowneRon Sun2001-08-02Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1727This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17272001-08-02ZConsciousness: a Simpler Approach to the Mind-Brain ProblemNo explicit model of consciousness has ever been presented. This paper defines the beginnings of such a model based in mathematicians' "implicit definition" as compounded with virtual reality. Dennett's "color phi" argument suggests the necessary extension to fit real minds. I conclude that the mind is wholly intentional and virtual. Jerome Iglowitz2002-03-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2143This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21432002-03-22ZConstrained Emergence of Universals and Variation in Syllable SystemsA computational model of emergent syllable systems is developed based on a set of functional constraints on syllable systems and the assumption that language structure emerges through cumulative change over time. The constraints were derived from general communicative factors as well as from the phonetic principles of perceptual distinctiveness and articulatory ease. Through evolutionary optimization, the model generated mock vocabularies optimized for the given constraints. Several simulations were run to understand how these constraints might define the emergence of universals and variation in complex sound systems. The predictions were that (1) CV syllables would be highly frequent in all vocabularies evolved under the constraints; (2) syllables with consonant clusters, consonant codas and vowel onsets would occur much less frequently; (3) a relationship would exist between the number of syllable types in a vocabulary and the average word length in the vocabulary; (4) different syllable types would emerge according to, what we termed, an <EM iterative principle of syllable structure> and their frequency would be directly related to their complexity; and (5) categorical differences would emerge between vocabularies evolved under the same constraints. Simulation results confirmed these predictions and provided novel insights into why regularities and differences may occur across languages. Specifically, the model suggested that both language universals and variation are consistent with a set of functional constraints that are fixed relative to one another. Language universals reflect underlying constraints on the system and language variation represents the many different and equally-good solutions to the unique problem defined by these constraints. Melissa A. RedfordChun Chi ChenRisto Miikkulainen2010-07-29T01:47:26Z2011-03-11T08:57:38Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6890This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/68902010-07-29T01:47:26ZCRT screens may give rise to biased estimates of interhemispheric transmission time in the Poffenberger paradigm.It has been shown that computer video-display units do not emit luminance uniformly over the entire screen, but emit more light on the right hand side than on the left hand side. The present study investigates whether this luminance asymmetry has implications for the manual and vocal estimates of interhemispheric transmission time (IHTT) in the Poffenberger paradigm. In particular, it is shown that previous reports of right visual-field advantages for vocal responses are an artifact of the luminance asymmetry of computer screens and that this asymmetry also has implications for estimates of differences in transmission time from the right to the left hemisphere in manual responses. In addition, we examined the impact of stimulus intensity and dark adaptation to the IHTT estimates and found that neither had an effect. This is in line with previous evidence that interhemispheric transfer in the Poffenberger paradigm does not depend on the transfer of visual information.E. RatinckxM. Brysbaertmarc.brysbaert@ugent.beE. Vermeulen2001-11-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1851This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18512001-11-16ZDefinition of Intuitive Set TheoryThe two axioms which define intuitive set theory, Axiom of Combinatorial Sets and Axiom of Infinitesimals, are stated. Generalized Continuum Hypothesis is derived from the first axiom, and the infinitesimal is visualized using the latter.
Kannan Nambiar2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2018This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20182002-01-11ZDehydroepiandrosterone sulphate and corticotropin levels are high in young male patients with conduct disorder: comparisons with growth factors, thyroid and gonadal hormonesIntroduction: The biological concomitants of childhood conduct disorder (CD) have seldom been considered separate from those of hyperkinesis with which CD is often comorbid. CD predicts an increased likelihood of developing a personality disorder and is often associated with an antisocial outcome. Childhood CD may originate in a stressful upbringing in a dysfunctional family environment, and has been reported to be associated with unusual physical or sexual development and thyroid dysfunction.
Methods: We therefore explored circulating levels of hormones from adrenal, gonadal and growth-hormone axes associated with stress, aggression and development in 28 CD patients and 13 age-matched healthy children (10-18 years old).
Results:
1/ The CD group had higher levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEA-S) and corticotropin (ACTH) and for those under 14 years of age there was more free triiodothyronine (fT3) in the circulation.
2/ There were no differences for gonadal hormones, and neither the levels of steroid hormones nor the ratings of maturity (early/late) were associated with aggression, as has been reported elsewhere. 3/ Smaller physical measures in CD children correlated with DHEA-S and growth factors (e.g. IGF-I): 4/ increased ACTH and fT3 correlated with restless-impulsive ratings, and DHEA-S with 'disruptive behaviour'.
Conclusions: Imbalances in the adrenal and growth axes may indeed have neurotrophic repercussions in growth and development.
Dmitrieva Oades Hauffa Eggers2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2379This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23792002-08-08ZDendritic inhibition enhances neural coding properties.The presence of a large number of inhibitory contacts at the soma and axon
initial segment of cortical pyramidal cells has inspired a large and influential
class of neural network model which use post-integration lateral inhibition as a
mechanism for competition between nodes. However, inhibitory synapses also
target the dendrites of pyramidal cells. The role of this dendritic inhibition
in competition between neurons has not previously been addressed. We
demonstrate, using a simple computational model, that such pre-integration
lateral inhibition provides networks of neurons with useful representational and
computational properties which are not provided by post-integration
inhibition.
M. W SpratlingM. H. Johnson2004-08-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3739This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/37392004-08-06ZThe Design and Implementation of a Bayesian CAD Modeler for Robotic ApplicationsWe present a Bayesian CAD modeler for robotic applications. We address the problem of taking into account the propagation of geometric uncertainties when solving inverse geometric problems. The proposed method may be seen as a generalization of constraint-based approaches in which we explicitly model geometric uncertainties. Using our methodology, a geometric constraint is expressed as a probability distribution on the system parameters and the sensor measurements, instead of a simple equality or inequality. To solve geometric problems in this framework, we propose an original resolution method able to adapt to problem complexity.
Using two examples, we show how to apply our approach by providing simulation results using our modeler.Dr K MekhnachaDr E MazerDr P Bessiere2001-06-20Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1633This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16332001-06-20ZDirect Current Auditory Evoked Potentials During Wakefulness, Anesthesia, and Emergence from AnesthesiaDirect current auditory evoked potentials (DC-AEPs)
are a sensitive indicator of depth of anesthesia in ani-mals. However, they have never been investigated in
humans. To assess the potential usefulness of DC-AEPs
as an indicator of anesthesia in humans, we performed
an explorative study in which DC-AEPs were recorded
during propofol and methohexital anesthesia in hu-mans.
DC-AEPs were recorded via 22 scalp electrodes
in 19 volunteers randomly assigned to receive either
propofol or methohexital. DC-AEPs were evoked by
binaurally presented 2-s, 60-dB, 800-Hz tones; meas-urements
were taken during awake baseline, anesthesia,
and emergence. Statistical analysis included analy-sis
of variance and discriminant analysis of data
acquired during these three conditions. About 500 ms
after stimulus presentation, DC-AEPs could be ob-served.
These potentials were present only during base-line
and emergencenot during anesthesia. Statistically
significant differences were found between
baseline and anesthesia and between anesthesia and
emergence. In conclusion, similar effects, as reported in
animal studies of anesthetics on the DC-AEPs, could be
observed in anesthetized humans. These results dem-onstrate
that DC-AEPs are potentially useful in the assessment
of cortical function during anesthesia and
might qualify the method for monitoring anesthesia in
humans.Robert FitzgeraldClaus LammWolfgang OczenskiThomas StimpflWalter VycudilikHerbert Bauer2002-08-09Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2394This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23942002-08-09ZDoes Corticothalamic Feedback Control Cortical Velocity Tuning?The thalamus is the major gate to the cortex and its contribution to cortical receptive field properties is well established. Cortical feedback to the thalamus is, in turn, the anatomically dominant input to relay cells, yet its influence on thalamic processing has been difficult to interpret. For an understanding of complex sensory processing, detailed concepts of the corticothalamic interplay need yet to be established. To study corticogeniculate processing in a model, we draw on various physiological and anatomical data concerning the intrinsic dynamics of geniculate relay neurons, the cortical influence on relay modes, lagged and nonlagged neurons, and the structure of visual cortical receptive fields. In extensive computer simulations we elaborate the novel hypothesis that the visual cortex controls via feedback the temporal response properties of geniculate relay cells in a way that alters the tuning of cortical cells for speed.Dr. Ulrich HillenbrandProf. Dr. J. Leo van Hemmen2012-11-09T19:34:57Z2012-11-09T19:34:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8082This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/80822012-11-09T19:34:57ZDopaminergic Regulation of Neuronal Circuits in Prefrontal CortexNeuromodulators, like dopamine, have considerable influence on the
processing capabilities of neural networks.
This has for instance been shown in the working memory functions
of prefrontal cortex, which may be regulated by altering the
dopamine level. Experimental work provides evidence on the biochemical
and electrophysiological actions of dopamine receptors, but there are few
theories concerning their significance for computational properties
(ServanPrintzCohen90,Hasselmo94).
We point to experimental data on neuromodulatory regulation of
temporal properties of excitatory neurons and depolarization of inhibitory
neurons, and suggest computational models employing these effects.
Changes in membrane potential may be modelled by the firing threshold,
and temporal properties by a parameterization of neuronal responsiveness
according to the preceding spike interval.
We apply these concepts to two examples using spiking neural networks.
In the first case, there is a change in the input synchronization of
neuronal groups, which leads to
changes in the formation of synchronized neuronal ensembles.
In the second case, the threshold
of interneurons influences lateral inhibition, and the switch from a
winner-take-all network to a parallel feedforward mode of processing.
Both concepts are interesting for the modeling of cognitive functions and may
have explanatory power for behavioral changes associated with dopamine
regulation.Gabriele Schelergscheler@gmail.com2001-03-17Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1374This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13742001-03-17ZDynamic systems as tools for analysing human judgementWith the advent of computers in the experimental labs, dynamic systems have become a new tool for research on problem solving and decision making. A short review on this research is given and the main features of these systems (connectivity and dynamics) are illustrated. To allow systematic approaches to the influential variables in this area, two formal frameworks (linear structural equations and finite state automata) are presented. Besides the formal background, it is shown how the task demands of system identification and system control can be realized in these environments and how psychometrically acceptable dependent variables can be derived.Joachim Funke2001-08-24Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1764This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17642001-08-24ZDyslexia - Talk of two theoriesRegardless of how intelligent they are, people with developmental dyslexia have difficulties in learning to read, a characteristic first described over a century ago. Dyslexia is now known to be a hereditary neurological disorder that affects a huge number of people about 5% of the global population but its underlying basis is still hotly debated. At two recent meetings, however, the reasons for the disagreement became clearer.
Franck Ramus2002-08-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2400This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24002002-08-10ZAn Electronic Mail List for a Network of Family Practice Residency Programs: A Good Idea?The use of an electronic mailing list as a means of communication among faculty in a network of university-affiliated family practice residency programs was evaluated. Faculty were automatically subscribed to the list by the list owner. Messages were tracked for one year and a written evaluation survey was sent. Ninety two messages were sent, with 52% of the messages being posted information. While most (65%) survey respondents reported reading 61% or more of the messages, with only 33% ever actually posted at least one message to the list. Given that faculty were automatically subscribed and that there were only 84 total members, the list may have failed to reach a critical mass of active participants. It is concluded that an email list for network faculty did not function as an online discussion group, although it was extremely beneficial as a way of posting information to affiliated residency faculty.
Jodi Summers Holtrop PhD, CHES2002-01-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2043This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20432002-01-22ZEmbodiment is meaningless without adequate neural dynamicsTraditionally, cognition has been considered as a ``mental processes'' only domain. Recently, however, there is a growing conscensus that cognition should be ``embodied'', i.e. it emerges from physical interaction with the world through a body with given perceptual and motoric abilities. Terms like ``emergence'', ``enaction'', ``grounding'', and ``situatedness'' are often used, but little attention is being paid to actually understanding the neural dynamics correlates of an emergence of cognition. Nor is hardly being investigated how the structure of the body-environment coupling is perceived and manipulated by our brain. It is as if talking about neural dynamics would somehow throw us backwards to the old cognitivist approach. In this paper we present a balanced view, in which we try to keep things in their respective place.Luc BerthouzeAdriaan Tijsseling2001-11-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1791This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17912001-11-16ZThe Essence of Intuitive Set TheoryIntuitive Set Theory (IST) is defined as the theory we get, when we add Axiom of Monotonicity and Axiom of Fusion to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. In IST, Continuum Hypothesis is a theorem, Axiom of Choice is a theorem, Skolem paradox does not appear, nonLebesgue measurable sets are not possible, and the unit interval splits into a set of infinitesimals.
Kannan Nambiar2002-08-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2402This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24022002-08-12ZEvaluation of Teaching and Learning StrategiesWith the growing awareness of the importance of teaching and learning in universities and the need to move towards evidence-based teaching, it behooves the professions to re-examine their educational research methodology. While the what, how and why of student learning have become more explicit, the professions still struggle to find valid methods of evaluating the explosion of new innovation in teaching/learning strategies. This paper discusses the problems inherent in applying traditional experimental design techniques to advances in educational practiceSybille K Lechner BDS, MDS FRACDS, FPFA, FICD2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2016This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20162002-01-11ZEvolution of communication and language using signals, symbols and wordsThis paper describes different types of models for the evolution of communication and language. It uses the distinction between signals, symbols, and words for the analysis of evolutionary models of language. In particular, it show how evolutionary computation techniques, such as artificial life, can be used to study the emergence of syntax and symbols from simple communication signals. Initially, a computational model that evolves repertoires of isolated signals is presented. This study has simulated the emergence of signals for naming foods in a population of foragers. This type of model studies communication systems based on simple signal-object associations. Subsequently, models that study the emergence of grounded symbols are discussed in general, including a detailed description of a work on the evolution of simple syntactic rules. This model focuses on the emergence of symbol-symbol relationships in evolved languages. Finally, computational models of syntax acquisition and evolution are discussed. These different types of computational models provide an operational definition of the signal/symbol/word distinction. The simulation and analysis of these types of models will help to understand the role of symbols and symbol acquisition in the origin of language.Angelo Cangelosi2001-02-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:30Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1298This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12982001-02-10ZEvolving modular architectures for neural networksNeural networks that learn the What and Where task perform better if they possess a modular architecture for separately processing the identity and spatial location of objects. In previous simulations the modular architecture either was hardwired or it developed during an individual's life based on a preference for short connections given a set of hardwired unit locations. We present two sets of simulations in which the network architecture is genetically inherited and it evolves in a population of neural networks in two different conditions: (1) both the architecture and the connection weights evolve; (2) the network architecture is inherited and it evolves but the connection weights are learned during life. The best results are obtained in condition (2). Condition (1) gives unsatisfactory results because (a) adapted sets of weights can suddenly become maladaptive if the architecture changes, (b) evolution fails to properly assign computational resources (hidden units) to the two tasks, (c) genetic linkage between sets of weights for different modules can result in a favourable mutation in one set of weights being accompanied by an unfavourable mutation in another set of weights.
Andrea Di FerdinandoRaffaele CalabrettaDomenico Parisi2001-06-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1623This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16232001-06-19ZExplaining the Mind: Problems, ProblemsThe mind/body problem is the feeling/function problem: How and why do
feeling systems feel? The problem is not just "hard" but insoluble (unless one
is ready to resort to telekinetic dualism). Fortunately, the "easy" problems of
cognitive science (such as the how and why of categorization and language)
are not insoluble. Five books (by Damasio, Edelman/Tononi, McGinn,
Tomasello and Fodor) are reviewed in this context.Stevan Harnad2001-11-24Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1917This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19172001-11-24ZFemale remating in Drosophila ananassae: bidirectional selection for remating speed7. Artificial selection was carried out for fast and slow remating speed for 10 generations. Response to selection resulted in rapid divergence in remating time in each replicate of both fast and slow lines. There are significant differences in mean remating time in females among fast, slow and control lines. Regression coefficients for both fast and slow lines are significantly different from zero. The realized heritability over 10 generations of selection is from 0.26 to 0.33 for two replicates of fast line and from 0.23 to 0.27 for two replicates of slow line. These findings suggest that female remating time in D. ananassae is under polygenic control. Remating frequency of females shows a correlated response in both fast and slow lines. At generation 10 correlated response to selection was also investigated. Mating success of D. ananassae flies of fast and slow lines was observed in an Elens-Wattiaux mating chamber and results indicate that flies of fast lines are more successful in mating than those of slow and control lines. Productivity of once-mated females was measured in terms of number of progeny produced per female and it is evident from the results that females of fast lines are more productive as compared to those of slow and control lines.S R Singh2001-12-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1918This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19182001-12-01ZFemale remating in Drosophila ananassae: bidirectional selection for remating speedIn Drosophila ananassae, artificial selection was carried out for fast and slow remating speed
for 10 generations. Response to selection resulted in rapid divergence in remating time in each
of two replicates of both fast and slow lines. There were significant differences in mean remat-ing
time in females among fast, slow, and control lines. Regression coefficients for both fast
and slow lines are significantly different from zero. The realized heritability over 10 genera-tions
of selection is from 0.26 to 0.33 for two replicates of fast line and from 0.23 to 0.27 for
two replicates of slow line. These findings suggest that female remating time in D. ananassae
is under polygenic control. Remating frequency of females showed a correlated response in both
fast and slow lines. At generation 10, correlated response to selection was also investigated.
Mating propensity of D. ananassae of fast and slow lines was observed in an Elens-Wattiaux
mating chamber. Fifteen pairs per test showed that on the average, the fast lines (11.20, 11.60)
were more successful in mating than those of slow (6.40, 5.60) and control (8.00) lines. Pro-ductivity
of once-mated females was measured in terms of number of progeny produced per fe-male
and the results of productivity analysis indicate that females of fast lines (157.83, 130.83)
produced more progeny compared with slow (72.70, 85.83) and control (109.23) lines.Shree Ram Singh2001-12-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1947This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19472001-12-01ZFemale remating in Drosophila ananassae: bidirectional selection for remating speed7. Artificial selection was carried out for fast and slow remating speed for 10 generations. Response to selection resulted in rapid divergence in remating time in each replicate of both fast and slow lines. There are significant differences in mean remating time in females among fast, slow and control lines. Regression coefficients for both fast and slow lines are significantly different from zero. The realized heritability over 10 generations of selection is from 0.26 to 0.33 for two replicates of fast line and from 0.23 to 0.27 for two replicates of slow line. These findings suggest that female remating time in D. ananassae is under polygenic control. Remating frequency of females shows a correlated response in both fast and slow lines. At generation 10 correlated response to selection was also investigated. Mating success of D. ananassae flies of fast and slow lines was observed in an Elens-Wattiaux mating chamber and results indicate that flies of fast lines are more successful in mating than those of slow and control lines. Productivity of once-mated females was measured in terms of number of progeny produced per female and it is evident from the results that females of fast lines are more productive as compared to those of slow and control lines.S R Singh2001-12-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1945This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19452001-12-01ZFemale remating in Drosophila ananassae: effect of density on female remating frequencyDrosophila ananassae, a cosmopolitan and domestic species, is largely cir-cumtropicalin distribution and belongs to the ananassae species complex of the ananassae subgroup of the melanogaster species group. In the present study, experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of density on fe-male remating frequency by employing different wild-type and mutant strains of D. ananassae. Two experimental designs, i.e., 2-h daily observation and
continuous confinement, were used. The results show that there is significant dependence of remating frequency on density in all strains tested under both experimental designs except in a wild-type strain (Bhutan), which shows no dependence of remating frequency on density under 2-h daily observation de-sign. This finding provides evidence that density may increase the frequency of female remating in D. ananassae.Shree Ram Singh2001-12-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1948This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19482001-12-01ZFemale remating in Drosophila ananassae: evidence for sperm displacement and greater productivity after rematingABSTRACTIn Drosophila ananassae, female remating with respect to productivity and sperm displace-ment
was studied by employing different mutant strains and a wild type strain. In all the experiments, the
continuous confinement technique was used. The comparison of productivity between once-mated (control)
and remated females reveals that the productivity of remated females is significantly higher than that of
once-mated ones in all the crosses. The P2´ values (the proportion of second male progeny produced after
remating) were calculated to test sperm displacement in each cross of remated females. In all the crosses,
high P2´ values (0.910.94) were found which indicate sperm precedence of second male to mate suggest-ing
the existence of sperm displacement in D. ananassae. Furthermore, female productivity is increased
after remating in D. ananassae.Shree Ram Singh2004-01-03Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1639This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16392004-01-03ZFor Whom the Gate Tolls? How and Why to Free the Refereed Research Literature Online Through Author/Institution Self-Archiving, Now.ABSTRACT: All refereed journals will soon be available online; most of them already are. This means that
anyone will be able to access them from any networked desk-top. The literature will all be interconnected by
citation, author, and keyword/subject links, allowing for unheard-of power and ease of access and
navigability. Successive drafts of pre-refereeing preprints will be linked to the official refereed draft, as well
as to any subsequent corrections, revisions, updates, comments, responses, and underlying empirical
databases, all enhancing the self-correctiveness, interactivity and productivity of scholarly and scientific
research and communication in remarkable new ways. New scientometric indicators of digital impact are also
emerging <http://opcit.eprints.org> to chart the online course of knowledge. But there is still one last frontier
to cross before science reaches the optimal and the inevitable: Just as there is no longer any need for research
or researchers to be constrained by the access-blocking restrictions of paper distribution, there is no longer
any need to be constrained by the impact-blocking financial fire-walls of
Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View (S/L/P) tolls for this give-away literature. Its author/researchers
have always donated their research reports for free (and its referee/researchers have refereed for free), with
the sole goal of maximizing their impact on subsequent research (by accessing the eyes and minds of
fellow-researchers, present and future) and hence on society. Generic (OAi-compliant) software is now
available free so that institutions can immediately create Eprint Archives in which their authors can
self-archive all their refereed papers for free for all forever <http://www.eprints.org/>. These interoperable
Open Archives <http://www.openarchives.org> will then be harvested into global, jointly searchable "virtual
archives" (e.g., <http://arc.cs.odu.edu/>). "Scholarly Skywriting" in this PostGutenberg Galaxy will be
dramatically (and measurably) more interactive and productive, spawning its own new digital metrics of
productivity and impact, allowing for an online "embryology of knowledge."Stevan Harnad2001-11-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1893This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18932001-11-18ZFoundations of Computer ScienceA machine equivalent to Turing machine, that is more intuitive in its working is defined. Three derivation rules are added to Elementary Arithmetic of Godel and his incompleteness theorems are proved without using any metalanguage. Two axioms are added to Zermelo-Fraenkel theory to derive the Continuum Hypothesis and to split the unit interval into infinitesimals.
Kannan Nambiar2001-11-07Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1800This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18002001-11-07ZFrequency ratios of SOAEs match the inter-cell spacing of outer hair cells: support for a SAW model of the cochleaA new resonance theory of hearing models the cochlea as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator. This SAW model calls for outer hair cells (OHCs) to respond piezoelectrically to intracochlear fluid pressure, and, via associated electomotility, to generate slowly propagating surface tension waves (ripples) on the undersurface of the overlying tectorial membrane. Because OHCs are combined sensors and effectors, the ripples continue to reverberate between the precisely aligned rows of OHCs in the same way as electromechanical ripples do between the interdigital electrodes of a SAW resonator. The distance OHC1OHC3 is 1 wavelength (360 degrees phase delay). This mechanism is conjectured as providing the positive feedback and gain underlying the cochlear amplifier. Andrew Bell2004-01-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1715This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17152004-01-10ZFunctional asymmetry in the human face: Perception of health in the left and right sides of the faceThe expression of health on the human face, like beauty or emotions, is an important biological display. Previous findings of left-right functional asymmetry in facial attractiveness and the linkage of attractiveness and health in evolutionary biology notions have prompted the present study. A total of 38 pairs of left-left and right-right facial composites were viewed by 24 subjects on a computer screen, and the task was to decide which member of the pair looked healthier or there was no difference. The results revealed a significant interactions between face side and sex of face. Right-right composites of women's faces were judged significantly healthier than left-left, whereas in men's faces, no significant left-right difference emerged. As these results parallel previous findings of attractiveness in the identical set of faces, we propose that evolutionary biology notions linking the appearance of health and of attractiveness apply to the human face as well.Veronica A. ReisDahlia W. Zaidel2001-06-20Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1634This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16342001-06-20ZFunctional Neuroanatomy of Dynamic Visuo-Spatial ImageryThe aim of this thesis was the examination of the neural bases of dynamic visuo-spatial imagery. In addition to the assessment of brain activity during dy-namic visuo-spatial imagery using single-trial functional magnetic resonance im-aging (fMRI) and slow cortical potentials (SCPs), several methodological issues have been investigated.
The theoretical part of this thesis consists of a selective overview of fMRI and SCPs, and of the advantages of their combination for functional neuroimaging (chapter 2). The methodological and empirical chapters include:
Ø the presentation of a new, highly accurate and practicable method for the co-registration of MRI- and EEG-data (chapter 3),
Ø the description of the increase in the accuracy of SCP mapping resulting from the use of individual electrode coordinates and realistic head models (chapter 4),
Ø the description of regional differences in the consistency of brain activity across several executions of the same task type, as assessed by a new analysis con-cept based on single-trial fMRI data (chapter 5),
Ø the demonstration of the involvement of premotor regions in dynamic visuo-spatial imagery, as assessed via a combination of single-trial fMRI and SCPs (chapter 6),
Ø the description of a combined fMRI-SCP investigation in which earlier findings concerning individual differences in neural efficiency during dynamic imagery could not be replicated (chapter 7).Claus Lamm2001-12-31Z2011-03-11T08:54:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1995This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19952001-12-31ZFuture Psychological EvolutionHumans are able to construct mental representations and models of possible interactions with their environment. They can use these mental models to identify actions that will enable them to achieve their adaptive goals. But humans do not use this capacity to identify and implement the actions that would contribute most to the evolutionary success of humanity. In general, humans do not find motivation or satisfaction in doing so, no matter how effective such actions might be in evolutionary terms. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a significant limitation in the psychological adaptability of humans. This paper sets out to identify the new psychological capacity that would be needed to overcome this limitation and how the new capacity might be acquired. Humans that develop this capacity will become self-evolving organisms - organisms that are able to adapt in whatever ways are necessary for future evolutionary success, largely unfettered by their biological and social past.John Stewart2001-01-02Z2011-03-11T08:54:28Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1173This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/11732001-01-02ZGeneration of Conceptual Gists of Abstract PatternsA short study was made on the generation of conceptual gists of two abstract stimuli containing either 66 or 200 circles in a range of sizes arranged in symmetric patterns. Distributions of estimates the numerousness of the circles, made by groups of subjects following either 95 ms or 2 s exposures had realistic average values, and were comparable between groups, indicating that gists of the principal geometrical features of the stimuli were captured and consolidated into long-term memory on the basis of a single fixation. Implications of this finding for the controversy on the nature of the coding of images and for the minimalist vision hypothesis are discussed.John Beeckmans2001-08-06Z2011-03-11T08:54:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1671This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16712001-08-06ZGenetic dissection of mouse exploratory behaviourA large variety of apparatus and procedures are being employed to measure mouse exploratory behaviour. Definitions of what constitutes exploration also vary widely. The present article reviews two studies, whose results permet a genetic dissection of behaviour displayed in an open-field situation. The results agree that factors representing exploration and stress/fear underly this type of behaviour. Both factors appear to be linked to neuroanatomical variation in the sizes of the hippocampal intra- and infrapyramidal mossy fiber terminal fields. Multivariate analysis of genetic correlations may render inmportant insights into the structure of behaviour and its relations with neuroanatomical and neurophysiological systems.Wim E. Crusio2004-07-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:30Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3538This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35382004-07-30ZGetting to the Source of Ethical IssuesNorman G VinsonJanice Singer2001-08-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1735This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17352001-08-16ZHelmholtz's Piano Strings: Reverberation of Ripples on the Tectorial MembraneIn 1857 Helmholtz proposed that the ear contained an array of sympathetic resonators, like piano strings, which served to give the ear its fine frequency discrimination. Since the discovery that most healthy human ears emit faint, pure tones (spontaneous otoacoustic emissions), it has been possible to view these narrowband signals as the continuous ringing of the resonant elements. But what are the elements? It is noteworhty that motile outer hair cells lie in a precise crystal-like array with their sensitive stereocilia in contact with the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure with an observed surface tension. This paper therefore speculates that ripples (surface tension waves) on the lower surface of the tectorial membrane propagate to and fro between neighbouring cells. This mechanism defines a surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator, and relies on the outer hair cells directly sensing intracochlear fluid pressure through their cell bodies; in this way the proposal revisits the resonance theory of hearing. The SAW resonator acts as a regenerative receiver of acoustic energy, a topology which was invoked in 1948 by Gold, who later drew the analogy to an 'underwater piano' to describe the cochlea's problem of how it could vibrate with high Q while immersed in fluid. The proposal also gives a physical description of the cochlear amplifier postulated by Davis in 1983. An active array of resonating cavities driven by outer hair cells can explain spontaneous emissions, the shape of the basilar membrane tuning curve, and evoked emissions, among others, and could relate strongly to music.
At levels above which the cochlear amplifier saturates, ripples on the tectorial membrane can still be identified, this time due to vibration of the tectorial membrane against the sharp vestibular lip. This second putative mechanism provides time delays between initiation of the ripple by acoustic pressure variations and its detection by the inner hair cells, and so represents an alternative way of interpreting the traveling wave.
Thus, by invoking two ways of generating ripples on the tectorial membrane, a comprehensive account of cochlear mechanics can be constructed, unifying a resonance theory (at low levels) with a traveling wave picture (at high levels).
Andrew Bell2001-07-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1718This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17182001-07-29ZHemispheric effects of canonical views of category members with known typicality levelsIs there a preferred hemispheric canonical view of a visual concept? We investigated this question in a natural superordinate category membership decision task using a hemi-field paradigm. Participants had to decide whether or not an image of an object lateralized in the left (LVF) or right (RVF) visual half field is a member of a predesignated superordinate category. The objects represented high, medium, or low typicality levels, and each object had 6 different perspective views (front, front-right, front-left, side, back-left, and back-right). The latency responses revealed a significant interaction of Hemi Field X View X Typicality (there was no hemi-field difference in accuracy). The findings confirm the presence of asymmetry in stored concepts in long-term memory and suggest, in addition, a hemispheric canonical view of these concepts, a view strongly related to typicality level.D. W. ZaidelA. Kosta2001-09-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1795This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17952001-09-11ZHETEROPHENOMENOGY VERSUS CRITICAL PHENOMENOLOGY: A DIALOGUE WITH DAN DENNETTABSTRACT. The following is an email interchange that took place between Dan Dennett and myself in the period 14th to 28th June, 2001. The discussion tries to clarify some essential features of the "heterophenomenology" developed in his book Consciousness Explained (1996), and how this differs from a form of "critical phenomenology" implicit in my own book Understanding Consciousness (2000), and developed in my edited Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: new methodologies and maps (2000). The departure point for the discussion is a paper posted on Dan's website that summarises a related debate between Dan, David Chalmers and Alvin Goldman (Dennett, 2001). To make the discussion easier to follow, the multiple embeddings have been removed (restoring the sequence in which the comments were written). I have also corrected a few typos and grammatical errors. However, the text of the emails remains exactly the same.
In Round 1, I suggest that scientific investigations of consciousness are better described as a form of "critical phenomenology" that accepts conscious experiences to be real rather than as a "heterophenomenology" which remains neutral about or denies their existence. Dan replies that I have misunderstood his position - he doesn't deny that conscious experiences exist. Conscious experiences just don't have the first-person phenomenal properties that they are commonly thought to have and, in his view, science remains neutral about the nature of such properties.
In Round 2, I agree with Dan that science initially remains neutral about how to understand the nature of conscious experiences. Nevertheless, the phenomenology of consciousness provides the data that scientists are trying to understand. A better understanding of data does not, in general, make the data disappear. I also ask, "if you remove the phenomena from phenomenal consciousness, in what sense is whatever remains "consciousness"? And, if one removes all the phenomenal content from what one takes consciousness to be, doesn't this amount to a denial of the existence of "consciousness" in any ordinary sense of this term? Dan's reply likens beliefs in phenomenal properties to the belief in evil spirits causing disease. He has no doubts that diseases such as whooping cough and tuberculosis are real, but this doesn't require him to believe in evil spirits. And, what's left, once one removes phenomenal properties, is what a zombie and a so-called conscious person have in common: a given set of functional properties that enable them to carry out the tasks we normally think of as conscious.
In Round 3, I summarise our similarities and differences. We agree that first-person reports are not incorrigible and that third-person information may throw light on how to interpret them. We also agree that first-person reports are reports of "something", although we disagree about the nature of that something. I suggest that Dan is sceptical about first-person reports rather than heterophenomenologically "neutral" (e.g. when he likens belief in phenomenal properties to belief in evil spirits). While we agree that science is likely to deepen our understanding of consciousness, I repeat that, unlike the replacement of old theories by better theories, a deeper understanding of phenomena does not in general replace the phenomena themselves. Rather than third-person data replacing first-person reports, the former are required to make sense of the latter, making their relationship complementary and mutually irreducible. In fact, there are many cases where science takes the reality of first-person phenomenology seriously, for example in the extensive literature on pain and its alleviation. If this can't be squeezed into an exclusively third-person view of science, then we will just have to adjust our view of science - something that a "critical phenomenology" achieves at little cost. At the time of this editing, Dan has not replied.
.
Reference. Dennett, D. (2001) The fantasy of first-person science.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/pubpage.htm
Max Velmans2002-04-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2163This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21632002-04-05ZHomosexual Orientation in Males: Evolutionary and Ethological AspectsEvolutionary theory proposes that adaptive traits are reproduced more successfully than maladaptive traits. Accordingly, natural selection should favour heterosexuality as it facilitates reproduction and the propagation of genes. However, the question becomes, what has maintained homosexuality in a small but consistent percentage of the human population? Research into the evolutionary and hormonal factors associated with a homosexual orientation have yielded provocative but inconsistent results. It also suggests that human sexual orientation, and in particular homosexual orientation, is too complex to be described by one simple model or a single research discipline. The current paper treads a new path and emphasises an integrative approach for the understanding of homosexuality. The authors examine the combined effects of evolutionary factors and neurohormonal processes on the development of a homosexual orientation. It is suggested that research into the topic could benefit from an examination of and change in some of the assumptions upon which much past research has been based.Frank MuscarellaBernhard FinkKarl GrammerMichael Kirk-Smith2002-05-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2228This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22282002-05-29ZHomosexual Orientation in Males: Evolutionary and Ethological AspectsEvolutionary theory proposes that adaptive traits are reproduced more successfully than maladaptive traits. Accordingly, natural selection should favour heterosexuality as it facilitates reproduction and the propagation of genes. However, the question becomes, what has maintained homosexuality in a small but consistent percentage of the human population? Research into the evolutionary and hormonal factors associated with a homosexual orientation have yielded provocative but inconsistent results. It also suggests that human sexual orientation, and in particular homosexual orientation, is too complex to be described by one simple model or a single research discipline. The current paper treads a new path and emphasises an integrative approach for the understanding of homosexuality. The authors examine the combined effects of evolutionary factors and neurohormonal processes on the development of a homosexual orientation. It is suggested that research into the topic could benefit from an examination of and change in some of the assumptions upon which much past research has been based.Frank MuscarellaBernhard FinkKarl GrammerMichael Kirk-Smith2001-06-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1640This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16402001-06-26ZHow and Why To Free All Refereed Research From Access- and Impact-Barriers Online, NowResearchers publish their findings in order to make an impact on research, not in order to sell their words. Access-tolls are barriers to
research impact. Authors can now free their refereed research papers from all access tolls immediately by self-archiving them on-line in their own
institution's Eprint Archives. Free eprints.org software creates Archives compliant with the Open Archives Initiative metadata-tagging Protocol OAI 1.0.
These distributed institutional Archives are interoperable and can hence be harvested into global "virtual" archives, citation-linked and freely navigable by
all. Self-archiving should enhance research productivity and impact as well as providing powerful new ways of monitoring and measuring it.Stevan Harnad2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2020This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20202002-01-11ZHow nouns and verbs differentially affect the behavior of artificial organismsThis paper presents an Artificial Life and Neural Network (ALNN) model for the evolution of syntax. The simulation methodology provides a unifying approach for the study of the evolution of language and its interaction with other behavioral and neural factors. The model uses an object manipulation task to simulate the evolution of language based on a simple verb-noun rule. The analyses of results focus on the interaction between language and other non-linguistic abilities, and on the neural control of linguistic abilities. The model shows that the beneficial effects of language on non-linguistic behavior are explained by the emergence of distinct internal representation patterns for the processing of verbs and nouns.Angelo CangelosiDomenico Parisi2002-04-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2164This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21642002-04-05ZHuman Pheromones: Integrating Neuroendocrinology and EthologyThe effect of sensory input on hormones is essential to any explanation of mammalian behavior, including aspects of physical attraction. The chemical signals we send have direct and developmental effects on hormone levels in other people. Since we don't know either if, or how, visual cues might have direct and developmental effects on hormone levels in other people, the biological basis for the development of visually perceived human physical attraction is currently somewhat questionable. In contrast, the biological basis for the development of physical attraction based on chemical signals is well detailed.James V. KohlMichaela AtzmuellerBernhard FinkKarl Grammer2001-11-27Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1926This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19262001-11-27ZHumanoid Theory GroundingIn this paper we consider the importance of using a humanoid physical form for a certain proposed kind of robotics, that of theory grounding. Theory grounding involves grounding the theory skills and knowledge of an embodied artificially intelligent (AI) system by developing theory skills and knowledge from the bottom up. Theory grounding can potentially occur in a variety of domains, and the particular domain considered here is that of language. Language is taken to be another problem space in which a system can explore and discover solutions. We argue that because theory grounding necessitates robots experiencing domain information, certain behavioral-form aspects, such as abilities to socially smile, point, follow gaze, and generate manual gestures, are necessary for robots grounding a humanoid theory of language.Christopher G. PrinceEric J. Mislivec2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2019This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20192002-01-11ZA Hybrid Neural Network and Virtual Reality System for Spatial Language ProcessingThis paper describes a neural network model for the study of spatial language. It deals with both geometric and functional variables, which have been shown to play an important role in the comprehension of spatial prepositions. The network is integrated with a virtual reality interface for the direct manipulation of geometric and functional factors. The training uses experimental stimuli and data. Results show that the networks reach low training and generalization errors. Cluster analyses of hidden activation show that stimuli primarily group according to extra-geometrical variables.Guillermina MartinezAngelo CangelosiKenny Coventry2006-09-25Z2011-03-11T08:56:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5186This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/51862006-09-25ZHypotheses in Marketing Science: Literature Review and Publication AuditWe examined three approaches to research in marketing: exploratory hypotheses, dominant hypothesis, and competing hypotheses. Our review of empirical studies on scientific methodology suggests that the use of a single dominant hypothesis lacks objectivity relative to the use of exploratory and competing hypotheses approaches. We then conducted a publication audit of over 1,700 empirical papers in six leading marketing journals during 1984-1999. Of these, 74% used the dominant hypothesis approach, while 13 % used multiple competing hypotheses, and 13% were exploratory. Competing hypotheses were more commonly used for studying methods (25%) than models (17%) and phenomena (7%). Changes in the approach to hypotheses since 1984 have been modest; there was a slight decrease in the percentage of competing hypotheses to 11%, which is plained primarily by an increasing proportion of papers on phenomena. Of the studies based on hypothesis testing, only 11 % described the conditions under which the hypotheses would apply, and dominant hypotheses were below competing hypotheses in this regard. Marketing scientists differed substantially in their opinions about what types of studies should be published and what was published. On average, they did not think dominant hypotheses should be used as often as they were, and they underestimated their use.J. Scott ArmstrongRoderick J. BrodieAndrew G. Parsons2003-10-29Z2011-03-11T08:55:23Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3258This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32582003-10-29Z“If Josef kills Leon, is Leon dead?”Fodor (1975) proposed that word meanings were atomic, and that meaning relations between words could be captured by inference rules, or 'meaning postulates', linking atomic concepts. In his recent work, however, Fodor has rejected meaning postulates as a way of capturing meaning relations, because he sees no principled way of distinguishing meaning postulates from empirical knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Fodor is wrong to reject meaning postulates.Richard Horsey2001-11-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1850This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18502001-11-05ZIl cervello e le sue funzioniIn questo saggio viene proposta una nuova teoria sul funzionamento del cervello. Partendo dalla visione e facendo riferimento a semplici principi di carattere generale si cerca di chiarire la percezione e le patologie ad essa connesse.Salvatore Leonardi2002-05-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2225This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22252002-05-26ZThe Image of the Mother's Eye: a Possible Link between Early Narcissistic Injury and AutismAt six weeks an infant makes eye-contact with the mother thereby stimulating her containing behavior (she meets and regulates her infants needs). Eye-contact enables the subsequent development of intersubjectivity. To accomplish reliable eye-contact, the infant must acquire an image of the mothers eyes. Once acquired, this image becomes associated with containment. The acquisition of this image is therefore a crucial very-early step in psychological development. Evidence for these assertions comes from (1) analyses of patients with early narcissistic injuries, (2) the evolutionary development of the appearance of the primate eye and of its signaling function, (3) experiments on infant visual preferences, and (4) observation of nursing mothers. Existing developmental models have not addressed the acquisition of the image of the eye.
A variety of biological predispositions or injuries, together with congenital blindness and severe infant deprivation, all increase the risk of failure to acquire this image. The likely result is a pervasive cascade of developmental failure. Failure to acquire this image might, therefore, represent the primary deficit in autism. Like narcissism and neurosis, the primary deficit in autism may be psychological. This model suggests that autism may be investigated via the analyses of high-functioning patients with mild autistic symptoms. Maxson McDowell2002-11-19Z2011-03-11T08:55:06Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2613This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/26132002-11-19ZImitation, mirror neurons and autismVarious deficits in the cognitive functioning of people with autism have been documented in recent years but these provide only partial explanations for the condition. We focus instead on an imitative disturbance involving difficulties both in copying actions and in inhibiting more stereotyped mimicking, such as echolalia. A candidate for the neural basis of this disturbance may be found in a recently discovered class of neurons in frontal cortex, 'mirror neurons' (MNs). These neurons show activity in relation both to specific actions performed by self and matching actions performed by others, providing a potential bridge between minds. MN systems exist in primates without imitative and ‘theory of mind’ abilities and we suggest that in order for them to have become utilized to perform social cognitive functions, sophisticated cortical neuronal systems have evolved in which MNs function as key elements. Early developmental failures of MN systems are likely to result in a consequent cascade of developmental impairments characterised by the clinical syndrome of autism.Justin H.G. WilliamsAndrew WhitenThomas SuddendorfDavid I. Perrett2001-06-06Z2011-03-11T08:54:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1543This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15432001-06-06ZImmune cognition and culture: implications for the AIDS vaccineWe examine the implications of IR Cohen's 'cognitive
principle' address of the immune system [1-3] for the HIV
vaccine program. This approach takes on a special
importance in the context of recent work by Nisbett et al.
[4] showing clearly that central nervous system (CNS)
cognition is fundamentally different for populations having
different cultural systems, and in the context of a growing
body of evolutionary anthropology which suggests that such
effects are inevitable, since culture is as much a part of
human biology 'as the enamel on our teeth'.Rodrick Wallace2001-08-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1731This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17312001-08-13ZImmune cognition, social justice and asthma: structured stress and the developing immune systemWe explore the implications of IR Cohen's work on immune
cognition for understanding rising rates of asthma morbidity
and mortality in the US. Immune cognition is conjoined with
central nervous system cognition, and with the cognitive
function of the embedding sociocultural networks by which
individuals are acculturated and through which they work with others to meet challenges of threat and opportunity.
Using a mathematical model, we find that externally-
imposed patterns of 'structured stress' can, through their
effect on a child's socioculture, become synergistic with
the development of immune cognition, triggering the persistence of an atopic Th2 phenotype, a necessary precursor to asthma and other immune disease. Reversal of the rising tide of asthma and related chronic diseases in the US thus seems unlikely without a 21st Century version of the earlier Great Urban Reforms which ended the scourge of infectious diseases.Rodrick WallaceMindy FulliloveDeborah Wallace2002-06-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2276This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22762002-06-16ZThe immune system and other cognitive systemsIn the following pages we propose a theory on cognitive systems and the common strategies of perception, which are at the basis of their function. We demonstrate that these strategies are easily seen to be in place in known cognitive systems such as vision and language. Furthermore we show that taking these strategies into consideration implies a new outlook on immune function calling for a new appraisal of the immune system as a cognitive system.Uri HershbergSol Efroni2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2385This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23852002-08-08ZImpact of Generalist Physician Initiatives on Residency Selection
Objective:To compare the residency selection choices of students who experienced courses resulting from generalist physician initiatives to choices made by students prior to the implementation of those courses and to describe the characteristics of students selecting primary care residencies.
Background:In the fall of 1994 a first year Community Continuity
Experience course was initiated and in the summer of 1995 a third year Multidisciplinary Ambulatory Clerkship was begun at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. These courses were inserted into the curriculum to enhance and promote primary care education.
Design/Methods:We examined the residency selections of cohorts of graduating medical students before (1992-1996) and after (1997-1999) the implementation of the primary care courses. Survey information on career preferences at matriculation and in the fourth year of medical school were available for students graduating after the programs began. We compared the career preferences and characteristics of those students who selected a primary care residency to those who did not.
Results:Prior to the implementation of the programs, 45%(425/950) of students graduating selected primary care residencies compared to 45% (210/465) of students participating in the programs (p=0.88). At matriculation, 45% of students had listed a primary care discipline as their first career choice. Among the students who had indicated this degree of primary care interest 61% ended up matching in a primary care discipline. At year 4, 31% of students indicated a primary care discipline as their first career choice and 92% of these students matched to a primary care residency. By univariate analysis, minority students (53%) were more likely to select a primary care residency than non-minority students (40%); students in the two lowest grade point average quartiles (55% and 50%) selected primary care residencies compared to 37% and 38% of students in the top 2 quartiles; and students who stated that income potential had little or no impact on their choice were more likely to select a primary care residency (48%) than those who said income potential was important (37%).
Conclusions:We observed no significant trend towards higher proportions of graduating students selecting primary care discipline residencies as a result of implementing courses that emphasized primary care. Those students expressing an interest in a primary care discipline at their entrance into medical school were more likely to select a primary care residency. A more significant impact on graduating students interested in primary care may be made through the medical student selection process than by altering the curriculum.
Michael H. Malloy MDChristine A. Stroup-Benham PhD2002-08-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2399This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23992002-08-10ZThe Importance of Physicians' Nutrition Literacy in the Management of Diabetes Mellitus
Despite pharmacological advances in diabetes treatment, medical nutrition therapy (MNT) continues to be an essential component of diabetes management. Nonetheless, physicians have missed opportunities to provide nutrition counseling to their patients. This presents a problem because Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic with severe consequences that result from non-adherence to nutrition protocols. The goals of this article are: 1) to explore reasons for the continued paucity of nutrition education in medical training programs, 2) to describe how a power educative approach can be used to improve patient outcomes, and 3) to identify considerations for improving nutrition literacy among physicians. These analyses lead to several recommendations for improving nutrition education for physicians.
Jessica A. SchulmanBarbara A. Rienzo2002-08-04Z2011-03-11T08:54:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2359This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23592002-08-04ZINFORMATION, ENERGY, AND EVOLUTIONWithin the current theory of evolution, the development in the direction of higher complexity is taken to be a necessary condition. This gives birth to a problem why this direction is prevalent for evolution. Philosophers and scientists tried to substantiate this condition and to explain it, yet the question still remains open. Our aim is to find specific regularities in nature that make complexity the chosen direction. Three main causes for this direction are deduced from initial principles, assuming that information and energy are the vital nutrients for evolution. Consequently, we base our explication and explanation of causes on the principles of information theory, Ashby’s principle of requisite variety/complexity, as well as we suggest and ground some additional principles of the system development. This makes possible to separate three principal stages for evolution of living organisms: biological, neurological, and epistemological.Dr. Mark BurginIrving Simon2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2382This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23822002-08-08ZAn Integrated Approach for Evaluating Students' Achievement of Clinical Objectives
During the clinical phase of undergraduate medical education (UME) students are often geographically dispersed and assigned to preceptors throughout the community. Monitoring, documenting, and evaluating their clinical experiences and achievement of clinical objectives in this venue becomes a challenge, especially for large UME programs. The purpose of this manuscript is to discuss a method for developing and implementing a school-wide evaluation system for the clinical phase of UME. This type of evaluation system links students' clinical experiential data with the objectives of a clerkship, using technological advances, such as the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Internet, and intranet. Clerkship directors are provided real-time reports on student's progress toward achieving clerkship objectives and are able to monitor the clinical activities of the clerkship. Students on the other hand, will be empowered to take more control of their educational experiences by monitoring their own progress.
Patrick D. Bridge PhDKenneth A. Ginsburg MD2003-09-19Z2011-03-11T08:55:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3151This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/31512003-09-19ZIntelligent systems in the context of surrounding environmentWe investigate the behavioral patterns of a population of agents, each controlled by a simple biologically motivated neural network model, when they are set in competition against each other in the Minority Model of Challet and Zhang. We explore the effects of changing agent characteristics, demonstrating that crowding behavior takes place among agents of similar memory, and show how this allows unique `rogue' agents with higher memory values to take advantage of a majority population. We also show that agents' analytic capability is largely determined by the size of the intermediary layer of neurons.
In the context of these results, we discuss the general nature of natural and artificial intelligence systems, and suggest intelligence only exists in the context of the surrounding environment (embodiment).
Source code for the programs used can be found at http://neuro.webdrake.net/.Joseph WakelingJWakelingPer Bak2005-02-01Z2011-03-11T08:55:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4043This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/40432005-02-01ZIntelligent systems in the context of surrounding environmentWe investigate the behavioral patterns of a population of agents, each controlled by a simple biologically motivated neural network model, when they are set in competition against each other in the Minority Model of Challet and Zhang. We explore the effects of changing agent characteristics, demonstrating that crowding behavior takes place among agents of similar memory, and show how this allows unique `rogue' agents with higher memory values to take advantage of a majority population. We also show that agents' analytic capability is largely determined by the size of the intermediary layer of neurons.
In the context of these results, we discuss the general nature of natural and artificial intelligence systems, and suggest intelligence only exists in the context of the surrounding environment (embodiment).
Source code for the programs used can be found at http://neuro.webdrake.net/.Joseph WakelingJWakelingPer Bak2008-11-23T09:12:25Z2011-03-11T08:57:16Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6279This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/62792008-11-23T09:12:25ZIntroduction to a systemic theory of meaningInformation and meanings are present everywhere around us and within ourselves.
Specific studies have been implemented in order to link information and meaning:
- Semiotics/Biosemiotics
- Phenomenology
- Analytic Philosophy, linguistics
- Psychology
No general coverage is available for the notion of meaning.
We propose to complement this lack by a systemic approach to meaning generationMr Christophe Menantchristophe.menant@hotmail.fr2001-01-23Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1252This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12522001-01-23ZIntrospective physicalism as an approach to the science of consciousnessMost theories of consciousness are based on vague speculations about the properties of conscious experience. We aim to provide a more solid basis for a science of consciousness. We argue that a theory of consciousness should provide an account of the very processes that allow us to acquire and use information about our own mental states the processes underlying introspection. This can be achieved through the construction of information processing models that can account for Type-C processes. Type-C processes can be specified experimentally by identifying paradigms in which awareness of the stimulus is necessary for an intentional action. The Shallice (1988b) framework is put forward as providing an initial account of Type-C processes, which can relate perceptual consciousness to consciously performed actions. Further, we suggest that this framework may be refined through the investigation of the functions of prefrontal cortex. The formulation of our approach requires us to consider fundamental conceptual and methodological issues associated with consciousness. The most significant of these issues concerns the scientific use of introspective evidence. We outline and justify a conservative methodological approach to the use of introspective evidence, with attention to the difficulties historically associated with its use in psychology.Anthony Ian JackTim Shallice2001-11-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1933This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19332001-11-30ZInversion of initial dominance relationships following the interchange of roles of resident and intruder within pairs of male swordtail fish (Xiphophorus helleri)This experiment consisted of 75 different pairs composed of two male adults Xiphophorus helleri meeting each other twice. On the first occasion, one of the fish was familiarized with the meeting place for 3h (resident) while its opponent was familiarized with another aquarium (intruder). Upon dominance of one individual over the other, the pair members were separated and returned to their respective home groups for 168 hours (7 days). After this period of separation, the same pair members were reunited and met while roles had been reversed: the initial resident became the intruder, and the initial intruder was given prior-residency. Individuals in the initial resident role defeated the initial intruder in a significant majority of cases (76%). On their second meeting, the newly established dominance relationship was noted in favour of the new resident in a significant majority of cases (82%), and in a reversed direction as compared to the initially established dominance order. This shows that prior-residence is a powerful determinant of dyadic dominance outcome in Xiphophorus males when fish show minimal size differences. Claude GouletJacques Beaugrand2003-06-03Z2011-03-11T08:54:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1988This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19882003-06-03ZIs Abstraction a Kind of Idea or How Conceptualization Works?In this commentary, I review papers by Ohlsson & Regan (O&R), van Oers, and Dreyfus, Hershkowitz, & Schwarz (DH&S). The papers are nominally about abstraction and learning, but emphasize different kinds of problems and levels of analysis. O&R focus on mathematical, domain independent characteristics of abstract thinking, claiming that experience in a domain is not the main determinant of scientific discovery. van Oers focuses on the development of abstraction within activities, especially as a sequence of nested domains of concern. DH&S emphasize how nested conceptualizations co-define and provide meaning for each other (a dialectic relation).William Clancey2004-05-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3589This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35892004-05-06ZJudgement of conceptual identity in monkeysBaboons (Papio anubis) were tested on categorization tasks at two different conceptual levels. The monkeys showed their ability (1) to judge as identical or different the objects belonging to two categories, on a perceptual basis, and (2) to perform a judgment of conceptual identity—that is, to use the same/different relation between two previously learned categories. This latter experiment represents the first demonstration of judgment of conceptual identity in a monkey speciesPr D BovetPr J Vauclair2002-01-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2031This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20312002-01-13ZKinship and evolved psychological dispositions: The Mother's Brother controversy reconsidered (To appear in Current Anthropology)The article revisits the old controversy concerning the relation of the mother's brother and sister's son in patrilineal societies in the light both of anthropological criticisms of the very notion of kinship and of evolutionary and epidemiological approaches to culture. It argues that the ritualized patterns of behavior that had been discussed by Radcliffe-Brown, Goody and others are to be explained in terms of the interaction of a variety of factors, some local and historical, others pertaining to general human dispositions. In particular, an evolved disposition to favor relatives can contribute to the development and stabilization of these behaviors, not by directly generating them, but by making them particularly "catchy" and resilient. In this way, it is possible to recognize both that cultural representations and practices are specific to a community at a time in its history (rather than mere tokens of a general type), and that they are, in essential respects, grounded in the common evolved psychology of human beings.Maurice BlochDan Sperber2001-11-14Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1885This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18852001-11-14ZKinship and evolved psychological dispositions: The Mother's Brother controversy reconsidered.The article revisits the old controversy concerning the relation of the mother's brother and sister's son in patrilineal societies in the light both of anthropological criticisms of the very notion of kinship and of evolutionary and epidemiological approaches to culture. It argues that the ritualized patterns of behavior that had been discussed by Radcliffe-Brown, Goody and others are to be explained in terms of the interaction of a variety of factors, some local and historical, others pertaining to general human dispositions. In particular, an evolved disposition to favor relatives can contribute to the development and stabilization of these behaviors, not by directly generating them, but by making them particularly "catchy" and resilient. In this way, it is possible to recognize both that cultural representations and practices are specific to a community at a time in its history (rather than mere tokens of a general type), and that they are, in essential respects, grounded in the common evolved psychology of human beings.Maurice BlochDan Sperber2002-10-18Z2011-03-11T08:55:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2543This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/25432002-10-18ZLa ciélolexie et ciélographie scientifique: Une anomalie post-gutenbergienne et comment la résoudreUne ligne de partage, profonde et essentielle, va se creuser dans la galaxie post-gutenbergienne entre les oeuvres en accès payant (livres, magazines, logiciels, musique) et les oeuvres en accès libre (dont l´exemple le plus représentatif est celui des articles scientifiques soumis à l´évaluation des pairs). Ignorer cette distinction provoque la confusion et retarde l´inéluctable transition, s´agissant des travaux en accès libre, vers ce qui constitue la meilleure solution pour les chercheurs : que les quelques deux millions d´articles scientifiques publiés chaque année à travers le monde, toutes disciplines et langues confondues, dans les quelques vingt mille revues à comités de lecture existantes, soient libérés en ligne par l´auto-archivage des auteurs et des institutions : http://www.eprints.org. Ce texte tente de montrer comment les questions de copyright, de l´évaluation par les pairs entre autres thèmes controversés peuvent être éclaircies à condition de bien faire la distinction entre accès libre et accès payant.Stevan Harnad2004-04-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:30Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3540This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35402004-04-06ZLANGUAGE, PERCEPTION AND ACTION: PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUESThe earlier part of this book has been concerned with very specific questions arising in the field of linguistics (phonetics, semantics and syntax), with the results of research into visual perception (physiological and neurological) and with rather wider speculation about the organisation of bodily action and the relation between the bodily processes underlying action, vision and speech. The hypotheses, arguments, evidence and conclusions reached have not depended to any significant extent on philosophical doctrine or concepts and the question may be asked why should a book essentially concerned with linguistics conclude with a chapter devoted to philosophy. To this question there is a broad answer and a more specific one; the broad answer is that there has been prolonged and difficult discussion between philosophers over many centuries of the subjects dealt with earlier in this book, the origin and nature of language, the relation of language to reality, perception as based on sense-experience and providing the main basis for veridical knowledge, and voluntary human action (the notions of free will and determinism, of reasons and causes of action). The narrower answer, as an occasion and justification for having a philosophical chapter, is that in some respects totally new broad and specific hypotheses are presented about the functioning of language, perception and action, and particularly about their interrelation in human behaviour, and it is worth considering what implications these hypotheses, if true, may have for traditional or current philosophical views. It may be that they ought to involve some radical review of current theory but, in any case, it would be unsatisfactory simply to present a whole range of ideas bearing on language, perception and action without having regard to what relevant to these subjects has been said by philosophers (as in the same way it would be unsatisfactory not to have regard to work that has been done on these subjects by experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence). Robin Allott2002-03-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2125This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21252002-03-10ZLearning an Artist's Style: Just What Does a Pigeon See in a Picasso?Judgments of style in art, music, and literature are commonplace, although the mechanisms providing for this structural sensitivity are not well understood. Watanabe, Sakamoto, and Wakita (1995) showed that pigeons trained to discriminate colour slides of paintings of Picasso from those of Monet could generalise this discrimination not only to new paintings of Picasso and Monet, but also to paintings of other cubist and impressionist painters. These results suggest that the bases for such judgments of artistic style may be simpler than normally thought. This tacit sensitivity to artistic style is explored in terms of a simple PCA network model applied to pixel-maps of the paintings. The eigenvectors obtained from the singular value decomposition of sets of these pixel-maps provide for descriptions of the stimuli in terms of visual macro-features. These macro-features provide a simple basis not only for recognising previously-experienced paintings, but for the successful discrimination of novel paintings into various style categories. A summary of simulations of the performance of Watanabe et al.s pigeons using precisely the same stimuli and tasks is provided. The results suggest that the eigen-decomposition is a necessary first-step, and that the bases for judgments of style may indeed be quite simple.John R VokeyJason M Tangen2001-08-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1772This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17722001-08-30ZLearning Appropriate ContextsGenetic Programming is extended so that the solutions being evolved do so in the context of local domains within the total
problem domain. This produces a situation where different species of solution develop to exploit different niches of the
problem indicating exploitable solutions. It is argued that for context to be fully learnable a further step of abstraction is
necessary. Such contexts abstracted from clusters of solution/model domains make sense of the problem of how to identify
when it is the content of a model is wrong and when it is the context. Some principles of learning to identify useful contexts
are proposed.Bruce Edmonds2002-07-03Z2011-03-11T08:54:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2310This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23102002-07-03ZLearning in the Cerebellum with Sparse Conjunctions and Linear Separator AlgorithmsThis paper investigates potential learning rules
in the cerebellum. We review evidence that input to the cerebellum is
sparsely expanded by granule cells into a very wide basis vector,
and that Purkinje
cells learn to compute a linear separation using that basis.
We review learning rules employed by existing cerebellar models, and show
that recent results from Computational Learning Theory suggest that
the standard delta rule would not be efficient.
We suggest that alternative, attribute-efficient learning rules, such as
Winnow or Incremental Delta-Bar-Delta, are more appropriate for cerebellar
modeling, and support this position with results from a computational model.
Harlan HarrisJesse Reichler2002-10-18Z2011-03-11T08:55:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2542This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/25422002-10-18ZLecture et écriture scientifique “dans le ciel” : Une anomalie post - gutenbergienne et comment la résoudreUne ligne de partage, profonde et essentielle, va se creuser dans la galaxie post-gutenbergienne entre les oeuvres en accès payant (livres, magazines, logiciels, musique) et les oeuvres en accès libre (dont l´exemple le plus représentatif est celui des articles scientifiques soumis à l´évaluation des pairs). Ignorer cette distinction provoque la confusion et retarde l´inéluctable transition, s´agissant des travaux en accès libre, vers ce qui constitue la meilleure solution pour les chercheurs : que les quelques deux millions d´articles scientifiques publiés chaque année à travers le monde, toutes disciplines et langues confondues, dans les quelques vingt mille revues à comités de lecture existantes, soient libérés en ligne par l´auto-archivage des auteurs et des institutions : http://www.eprints.org. Ce texte tente de montrer comment les questions de copyright, de l´évaluation par les pairs entre autres thèmes controversés peuvent être éclaircies à condition de bien faire la distinction entre accès libre et accès payant.Stevan Harnad2001-06-02Z2011-03-11T08:54:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1536This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15362001-06-02ZLosing the error related negativity (ERN): an indicator for willed actionWhen people make errors in a discrimination task, a negative-going waveform can be observed in scalp-recorded EEG that has been coined the error-related negativity (ERN). We hypothesized that the ERN only occurs with slips, that is unwilled action errors, but not if an error is committed willingly and intentionally. We investigated the occurrence of the ERN in a choice reaction time task that has been shown to produce an ERN and in an error simulation task where subjects had to fake errors while the EEG was recorded. We observed a loss of the ERN when errors were committed in willed actions but not in unwilled actions thus supporting the idea that the production of the ERN is tied to slips in unwilled actions but not mistakes in willed actions. Brigitte StemmerWolfgang WitzkePaul Walter Schoenle2005-05-02Z2011-03-11T08:56:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4330This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/43302005-05-02ZManagement of the Patient with an Acute Massive Rise in the Capture ThresholdSince the introduction of steroid eluting electrodes, the incidence of an early massive rise in the capture threshold that either exceeds or threatens to exceed the programmed output of the pacemaker has declined but has not totally disappeared1 If a persistent or massive threshold rise is encountered in the days to months post-implant, one consideration is microinstability of the lead. In this setting, there may be a change in the morphology of the pacemaker evoked depolarization on the ECG or a change in the physical location of the lead as assessed with a chest x-ray. Another marker is fluctuations in the capture threshold on repeated assessments at the same office or clinic visit. The options for this problem include an operative procedure to reposition or replace the lead or to closely observe the patient hoping that the lead settles into a secure location. Another potential totally reversible cause is the introduction of an new medication or herb. If the possible explanations for threshold increase cited above have been excluded and the high capture threshold is believed to be due to lead maturation, increasing the output or possible lead replacement or repositioning have been the usual options.
Paul A. Levine2008-04-27T16:18:52Z2011-03-11T08:57:06Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6011This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/60112008-04-27T16:18:52ZMechanism of Anesthetic Action: Oxygen Pathway Perturbation HypothesisThe mechanism of anesthesia is relevant to the neural and biological aspects of cognitive sciences. Although more than 150 years have past since the discovery of general anesthetics, how they precisely work remains a mystery. We propose a novel unitary mechanism of general anesthesia verifiable by experiments. In the proposed mechanism, general anesthetics perturb oxygen pathways in both membranes and oxygen-utilizing proteins such that the availabilities of oxygen to its sites of utilization are reduced which in turn triggers cascading cellular responses through oxygen-sensing mechanisms resulting in general anesthesia. Despite the general assumption that cell membranes are readily permeable to oxygen, exiting publications indicate that these membranes are plausible oxygen transport barriers. The present hypothesis provides a unified framework for explaining phenomena associated with general anesthesia and experimental results on the actions of general anesthetics. If verified by experiments, the proposed mechanism also has other significant medical and biological implications.Huping Huhupinghu@quantumbrain.orgMaoxin Wu2002-08-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2419This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24192002-08-22ZMedical Student Dissection of Cadavers Improves Performance on Practical Exams but not on the NBME Anatomy Subject ExamWe have examined whether cadaver dissection by first year medical students (MIs) affected their performance in two test measures: the NBME Gross Anatomy and Embryology Subject Exam (dissection-relevant questions only), and practical exams given at the end of each major section within the course. The dissections for the entire course were divided into 18 regional dissection units and each student was assigned to dissect one third of the regional units; the other two-thirds of the material was learned from the partner-prosected cadavers. Performance for each student on the exams was then assessed as a function of the regions those students actually dissected. While the results indicated a small performance advantage for MIs answering questions on material they had dissected on the NBME Subject Exam questions relevant to dissection (78-88% of total exam), the results were not statistically significant. However, a similar, small performance advantage on the course practical exams was highly significant.
Leslie Sargent Jones PhDLance E. Paulman PhDRaj Thandani MS Louis Terracio PhD2001-08-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1776This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17762001-08-30ZMeta-Genetic Programming: Co-evolving the Operators of VariationThe standard Genetic Programming approach is augmented by co-evolving the genetic operators. To do this the operators are coded as trees of indefinite length. In order for this technique to work, the language that the operators are defined in must be such that it preserves the variation in the base population. This technique can varied by adding further populations of operators and changing which populations act as operators for others, including itself, thus to provide a framework for a whole set of augmented GP techniques. The technique is tested on the parity problem. The pros and cons of the technique are discussed.Bruce Edmonds2002-03-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2130This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21302002-03-12ZThe Mind/Body Problem is the Feeling/Function Problem: Harnad on Dennett on ChalmersThe mind/body problem is the feeling/function problem (Harnad 2001). The only way to "solve" it is to provide a
causal/functional explanation of how and why we feel... Stevan Harnad2001-09-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1786This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17862001-09-01ZMind: the Argument from Evolutionary Biology In this paper I will propose just the simplest part of a three-part hypothesis for a solution of the problem of consciousness.{1} It proposes that the evolutionary rationale for the brains of complex organisms was neither representation nor reactive parallelism as is generally presupposed, but was specifically an internal operational organization of blind biologic process instead. I propose that our cognitive objects are deep operational metaphors of primitive biological response rather than informational referents to environment.
I argue that this operational organization was an evolutionary necessity to enable an adroit functioning of profoundly complex metacellular organisms in a hostile and overwhelmingly complex environment. I argue that this organization was antithetical to a representative role however. I have argued elsewhere (Iglowitz, 1995), that this hypothesis, (in concert with ancillary logical and epistemological hypotheses), opens the very first real possibility for an actual and adequate solution of the problem of "consciousness".Jerome Iglowitz2002-11-21Z2011-03-11T08:55:06Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2615This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/26152002-11-21ZMinds, Machines and Turing: The Indistinguishability of IndistinguishablesTuring's celebrated 1950 paper proposes a very general methodological criterion for modelling
mental function: total functional equivalence and indistinguishability. His criterion gives rise to a hierarchy of
Turing Tests, from subtotal ("toy") fragments of our functions (t1), to total symbolic (pen-pal) function (T2 --
the standard Turing Test), to total external sensorimotor (robotic) function (T3), to total internal microfunction
(T4), to total indistinguishability in every empirically discernible respect (T5). This is a "reverse-engineering"
hierarchy of (decreasing) empirical underdetermination of the theory by the data. Level t1 is clearly too
underdetermined, T2 is vulnerable to a counterexample (Searle's Chinese Room Argument), and T4 and T5 are
arbitrarily overdetermined. Hence T3 is the appropriate target level for cognitive science. When it is reached,
however, there will still remain more unanswerable questions than when Physics reaches its Grand Unified
Theory of Everything (GUTE), because of the mind/body problem and the other-minds problem, both of which
are inherent in this empirical domain, even though Turing hardly mentions them.
Stevan Harnad2001-11-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1867This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18672001-11-11ZMining the Web for Lexical Knowledge to Improve Keyphrase Extraction: Learning from Labeled and Unlabeled Data.A journal article is often accompanied by a list of keyphrases, composed of about five to fifteen important words and phrases that capture the articles main topics. Keyphrases are useful for a variety of purposes, including summarizing, indexing, labeling, categorizing, clustering, highlighting, browsing, and searching. The task of automatic keyphrase extraction is to select keyphrases from within the text of a given document. Automatic keyphrase extraction makes it feasible to generate keyphrases for the huge number of documents that do not have manually assigned keyphrases. Good performance on this task has been obtained by approaching it as a supervised learning problem. An input document is treated as a set of candidate phrases that must be classified as either keyphrases or non-keyphrases. To classify a candidate phrase as a keyphrase, the most important features (attributes) appear to be the frequency and location of the candidate phrase in the document. Recent work has demonstrated that it is also useful to know the frequency of the candidate phrase as a manually assigned keyphrase for other documents in the same domain as the given document (e.g., the domain of computer science). Unfortunately, this keyphrase-frequency feature is domain-specific (the learning process must be repeated for each new domain) and training-intensive (good performance requires a relatively large number of training documents in the given domain, with manually assigned keyphrases). The aim of the work described here is to remove these limitations. In this paper, I introduce new features that are conceptually related to keyphrase-frequency and I present experiments that show that the new features result in improved keyphrase extraction, although they are neither domain-specific nor training-intensive. The new features are generated by issuing queries to a Web search engine, based on the candidate phrases in the input document. The feature values are calculated from the number of hits for the queries (the number of matching Web pages). In essence, these new features are derived by mining lexical knowledge from a very large collection of unlabeled data, consisting of approximately 350 million Web pages without manually assigned keyphrases. Peter Turney2001-09-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1796This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17962001-09-12ZMining the Web for Synonyms: PMI-IR versus LSA on TOEFLThis paper presents a simple unsupervised learning algorithm for recognizing synonyms, based on statistical data acquired by querying a Web search engine. The algorithm, called PMI-IR, uses Pointwise Mutual Information (PMI) and Information Retrieval (IR) to measure the similarity of pairs of words. PMI-IR is empirically evaluated using 80 synonym test questions from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and 50 synonym test questions from a collection of tests for students of English as a Second Language (ESL). On both tests, the algorithm obtains a score of 74%. PMI-IR is contrasted with Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), which achieves a score of 64% on the same 80 TOEFL questions. The paper discusses potential applications of the new unsupervised learning algorithm and some implications of the results for LSA and LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing).
Peter Turney2004-10-08Z2011-03-11T08:55:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3864This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/38642004-10-08ZModeling Adaptive Learning: R&D Strategies in the Model of Nelson & Winter (1982)This article aims to test the relevance of learning through Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Learning Classifier Systems (LCS), in opposition with fixed R&D rules, in a simplified version of the evolutionary industry model of Nelson and Winter. These three R&D strategies are compared from the points of view of industry performance (welfare): the results of simulations clearly show that learning is a source of technological and social efficiency.Murat Yildizogluyildi2001-05-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1524This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15242001-05-29ZMovement prediction and movement productionThe prediction of future positions of moving objects occurs in cases of actively produced and passively observed movement. We study the difference between active and passive movement prediction by asking subjects to estimate displacements of an occluded moving target, where the movement is produced by the subject or passively observed; in the passive condition, the target trajectory is either a replay of a preceding active trajectory, or a constant-speed approximation. In the active condition estimates are more anticipatory than in the passive conditions, but in all conditions, estimates become less anticipatory as the prediction distance increases, or the prediction time decreases. Decreasing the congruence between motor action and visual feedback diminishes but does not eliminate the anticipatory effect of action; introducing eye tracking, however, does eliminate it. Our results are compatible with common mechanisms underlying both active and passive movement prediction, with additional movement-related information in the active case making predictions more anticipatory.Mark WexlerFrançois Klam2001-10-04Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1813This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18132001-10-04ZA NATURAL ACCOUNT OF PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS.Physicalists commonly argue that conscious experiences are nothing more than states of the brain, and that conscious qualia are observer-independent, physical properties of the external world. Although this assumes the 'mantle of science,' it routinely ignores the findings of science, for example in sensory physiology, perception, psychophysics, neuropsychology and comparative psychology. Consequently, although physicalism aims to naturalise consciousness, it gives an unnatural account of it. It is possible, however, to develop a natural, nonreductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. This paper introduces such a model and how it construes the nature of conscious experience. Within this model the physical world as perceived (the phenomenal world) is viewed as part of conscious experience not apart from it. While in everyday life we treat this phenomenal world as if it is the "physical world", it is really just one biologically useful representation of what the world is like that may differ in many respects from the world described by physics. How the world as perceived relates to the world as described by physics can be investigated by normal science (e.g. through the study of sensory physiology, psychophysics and so on). This model of consciousness appears to be consistent with both third-person evidence of how the brain works and with first-person evidence of what it is like to have a given experience. According to the reflexive model, conscious experiences are really how they seem. Max Velmans2001-12-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1963This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19632001-12-05ZThe nature of forgetting from short-term memoryMemory and forgetting are inextricably intertwined. Any account of short-term memory (STM) should address the following question: If three, four, or five chunks are being held in STM, what happens after attention is diverted?Paul Muter2002-08-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2403This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24032002-08-12Z Negotiating the Maze: Case based, Collaborative Distance Learning in DentistryThe module was developed as an elective to give motivated senior dental students an opportunity to expand their horizons in planning oral rehabilitation. It comprised one tutor and 12 students, from five universities world-wide, communicating on the World Wide Web (WWW), to develop oral rehabilitation plans for simulated patients. Trigger material came from one of two Case Profiles and consisted of diagnostic casts and details of the clinical and radiographic examination in WWW/CD-ROM form. No background material was supplied as to the "patient's" age, sex, history or main concern(s). Students worked in groups of three, each student from a different location. Individual students were given a role within the group: "Patient", who developed a "personal background" belonging to the trigger examination material, "Academic" who identified state-of-the-art treatment options available for the dental treatment needs identified by the group and "General Practitioner" who tailored these options to the "patient's" needs and wants. Student feedback focused on their perception of their experience with the program in response to a questionnaire comprising 11 structured and four "open" questions. All students felt that the program increased their confidence in planning oral rehabilitation. Ten students felt that the "best thing about the program" was the interaction with students from other universities and the exposure to different philosophies from the different schools. Eight students mentioned their increased awareness of the importance of patient input into holistic planning. Under the heading "What was the worst thing", students cited some technical hitches and the snowball effect of two sluggish students who were not identified early enough and thus impacted negatively on the working of their groups. Student feedback showed that the module succeeded in its aims but needed modification to improve the logistics of working with an extended campusSybille K Lechner BDS, MDS FRACDS, FPFA, FICDPeter Kandlbinder BEd (SCAE), MEd (UTS)Shalinie Gonsalkorale BDS (Hons), FRACDSMichael Bradshaw Katherine M Harris (Lechner) B Soc Sci, MBATracey Winning BDSc (Hons) GradDipHEd PhD2001-12-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1927This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19272001-12-05ZNeuron Soma Size in the Left and Right Hippocampus of a Genius NEURON SOMA SIZE IN THE LEFT AND RIGHT HIPPOCAMPUS OF A GENIUS
D.W. Zaidel*
Dept Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Underlying brain features of a genius are not understood. It is not
known if there is a smooth continuum between a genius and the thousands
of the brightest minds alive today. The few postmortem studies of brains
of remarkable mathematicians or physicists typically emphasized the
neocortex. In the present study, the hippocampus of Albert Einstein (AE)
was investigated postmortem. The importance of the hippocampus is
established for long-term, explicit, implicit, and episodic memory, and
establishment of semantic associations. A single microscope slide
(Nissl-stained stained in Harvey[Image]s lab not long after AE[Image]s
death at age 76 years) was available for the left and right sides. Soma
size of pyramidal neurons in coronal sections of AE[Image]s left and
right hippocampi were photographed, then digitized and systematically
measured on a computer in hippocampal subfields CA1, CA2, CA3, CA4, and
subiculum. An atypical left-right asymmetry emerged in AE, with soma
size being consistently and significantly larger in the left than in the
right side in all homologous subfields except for CA2, whereas in 10
ordinary adults, aged 22 to 84 years, there was minimal and inconsistent
soma size asymmetry in direction (left vs right) or extent. However, the
soma size variability revealed similarities in both AE and the ordinary
adults, particularly in hippocampal subfields CA1 and CA2, bilaterally.
The direction of the cell size asymmetry in AE[Image]s hippocampi could
simply reflect age-related changes in combination with unusual neuronal
connectivity of prenatal or experiential origin. This is difficult to
ascertain, and the relationship between the hippocampal status at the
time of his death and its role in his genius in his most creative years
is a matter for debate.Dahlia Zaidel2010-04-01T11:36:48Z2011-03-11T08:57:35Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6813This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/68132010-04-01T11:36:48ZNeuropragmatics: Extralinguistic communication after closed head injuryThis work is concerned with the decay of communicative abilities after head trauma. A protocol composed of 16 videotaped scenes was devised in order to investigate the comprehension of several types of communicative actions realized with extralinguistic means, like pointing or clapping. The protocol was administered to 30 closed head injured individuals. The results showed a decreasing performance from simple standard acts, to complex standard acts, deceits, and ironies. The subjects' performance was worse with the scenes reproducing failing, rather than successful, communicative actions. The results are compared with those we previously obtained with a linguistic protocol. A theory of the cognitive processes underlying intentional communication is outlined and used to explain the results.Bruno G. BaraIlaria CuticaMaurizio Tirassamaurizio.tirassa@unito.it2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2015This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20152002-01-11ZNeuropsychological indicators of heteromodal cortex (dys)function relevant to conditioned blocking measures of attention in schizophreniaBackground.
Learning a predictive relationship between two events can block learning about an added event (conditioned blocking, CB). Patients with nonparanoid schizophrenia can show reduced CB and learn about the similar consequences of the added event. What parts of the brain are involved in the functions required in learning the CB task and actually showing 'blocking' - a part of normal selective attention processes? As a first approximation, we ask if neuropsychological test performance sensitive to specific cortical regions is associated with these two functions.
Methods.
This study reports on the relationship of associative learning and CB measures of attention obtained with a visuospatial maze-like task to signs of heteromodal cortex function provided by performance on a battery of 10 neuropsychological tasks. These tasks were sensitive to frontal, parietal and temporal lobe function of the left and right hemisphere. Acquisition criteria for the task were achieved by 62 patients with schizophrenia and 62 matched controls but not by 39 other people with schizophrenia.
Results.
First right-hemisphere, visuo-spatial abilities were generally associated with faster task-learning (e.g. visual reproduction, immediate and delayed, picture-completion), and patients that could not learn the task were poorer on tests emphasising set-switching and problem-solving abilities associated with left frontal lobe function (e.g. trail-making, block-design).
Second CB expression depended on Stroop- and Mooney-faces-task performance that are reported to require cingulate and parietal lobe function.
Conclusions.
As would be predicted right hemisphere function was implicated in performing a visuospatial learning task. The additional CB requirement incurred additional anterior cingulate and right parietal involvement. Functionally this probably reflected effortful attentional processes, and illustrates the problems of patients with schizophrenia in switching between automatic and controlled processing strategies. The results are astonishingly consistent with imaging studies implicating brain regions such as the cingulate and intra-parietal sulcus in attention (Mesulam, 1999).
R.D. Oades Bender Müller Sartory2003-11-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:24Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3287This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32872003-11-30ZA New Account of Personalization and Effective CommunicationTo contribute to understanding of information economies of daily life, this paper explores over the past millennium given names of a large number of persons. Analysts have long both condemned and praised mass media as a source of common culture, national unity, or shared symbolic experiences. Names, however, indicate a large decline in shared symbolic experience over the past two centuries, a decline that the growth of mass media does not appear to have affected significantly. Study of names also shows that action and personal relationships, along with time horizon, are central aspects of effective communication across a large population. The observed preference for personalization over the past two centuries and the importance of action and personal relationships to effective communication are aspects of information economies that are likely to have continuing significance for industry developments, economic statistics, and public policy.Dr. Douglas Galbi2001-06-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1624This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16242001-06-19ZNo Easy Way OutThe mind/body problem is the feeling/function problem: How and why do
feeling systems feel? The problem is not just "hard" but insoluble (unless one
is ready to resort to telekinetic dualism). Fortunately, the "easy" problems of
cognitive science (such as the how and why of categorization and language)
are not insoluble. Five books (by Damasio, Edelman/Tononi, McGinn,
Tomasello and Fodor) are reviewed in this context.Stevan Harnad2001-05-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:38Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1512This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15122001-05-25ZNonlinear cochlear signal processingThis chapter describes the mechanical function of the
cochlea, or inner ear, the organ that converts signals
from acoustical to neural.
Many cochlear hearing disorders are still not well
understood. If systematic progress is to be made
in improved diagnostics and treatment of these disorders,
a clear understanding of basic principles is essential.
Models of the cochlea are useful because they succinctly
describe auditory perception principles.
Several topics will be reviewed. First, the history of cochlear
models, including extensions that have taken place in recent years.
These models include both macromechanics and micromechanics of the
tectorial membrane and hair cells. This leads to comparisons of the
basilar membrane, hair cell, and neural frequency tuning.
The role of nonlinear mechanics and dynamic range are covered
to help the student understand the importance of modern wideband
dynamic range compression hearing aids.
Hearing loss, loudness recruitment, as well as other important
topics of modern hearing health care, are briefly discussed.
Jont Allen2002-01-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2050This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20502002-01-29ZNovelty-elicited mismatch negativity in patients with schizophrenia on admission and dischargeIntroduction:
MMN, an electrophysiological measure of auditory working memory, is usually recorded as the difference in the event-related potential (ERP) elicited by a rare deviant and a common standard sound. The amplitude is usually reduced in patients with schizophrenia (refs below). Here we looked at the response in the extreme and most simple case of the deviant being always a novel, different tone on every presentation. We compared the novelty-MMN with clinical symptoms expressed - both measures being made soon after admission and again 2-3 months later just before discharge.
Methods:
We compared 20 patients (mean age 26y) with a first, second or third episode of schizophrenia on admission with 21 healthy controls (mean age 26y) and were able to repeat the measures with 12 patients at discharge and with 15 controls. An early MMN component (80-140 ms), a later component (140-300 ms) and the P3a were recorded and topography examined after min-max norming from 19 sites. Symptoms were assessed with the positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS).
Results:
a) Novelty-elicited MMN was not significantly reduced on admission.
b) The early component remained unaltered, but the amplitude of the later component decreased significantly during inpatient treatment. While the decrease appeared significant over the left hemisphere in the raw data, the lateral difference was lost after normalizing the data.
c) Improved positive symptom ratings were associated with increases of the early component latency, but decreases of the late component latency.
d) P3a at Fz showed an increased latency between sessions in the patients but there were no group differences in amplitude.
Conclusions:
Our results are partially consistent with two other studies using a conventional MMN that showed a lack of MMN normalization where symptoms improved (Schall et al., 1998; Umbricht et al., 1998) - in the present study MMN deteriorated. While trait features have been attributed to conventional MMN reductions in schizophrenia, our results suggest that if novelty responses are impaired in patients with schizophrenia then the differences may be sensitive to state.
Grzella Müller Oades Bender Schall Zerbin Wolstein Sartory2001-08-07Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1729This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17292001-08-07ZOn the functional origins of essentialismThis essay examines the proposal that psychological essentialism results from a history of natural selection acting on human representation and inference systems. It has been argued that the features that distinguish essentialist representational systems are especially well suited for representing natural kinds. If the evolved function of essentialism is to exploit the rich inductive potential of such kinds, then it must be subserved by cognitive mechanisms that carry out at least three distinct functions: identifying these kinds in the environment, constructing essentialized representations of them, and constraining inductive inferences about kinds. Moreover, there are different kinds of kinds, ranging from nonliving substances to biological taxa to within-species kinds such as sex, and the causal processes that render these categories coherent for the purposes of inductive generalization vary. If the evolved function of essentialism is to support inductive generalization under ignorance of true causes, and if kinds of kinds vary in the implicit assumptions that support valid inductive inferences about them, then we expect different, functionally incompatible modes of essentialist thinking for different kinds. In particular, there should be differences in how biological and nonbiological substances, biological taxa, and biological and social role kinds are essentialized. The functional differences between these kinds of essentialism are discussed.H. Clark Barrett2006-09-08Z2011-03-11T08:56:34Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5070This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/50702006-09-08ZOn The Very Importance Of The Metaphoric As Semantic To Communication, Understanding, And The Philosophy Of LanguageThe focus of this thesis is a defense of metaphorical
meaning. Since metaphor is such a fundamental aspect of language, my first emphasis is to find error in pragmatic theories of meaning. The first two chapters are where this occurs; in chapter one, we first investigate an account of intention and convention as developed by Grice, Lewis, and others, ultimately leading to our rejection of it. The second chapter is similar in structure, but rather investigates Searle’s account of regulative rules. The third chapter refutes those positions that reject the possibility of metaphorical meaning, i.e., that consider it a ‘pragmatic’ phenomenon (one that is determined by use rather
than meaning). Tbat chapter also investigates the issue of language as context-independent, the possibility of a metaphor as paraphrasable, and the question of ‘dead metaphor.’ The fourth chapter, consequently, aims at presenting a positive account of metaphorical meaning. My claim is that not only does metaphor have meaning, but that all meaning is to some extent metaphorical. We will also determine why we use metaphor and what, in my view, a dead metaphor really is. The final chapter is designed to give a preliminary account of what a theory of understanding compatible with metaphor would look like and explores views outside of analytic philosophy.
Mark A. Matienzo2003-10-18Z2011-03-11T08:55:22Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3232This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32322003-10-18ZOnomatopoeia: Cuckoo-Language and Tick-Tocking+◊This paper is a brief phonetic investigation of the nature of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural noises by speech sounds. To understand this phenomenon, we must realize that there is a problem here which is by no means trivial. There i s an infinite number of noises in nature, but only twenty-something letters in an alphabet that convey in any language a closed system of about fifty (up to a maximum of 100) speech sounds. I have devoted a book length study to the expressiveness of lang u age (What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive? -- The Poetic Mode of Speech Perception), but have only fleetingly touched upon onomatopoeia. In this paper I will recapitulate from that book the issue of acoustic coding, and then will toy around with two spe ci fic cases: why does the cuckoo say "kuku" in some languages, and why the clock prefers to say "tick-tock" rather than, say, tip-top. Only fleetingly I will touch upon the question why the speech sounds [s] and [S] (S represents the initial consonant of sh oe; s the initial consonant of sue) serve generally as onomatopoeia for noise. By way of doing all this, I will discuss a higher-order issue as well: How are effects translated from reality to some semiotic system, or from one semiotic system to ano ther.U.cnsReuven Tsur2002-03-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2121This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21212002-03-08ZOptic flow based perception of two-dimensional trajectories and the effects of a single landmark.It is well established that human observers can detect their heading direction on a very short time scale on the basis of optic flow (500ms; Hooge et al., 2000). Can they also integrate these perceptions over time to reconstruct a 2D trajectory simulated by the optic flow stimulus? We investigated the visual perception and reconstruction of passively travelled two-dimensional trajectories from optic flow with and without a single landmark. Stimuli in which translation and yaw are unyoked can give rise to illusory percepts; using a structured visual environment instead of only dots can improve perception of these stimuli. Does the additional visual and/or extra-retinal information provided by a single landmark have a similar, beneficial effect? Here, seated, stationary subjects wore a head-mounted display showing optic flow stimuli that simulated various manoeuvres: linear or curvilinear 2D trajectories over a horizontal ground plane. The simulated orientation was either fixed in space, fixed relative to the path, or changed relative to both. Afterwards, subjects reproduced the perceived manoeuvre with a model vehicle, of which we recorded position and orientation. Yaw was perceived correctly. Perception of the travelled path was less accurate, but still good when the simulated orientation was fixed in space or relative to the trajectory. When the amount of yaw was not equal to the rotation of the path, or in the opposite direction, subjects still perceived orientation as fixed relative to the trajectory. This caused trajectory misperception because yaw was wrongly attributed to a rotation of the path. A single landmark could improve perception.R.J.V. BertinI. Israël2001-12-03Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1934This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19342001-12-03ZOptimizing the reading of electronic text using rapid serial visual presentationThe focus on communications technology in recent years has led to the question of how to best display electronic text onto small-screened devices. Past studies have shown that the compact method of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is efficient but not well liked. Two experiments were conducted to explore ways of improving the preference for and feasibility of RSVP. In Experiment 1, the effects of a completion meter, punctuation pauses, and variable word duration were studied. Although the Normal Page and Sentence-by Sentence formats were still superior, post-experiment ratings indicated that punctuation pauses improved user preference, and preference for RSVP in general increased with practice. In Experiment 2, a modified RSVP condition included a completion meter, punctuation pauses, interruption pauses, and pauses at clause boundaries. This condition was significantly preferred to a normal RSVP condition. The present enhancements may increase the feasibility of using RSVP with small displays.Monica S. CastelhanoPaul Muter2001-04-14Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1446This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14462001-04-14ZOrthography and Identity in CameroonThe tone languages of sub-Saharan Africa
raise challenging questions for the design
of new writing systems. Marking too much or too little tone can have
grave consequences for the usability of an orthography.
Orthography development, past and present, rests on a
raft of sociolinguistic issues having little to do with the
technical phonological concerns that usually preoccupy orthographers.
Some of these issues
are familiar from the spelling reforms which have taken place
in European languages. However, many of the issues faced in
sub-Saharan Africa are
different, being concerned with the creation of new writing systems
in a multi-ethnic context: residual colonial influences, the
construction of new nation-states, detribalization versus
culture preservation and language reclamation, and so on.
Language development projects which crucially rely on creating
or revising orthographies may founder if they do not attend to
the various layers of identity that are indexed by orthography:
whether colonial, national, ethnic, local or individual identity.
In this study, I review the history and politics
of orthography in Cameroon, with a focus on tone marking.
The paper concludes by calling present-day orthographers to
a deeper and broader understanding of orthographic issues.
Steven Bird2001-08-24Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1765This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17652001-08-24ZOutstanding questions about phonological processing in dyslexiaIt is widely accepted that developmental dyslexia results from some sort of phonological deficit. Yet, it can be argued that phonological representations and their processing have been insufficiently tested in dyslexia research.
Firstly, claims about how tasks tap into certain kinds of representations or processes are best appreciated in the light of an explicit information-processing model. Here, a cognitive model of lexical access is described, incorporating speech perception, reading and object recognition. The model emphasises that phonological forms of lexical items are distinct from non-lexical phonological representations
Secondly, phonology, as a linguistic discipline, teaches us that there is much more to it than phonemic categorisation and awareness. The phonological level of representation also embodies phonotactic regularities, patterns of phoneme assimilation and alternation, as well as supra-segmental knowledge pertaining to syllable structure, stress, intonation and rhythm. All those aspects are in part language-dependent, and therefore must be learnt by children in order to become proficient native speakers and listeners. If all levels of phonological representations were affected in dyslexia, dyslexic children would presumably have difficulties acquiring these aspects of their language. This prediction is as yet untested. A possible research agenda is outlined, aiming to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the phonological theory of dyslexia.
Franck Ramus2002-06-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2272This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22722002-06-12ZOutstanding questions about phonological processing in dyslexiaIt is widely accepted that developmental dyslexia results from some sort of phonological deficit. Yet, it can be argued that phonological representations and their processing have been insufficiently tested in dyslexia research.
Firstly, claims about how tasks tap into certain kinds of representations or processes are best appreciated in the light of an explicit information-processing model. Here, a cognitive model of lexical access is described, incorporating speech perception, reading and object recognition. The model emphasises that phonological forms of lexical items are distinct from non-lexical phonological representations
Secondly, phonology, as a linguistic discipline, teaches us that there is much more to it than phonemic categorisation and awareness. The phonological level of representation also embodies phonotactic regularities, patterns of phoneme assimilation and alternation, as well as supra-segmental knowledge pertaining to syllable structure, stress, intonation and rhythm. All these aspects are in part language-dependent, and therefore must be learnt by children in order to become proficient native speakers and listeners. If phonological representations were affected in dyslexia, dyslexic children would presumably have difficulties acquiring these aspects of their language. This prediction is as yet untested. A possible research agenda is outlined, aiming to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the phonological theory of dyslexia.
Franck Ramus2005-06-21Z2011-03-11T08:56:06Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4410This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/44102005-06-21ZPartager et utiliser des connaissances scientifiques: de la responsabilité individuelle à la responsabilité collectiveNotre responsabilité pour le partage de l'information scientifique, à l'heure d'Internet, est devenue collective : participons sans tarder au mouvement des Archives Ouvertes en déposant sur un serveur compatible OAI nos publications, "gratuitement, pour tous, partout et pour toujours".
("Free for everyone, everywhere, forever"
S.Harnad.) - - - - - [Our responsibility for sharing research information in the Internet age has become a collective one. Let us participate without delay in the Open Access Movement by depositing our research articles in an OAI-compliant Open Access Archive "Free for eveyone, everywhere, forever" (S. Harnad).]H. Bosc2001-08-21Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1761This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17612001-08-21ZPeirce, Searle, and the Chinese Room ArgumentWhether human thinking can be formalized and whether machines can think in a human sense are questions that have been addressed since the Renaissance. I will employ arguments from both a modern critic, John Searle, and from one present at the inception of the field, Charles Peirce, and another inductive argument, all of which conclude that digital computers cannot achieve human-like understanding. Searle approaches the problem from the standpoint of traditional analytic philosophy. Peirce would have radically disagreed with Searles analysis, but he ultimately arrives at the same conclusion. Given this diversity of arguments against the Artificial Intelligence (AI) project, it would seem its ultimate goal is futile, despite the computers amazing achievements. However, I will show that those arguments themselves imply a direction for AI research which seems fruitful and which is in fact being pursued, although it is not in the mainstream of that field. Steven Ravett Brown2002-08-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:59Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2420This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24202002-08-22ZPhysician Communication Skills: Results of a Survey of General/Family Practitioners in Newfoundland
Purpose: To describe the attitudes related to communication skills, confidence in using commnication skills, and use of communication skills during the physician-patient encounter among a population-based sample of family physicians.
Procedures: A mailed survey, distributed to all family physicians and general practitioners currently practicing in Newfoundland. The questionnaire was designed to collect data in five general areas participant demographics, physician confidence in using specific communication strategies, perceived adequacy of time spent by physicians with their patients, physician use of specific communication strategies with the adult patients they saw in the prior week, and physician use of specific communication strategies during the closing minutes of the encounters they had with adult patients in the prior week.
Main Findings: A total of 160 completed surveys was received from practicing family physicians/general practitioners in Newfoundland, yielding an adjusted response rate of 43.1%. Most of the respondents (83.8%) indicated their communication skills are as important as technical skills in terms of achieving positive patient outcomes. Between one-third and one-half of the respondents, depending on the educational level queried, rated their communications skills training as being inadequate. Fewer than 20% of the respondents rated the communications skills training they received as being excellent. Physicians indicated a need to improve their use of 8 of 13 specific communication strategies during patient encounters, and reported using few communication strategies during the closing minutes of the encounter. Interactions that occurred during a typical encounter tended to focus on biomedical versus psychosocial issues.
Conclusions: Family physicians/general practitioners recognize a need to improve their commnications skills. Well-designed communications skills training programs should be implemented at multi-levels of physician training in order to improve patient satisfaction with their encounters with family/general practitioners, and to increase the likelihood of positive patient outcomes.
Fredrick D. Ashbury PhDDonald C. Iverson PhDBoris Kralj PhD2002-01-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2032This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20322002-01-13ZPragmatics, Modularity and Mind-reading (To appear in Mind and Language)The central problem for pragmatics is that sentence meaning vastly underdetermines speakers meaning. The goal of pragmatics is to explain how the gap between sentence meaning and speakers meaning is bridged. This paper defends the broadly Gricean view that pragmatic interpretation is ultimately an exercise in mind-reading, involving the inferential attribution of intentions. We argue, however, that the interpretation process does not simply consist in applying general mind-reading abilities to a particular (communicative) domain. Rather, it involves a dedicated comprehension module, with its own special principles and mechanisms. We show how such a metacommunicative module might have evolved, and what principles and mechanisms it might contain.Dan SperberDeirdre Wilson2001-10-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1817This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18172001-10-08ZPredicting health impacts of the World Trade Center Disaster: 1. Cognitive condensation, halogenated hydrocarbons, and traumatic perturbationThe recent attack on the World Trade Center, in addition to
direct injury and psychological trauma, appears to have
exposed an exceedingly large population to dioxins,
dibenzofurans, related endocrine disruptors, and a multitude
of other physiologically active chemicals arising from the
decomposition of the massive quantities of halogenated
hydrocarbons and other plastics within the affected
buildings. Combining recent theoretical perspectives on
immune, CNS, and sociocultural cognition with empirical
studies of those affected by past toxic fire incidents
suggests the appearance of complex, developing spectra of
synergistically linked social, pshchosocial, psychological,
and physical symptoms among the 100,000 or so persons
directly affected by the attack. The expected pattern greatly transcends a simple 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'
model, and may come to resemble particularly acute forms of
Gulf War Syndrome.Rodrick WallaceDeborah Wallace2001-11-14Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1882This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18822001-11-14ZPredicting Health Impacts of the World Trade Center Disaster: 1. Halogenated hydrocarbons, symptom syndromes, secondary victimization, and the burdens of historyThe recent attack on the World Trade Center, in addition to direct injury and psychological trauma, has exposed a vast population to dioxins, dibenzofurans, related endocrine disruptors, and a multitude of other physiologically active chemicals arising from the decomposition of the massive quantities of halogenated hydrocarbons and other plastics within the affected buildings. The impacts of these chemical species have been compounded by exposure to asbestos, fiberglass, crushed glass, concrete, plastic, and other irritating dusts. To address the manifold complexities of this incident we combine recent theoretical perspectives on immune, CNS, and sociocultural cognition with empirical studies on survivors of past large toxic fires, other community-scale chemical exposure incidents, and the aftereffects of war. Our analysis suggests the appearance of complex, but distinct and characteristic, spectra of synergistically linked social, psychosocial, psychological and physical symptoms among the 100,000 or so persons most directly affected by the WTC attack. The different 'eigenpatterns' should become increasingly comorbid as a function of exposure. The expected outcome greatly transcends a simple 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' model, and may resemble a particularly acute form of Gulf War Syndrome. We explore the role of external social factors in subsequent exacerbation of the syndrome -- secondary victimization -- and study the path-dependent influence of individual and community-level historical patterns of stress. We suggest that workplace and other organizations can act as ameliorating intermediaries. Those without acess to such buffering structures appear to face a particularly bleak future.Rodrick WallaceDeborah Wallace2003-10-29Z2011-03-11T08:55:23Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3254This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32542003-10-29ZPsychosemantic analyticityIt is widely agreed that the content of a logical concept such as and is constituted by the inferences it enters into. I argue that it is impossible to draw a principled distinction between logical and non-logical concepts, and hence that the content of non-logical concepts can also be constituted by certain of their inferential relations.
The traditional problem with such a view has been that, given Quine’s arguments against the analytic-synthetic distinction, there does not seem to be any way to distinguish between those inferences that are content constitutive and those that are not. I propose that such a distinction can be drawn by appealing to a notion of ‘psychosemantic analyticity’. This approach is immune to Quine’s arguments, since ‘psychosemantic analyticity’ is a psychological property, and it is thus an empirical question which inferences have this property.
Richard Horsey2003-10-14Z2011-03-11T08:55:22Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3219This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32192003-10-14ZPumping Up Intelligence: Abrupt Climate Jumps and the Evolution of Higher Intellectual Functions during the Ice AgesThe title is not a metaphor, though past tense might be better as this chapter is about how each of the many hundred abrupt coolings of the last several million years could have served as a pump stroke, each elevating intelligence a small increment - even though what natural selection was operating on was not intelligence per se.
While we often use the term 'intelligence' to encompass both a broad range of abilities and the efficiency with which they're enacted, it also implies flexibility and creativity, an "ability to slip the bonds of instinct and generate novel solutions to problems" (Gould and Gould 1994, p. 70). Those three pillars of animal intelligence - association, imitation, and insight - are also impressive (Byrne 1994), as are the occasional symbolic (Deacon 1997) and reasoning (Gould & Gould, 1998) abilities. But Piaget (1929; 1952) said that intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do, when neither innateness nor learning has prepared you for the particular situation.
William H Calvin2005-05-02Z2011-03-11T08:56:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4331This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/43312005-05-02ZA Re-analysis of Our Current Understanding of Isthmus-Dependent Atrial Flutter: Some Gaps, Some HypothesesThe macro-reentrant circuit of isthmus-dependent atrial flutter (AFL) is located in the right atrium around the tricuspid annulus. High acute success and low recurrence rate makes isthmus ablation a definitive therapy for patients with only AFL. However, a review of the literature suggests that, different aspects of this macro-reentrant circuit are still not entirely understood, while new information continues to emerge. The aim of this article is to discuss some gaps in our “complete” understanding of isthmus-dependent AFL. Few hypotheses have been stated which are open to investigation. Ashish Nabar2002-06-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2300This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23002002-06-29ZThe Recommendation Architecture: Lessons from Large-Scale Electronic Systems Applied to CognitionA fundamental approach of cognitive science is to understand cognitive systems by separating them into modules. Theoretical reasons are described which force any system which learns to perform a complex combination of real time functions into a modular architecture. Constraints on the way modules divide up functionality are also described. The architecture of such systems, including biological systems, is constrained into a form called the recommendation architecture, with a primary separation between clustering and competition. Clustering is a modular hierarchy which manages the interactions between functions on the basis of detection of functionally ambiguous repetition. Change to previously detected repetitions is limited in order to maintain a meaningful, although partially ambiguous context for all modules which make use of the previously defined repetitions. Competition interprets the repetition conditions detected by clustering as a range of alternative behavioural recommendations, and uses consequence feedback to learn to select the most appropriate recommendation. The requirements imposed by functional complexity result in very specific structures and processes which resemble those of brains. The design of an implemented electronic version of the recommendation architecture is described, and it is demonstrated that the system can heuristically define its own functionality, and learn without disrupting earlier learning. The recommendation architecture is compared with a range of alternative cognitive architectural proposals, and the conclusion reached that it has substantial potential both for understanding brains and for designing systems to perform cognitive functions.l andrew coward2002-03-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2122This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21222002-03-08ZReconstructing passively travelled manoeuvres:
Visuo-vestibular interactions.We recently published a study of the reconstruction of passively travelled trajectories from optic flow. Perception was prone to illusions in a number of conditions, and not always veridical in the other conditions. Part of the illusionary reconstructed trajectories could be explained if we assume that the subjects based their reconstruction on the ego-motion percept obtained during the stimulus' initial moments. In the current paper, we test this hypothesis using a novel paradigm. If indeed the final reconstruction is governed by the initial percept, then additional, extra-retinal information that modifies the initial percept should predictably alter the final reconstruction. We supplied extra-retinal stimuli tuned to supplement the information that was underrepresented or ambiguous in the optic flow: the subjects were physically displaced or rotated at the onset of the visual stimulus. A highly asymmetric velocity profile (high acceleration, very low deceleration) was used. Subjects were required to guide an input device (in the form of a model vehicle; we measured position and orientation) along the perceived trajectory. We show for the first time that a vestibular stimulus of short duration can influence the perception of a much longer lasting visual stimulus. Perception of the ego-motion translation component in the visual stimulus was improved by a linear physical displacement; perception of the ego-motion rotation component by a physical rotation. This led to a more veridical reconstruction in some conditions, but it could also lead to less veridical reconstructions in other conditions.R.J.V. BertinA. Berthoz2001-11-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1935This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19352001-11-30ZRelation between dominance rank, prior agonistic intensity and subsequent aggressive levels in winners and losers of dyads of male Green swordtail fish (Xiphophorus helleri)Aggressive scores obtained in a mirror test 1h before an encounter were found to be a good predictor of victory in male Xiphophorus dyads showing less than 5% size differences. Out of 36 dyad members showing higher aggressive scores at pre-test, 28 obtained victory in the subsequent encounter. It was found that future winners were more aggressive than future losers to their own image in mirror tests before their encounter. Initial individual aggressive levels in mirror tests were also found to be a function of the rank the individuals occupied in their home hierarchies. The higher the rank, the higher was the individual aggressive level as measured by mirror pre-tests, as well as by post-tests. This relationship applied to future winners, as well as to future losers. The level of aggression reached during agonistic encounter was not a function of the social ranks the opponents occupied in their home hierarchies. Males in dyads composed of two omegas fought as fiercely as males in dyads of two alphas or two betas. No significant relationship was noted between the initial individual aggressive scores at mirror pre-test and the levels of aggression reached during encounters. We found in winners the existence of a significant correlation between the aggressive level they reached during agonistic encounter and a subsequent increase in aggressive levels at mirror tests 1h and 24h after victory. The more intense the agonistic encounter, the more important the subsequent increase in aggressive level in winners; an increase which was still detectable 24h after victory. However, prior alpha winners were apparently not as sensitive as prior betas and prior omegas to the aggressive level reached during the encounter since their mirror scores obtained after victory did not change when compared to their baseline at pre-test. After defeat, losers did not show any significant change in aggressive scores in mirror tests. Moreover, it was found that encounters in which a 1h resident met an intruder were in general less aggressive than encounters between two intruders. Experiential effects are discussed as instances of learning and generalisation.
Claude GouletJacques P. Beaugrand2004-05-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3591This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35912004-05-06ZReorientation in a small scale environment by 3 - 4 and 5 year-old childrenGeometric features of surfaces and local information are constitutive elements of spatial representations. A number of studies in animals (rats) and human children (24 months old) have shown that in a rectangular environment with a reward hidden in one of the corners, geometric properties predominate over local cues for search strategies. In contrast, monkeys and human adults are able to take into account both types of information (geometric and local) to reorient. So far, all of the experiments have been conducted in the locomotor space involving a navigational task. In the present study, we examined whether similar search patterns are found using a tabletop model of a rectangular room. Three
groups of children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) and one group of adults were tested. Results show that geometric encoding appears only at 4 years of age, that is later than in the locomotor space. The joint use of geometry and local cues emerges at 5 years of age. These data show that similar types of processing are implemented in both manipulatory and locomotor space but not at the same time. The difference between locomotor and manipulatory tasks suggests that being immersed in the environment makes this separated processing easier than being confronted by a task for which the object is exterior to the participantS GouteuxJ VauclairC Thinus-Blanc2001-11-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1904This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19042001-11-19ZRepresentation and Extrapolation in Multi-Layer PerceptronsTo give an adequate explanation of cognition and perform certain practical tasks connectionist systems must be able to extrapolate. This work has explored the relationship between input representation and extrapolation, using simulations of multi-layer perceptrons trained to model the identity function. It has been discovered that representation has a marked effect on extrapolation. Antony Browne2001-08-15Z2011-03-11T08:54:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1676This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16762001-08-15ZResponse Dynamics of Entorhinal Cortex in Awake, Anesthetized, and Bulbotomized Rats. <i>Brain Research</i> <b>911</b>(2)The generation of oscillatory activity may be crucial to brain function. The coordination of individual neurons into rhythmic and coherently active populations is thought to result from interactions between excitatory and inhibitory cells mediated by local feedback connections. By using extracellular recording wires and silicon microprobes to measure electrically evoked damped oscillatory responses at the level of neural populations in the entorhinal cortex, and by using current-source density analysis to determine the spatial pattern of evoked responses, we show that the propagation of activity through the cortical circuit and consequent oscillations in the local field potential are dependent upon background neural activity. Pharmacological manipulations as well as surgical disconnection of the olfactory bulb serve to quell the background excitatory input incident to entorhinal cortex, resulting in evoked responses without characteristic oscillations and showing no signs of polysynaptic feedback. Electrical stimulation at 200 Hz applied to the lateral olfactory tract provides a substitute for the normal background activity emanating from the bulb and enables the generation of oscillatory responses once again. We conclude that a nonzero background level of activity is necessary and sufficient to sustain normal oscillatory responses and polysynaptic transmission through the entorhinal cortex.
Kurt F. AhrensWalter J. Freeman2001-06-20Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1632This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16322001-06-20ZRestriction of task processing time affects cortical activity during processing of a cognitive task: an event-related slow cortical potential studyAs is known from psychometrics, restriction of task processing time by the instruction to respond as quickly and accurately as possible leads to task-unspecific cognitive processing. Since this task processing mode is used in most functional neuroimaging studies of human
cognition, this may evoke cortical activity that is functionally not essential for the particular task under investigation. Using topographic recordings of event-related slow cortical potentials, two experiments have been performed to investigate whether cortical activity during
processing of a visuo-spatial imagery task is substantially influenced by the time provided to process the task. Furthermore, it was investigated whether this effect is additionally modulated by a subjects task-specific ability. The instruction to respond as quickly and accurately as possible led to increased negative slow cortical potential amplitudes over parietal and frontal regions and significantly interacted with task-specific ability. While cortical activity recorded over parietal and frontal regions was different between subjects with low and high spatial ability when processing time was unrestricted, no such differences were found between ability groups when subjects
were instructed to answer both quickly and accurately. These results suggest that restricting processing time has considerable effects on the amount and the pattern of brain activity during cognitive processing and should be taken into account more explicitly in the experimental design and interpretation of neuroimaging studies of cognition.Claus LammHerbert BauerOliver VitouchSusanne DurecRoswitha GronisterReinhard Gstättner2003-10-29Z2011-03-11T08:55:23Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3256This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32562003-10-29ZReview of A. Cormack’s "Definitions"Review of Cormack, Annabel. 1998. Definitions: Implications for Syntax, Semantics, and the Language of Thought. New York: Garland.Richard Horsey2001-03-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1359This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13592001-03-11ZReview of Don Dedrick, Naming the Rainbow: colour language, colour science, and culture.By spotlighting the irreducible role of cognitive processes between biology and culture, this synthesis and critique of the universalist tradition in colour science offers a genuine starting-point for all future 'serious inquiry
into the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of colour classification'. John Sutton2001-03-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1360This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13602001-03-11ZReview of Jerry Fodor, The Mind Doesnt Work That Way: the scope and limits of computational psychologyThis review sketches Fodor's critique of evolutionary psychology and the 'massive modularity' thesis; queries his views on abduction in central processes; and suggests that his pessimism about the scope of computational psychology undermines his realism about folk psychology.John Sutton2001-03-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1361This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13612001-03-11ZReview of Michel Jouvet, The Paradox of Sleep: the story of dreaming; and Patricia Cox Miller, Dreams in Late AntiquityThis review describes central difficulties in the interdisciplinary study of dreaming, summarizes Jouvet's account of his role in the history of modern dream science, queries his positive speculations on the semantics of dreaming, and suggests work for historians of neuroscience.John Sutton2004-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3590This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35902004-04-30ZRhesus monkeys use geometric and non geometric during a reorientation taskRhesus monkeys (Macaca mulata) were subjected to a place finding task in a rectangular room perfectly homogeneous and without distinctive featural information. Results of Experiment 1 show that monkeys rely on the large-scale geometry of the room to retrieve a food reward. Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that subjects use also nongeometric information (colored wall) to reorient. Data of Experiments 4 and 5 suggest that monkeys do not use small angular cues but that they are sensitive to the size of the cues (Experiments 6, 7, and 8). Our findings strengthen the idea that a mechanism based on the geometry of the environment is at work in several mammalian species. In addition, the present data offer new perspectives on spatial cognition in animals that are phylogenetically close to humans. Specifically, the joint use of both geometric and landmark-based cues by rhesus monkeys tends to demonstrate that spatial processing became more flexible with evolution
S GouteuxC Thinus-BlancJ Vauclair2004-12-28Z2011-03-11T08:55:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4003This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/40032004-12-28ZRUSSIAN VERBS OF SPATIAL ORIENTATION STAND, SIT, LIEThe semantics of Russian verbs of spatial orientation is far from being simple or trivial; complex spatial concepts categorized in these lexical items are based on a number of cognitive structures that emerge from different modes of man’s interaction with the environment. Prof. A.V. Kravchenko2003-04-24Z2011-03-11T08:55:15Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2906This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/29062003-04-24ZScientific Models, Connectionist Networks, and Cognitive ScienceThe employment of a particular class of computer programs known as "connectionist networks" to model mental processes is a widespread approach to research in
cognitive science these days. Little has been written, however, on the precise connection that is thought to hold between such programs and actual in vivo cognitive
processes such that the former can be said to "model" the latter in a scientific sense. What is more, this relation can be shown to be problematic. In this paper I give
a brief overview of the use of connectionist models in cognitive science, and then explore some of the statements connectionists have made about the nature of the
"modeling relation" thought to hold between them and cognitive processes. Finally I show that these accounts are inadequate and that more work is necessary if
connectionist networks are to be seriously regarded as scientific models of cognitive processesChristopher D. Green2001-05-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1526This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15262001-05-30ZSelection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of healthWe model the effects of Schumperterian 'selecton pressures' -- in particular Apartheid and the neoliberal 'market economy' -- on organizational cognition in minority communities, given the special role of culture in human biology. Our focus is on the dual-function social networks by which culture is imposed and maintained on individuals and by which immediate patterns of opportunity and threat are recognized and given response. A mathematical model based on recent advances in complexity theory displays a joint cross-scale linkage of social, individual central nervous system, and immune cognition with external selection pressure through mixed and synergistic punctuated 'learning plateaus.' This provides a natural mechanism for addressing the social determinants of health at the individual level. The implications of the model, particularly the predictions of synergistic punctuation, appear to be empirically testable.Rodrick Wallace2007-08-20Z2011-03-11T08:56:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5667This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/56672007-08-20ZSelective vulnerability to kainate-induced oxidative damage in different rat brain regionsSome markers of oxidative injury were measured in different rat brain areas (hippocampus, cerebral cortex, striatum, hypothalamus, amygdala/piriform cortex and cerebellum) after the systemic administration of an excitotoxic dose of kainic acid (KA, 9 mg kg(-1) i.p.) at two different sampling times (24 and 48 h). Kainic acid was able to lower markedly (P < 0.05) the glutathione (GSH) levels in hippocampus, cerebellum and amygdala/piriform cortex (maximal reduction at 24 h). In a similar way, lipid peroxidation, as assessed by malonaldehyde and 4-hydroxyalkenal levels, significantly increased (P < 0.05) in hippocampus, cerebellum and amygdala/piriform cortex mainly at 24 h after KA. In addition, hippocampal superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity decreased significantly (P < 0.05) with respect to basal levels by 24 h after KA application. On the other hand, brain areas such as hypothalamus, striatum and cerebral cortex seem to be less susceptible to KA excitotoxicity. According to these findings, the pattern of oxidative injury induced by systemically administered KA seems to be highly region-specific. Further, our results have shown that a lower antioxidant status (GSH and SOD) seems not to play an important role in the selective vulnerability of certain brain regions because it correlates poorly with increases in markers of oxidative damage.Eduardo Candelario-JalilSaied M. Al-DalainRuben CastilloGregorio MartinezOlga S. Leon2002-03-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2129This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21292002-03-12ZThe Self-Archiving AlternativeLine Roberts et al., in "Building A "GenBank" of the Published Literature"
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5512/2318a), Sequeira et al., in "PubMed Central decides to decentralize"
(http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/pubmed.html) announce a new policy from PubMedCentral (PMC). PMC
already accepts contents from publishers who are only willing to free them 6-12 months after publication. Now PMC is ready
to accept just the metadata from those publishers, linking to their toll-gated websites, if they agree to give away their contents
on their own websites 6-12 months after publication. Free access to refereed research a year after publication is better then no access, but it's too little, too late. The details of the self-archiving alternative for freeing the entire refereed corpus now (including questions of copyright and
embargo) are fully described in Harnad (2001) http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm.
Stevan Harnad2001-06-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1642This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16422001-06-26ZThe Self-Archiving InitiativeUnlike the authors of books and magazine articles, who write their texts for royalty or fee income, the authors of refereed journal
articles write them only for "research impact", which means for their effects on research and researchers. In order to reach
researchers and to have an effect on their research (so the latter can use the findings in their own work), these refereed journal
articles have to be accessible to their potential users. Hence, the idea that access to them should be toll-gated in any way makes as
much sense as toll-gated access to commercial advertisements.Stevan Harnad2001-05-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:25Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1064This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10642001-05-29ZSelf-motion and the perception of stationary objectsOne of the ways we perceive shape is through seeing motion. Visual motion may be actively generated (for example, in locomotion), or passively observed. In the study of how we perceive 3D structure from motion (SfM), the non-moving, passive observer in an environment of moving rigid objects has been used as a substitute for an active observer moving in an environment of stationary objects; the 'rigidity hypothesis' has played a central role in computational and experimental studies of SfM. Here we demonstrate that this substitution is not fully adequate, because active observers perceive 3D structure differently from passive observers, despite experiencing the same visual stimulus: active observers' perception of 3D structure depends on extra-visual self-motion information. Moreover, the visual system, making use of the self-motion information treats objects that are stationary (in an allocentric, earth-fixed reference frame) differently from objects that are merely rigid. These results show that action plays a central role in depth perception, and argue for a revision of the rigidity hypothesis to incorporate the special case of stationary objects.
Mark WexlerFrancesco PaneraiIvan LamouretJacques Droulez2001-11-23Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1914This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19142001-11-23ZA self-organizing neural network model of the acquisition of word meaningIn this paper we present a self-organizing connectionist model of the acquisition of word meaning. Our model consists of two neural networks and builds on the basic concepts of Hebbian learning and self-organization. One network learns to approximate word transition probabilities, which are used for lexical representation, and the other network, a self-organizing map, is trained on these representations, projecting them onto a 2D space. The model relies on lexical co-occurrence information to represent word meanings in the lexicon. The results show that our model is able to acquire semantic representations from both artificial data and real corpus of language use. In addition, the model demonstrates the ability to develop rather accurate word representations even with a sparse training set.
Igor FarkasPing Li2001-11-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1910This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19102001-11-22ZSemantic Effect on Episodic AssociationsWe examined the influence of the pre-existing organiza-tion of the semantic memory on forming new episodic associations between words. Testing human subjects' performance we found that a semantic relationship be-tween words facilitates forming episodic associations be-tween them. Furthermore, the amount of facilitation in-creases linearly as a function of the number of co-occurrence of the words, up to a ceiling. Constrained by these empirical findings we developed a computational model, based on the theory of spreading activation over semantic networks. The model uses self-organizing maps to represent semantic relatedness, and lateral connections to represent the episodic associations. When two words are presented to the model, the interaction of the two ac-tivation waves is summed and added to the direct lateral connection between them. The main result is that the model is capable of replicating the empirical results. The model also makes several testable predictions: First, it should be easier to form an association from a word with few semantic neighbors to a word with many se-mantic neighbors than vice-versa. Second, after associat-ing an unrelated word pair it should be easier to associate another two words each related to one of the words in the first pair. Third, a less focused activation wave, which may be the cause of schizophrenic thought disor-der, should decrease the advantage in learning rate of re-lated over unrelated pairs.Yaron SilbermanRisto MiikkulainenShlomo Bentin2002-02-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2086This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20862002-02-25ZSimple principles for a complex output: An experiment in early syntactic developmentA set of iterative mechanisms, the Three-Step Algorithm, is proposed to account for the burst in the syntactic capacities of children over age two. These mechanisms are based on the childrens perception, memory, elementary rule-like behavior and cognitive capacities, and do not require any specific innate grammatical capacities. The relevance of the Three-Step Algorithm is tested, using the large Manchester corpus in the CHILDES database. The results show that 80% of the utterances can be exactly reconstructed and that, when incomplete reconstructions are taken into account, 94% of all utterances are reconstructed. The Three-Step Algorithm should be followed by the progressive acquisition of syntactic categories and use of slot-and-frame structures which lead to a greater and more complex linguistic mastery.Christophe Parisse2001-07-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1702This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17022001-07-18ZSix Proposals for Freeing the Refereed Literature Online: A ComparisonCurrently there are six candidate strategies for freeing the refereed research
literature:
(1) Authors paying journal publishers for publisher-supplied online-offprints.
(2) Asking journals to give away their contents online for free and boycotting
those that do not. (3) Library consortial support (e.g. SPARC) for lower-priced
journals. (4) Delayed journal give-aways -- 6-to-12+ months after
publication. (5) Giving up established journals and peer review altogether, in
favour of self-archived preprints and post-hoc, ad-lib commentary. (6)
Self-archiving all preprints and postprints.
(1) - (5) all require waiting for policy changes and, even once these are
available, all require a needless sacrifice on the part of authors. With (1) the
sacrifice is the needless author offprint expense, with (2) it is the author's right
to submit to their preferred journals, with (3) it is (as before) the author's
potential impact on those potential users who cannot afford even the lowered
access tolls, with (4) it is the impact of the all-important first 6-12 months
after publication, and with (5) the sacrifice is the quality of the literature itself.
Only (6) asks researchers for no sacrifices at all, and no waiting for any
change in journal policy or price. The only delay factor has been authors' own
relative sluggishness in just going ahead and doing it! Nevertheless, (6) is
well ahead of the other 5 candidates, in terms of the total number of papers
thus freed already, thanks to the lead taken by the physicists.Stevan Harnad2002-04-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2176This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21762002-04-12ZA Solution to Goodman's ParadoxEnglish translation of a paper intially publisdhed in French in Dialogue under the title 'Une solution pour le paradoxe de Goodman'. In the classical version of Goodman's paradox, the universe where the problem takes place is ambiguous. The conditions of induction being accurately described, I define then a framework of n-universes, allowing the distinction, among the criteria of a given n-universe, between constants and variables. Within this framework, I distinguish between two versions of the problem, respectively taking place: (i) in an n-universe the variables of which are colour and time; (ii) in an n-universe the variables of which are colour, time and space. Finally, I show that each of these versions admits a specific resolution.Paul Franceschi2003-01-27Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2388This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23882003-01-27ZSpeculations on a privileged state of cognitive dissonanceThis paper examines two commonly held and conflicting cognitions in the modern world, each based on a belief vital to the individual's sense of self, both maintained in what is here considered as a chronic state of dissonance. This psychological inconsistency consists of an inherent practical belief in the goodness of empirical knowledge and a culturally-developed transcendent belief denying, or at least mitigating, empirical evidence about the finite nature of individual life and affirming a counter-empirical belief in supernatural: supra-cause-and-effect forces that influence life. I argue that since both beliefs are highly resistant to change, they lead to an impasse that individuals in diverse cultures have borne and been motivated to maintain. They have borne it, as I hope to show, because the consonant “cure” has proved to be more discomforting than the dissonant condition.
Conrad Montellcmontell@comcast.net2002-03-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2131This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21312002-03-12ZSpielberg's AI: Another Cuddly No-BrainerReview of Spielberg's movie "AI."Stevan Harnad2006-12-22Z2011-03-11T08:56:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5331This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/53312006-12-22ZSpielberg's AI: Another Cuddly No-BrainerReview of Spielberg's movie "AI."Stevan Harnad2002-09-26Z2011-03-11T08:55:00Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2475This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24752002-09-26ZThe Split-Brain debate revisited: On the importance of language and self-recognition for right hemispheric consciousness. In this commentary I use recent empirical evidence and
theoretical analyses concerning the importance of language and the meaning of self-recognition to reevaluate the claim that the right mute hemisphere in commissurotomized patients possesses a full consciousness. Preliminary data indicate that inner speech is deeply linked to self-awareness; also, four hypotheses concerning the crucial role inner speech plays in self-focus are presented. The legitimacy of self-recognition as a strong operationalization of self-awareness in the right hemisphere is also questioned on the basis that it might rather tap a preexisting body awareness having little to do with an access to mental events. I conclude with the formulation of an alternative interpretation of commissurotomy according to self-awareness — a “complete” one in the left hemisphere and a “primitive” one in the right hemisphere,Alain Morin2001-08-21Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1762This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17622001-08-21ZStructural phenomenology: a top-down analytic methodologyGurwitsch, following Husserl, described two structural parameters applicable to all phenomena: the intensity of our experiences, and their salience, i.e., their experienced relevance to other entities in consciousness. These dimensions subsume experiences within structures indicating the degree of attention consciously paid to phenomena, and their significance to other phenomena experienced simultaneously. For example, the recession to or from unconsciousness of mental contents may be described by the variation of their saliences and intensities. The focal organization implied by these dimensions gives rise to the "searchlight" configuration underlying many models. Consciousness can be structurally analyzed more deeply than this, however. Through incorporation of two other parameters: an internalization of intentionality which I term microdirectionality, and a description of the recursive microstructure of the phenomenal field (layered recursion), strata of interrelated structures may be employed to explicate experiences in great depth. I will introduce these structural parameters and describe how this more inclusive perspective enables some aspects of both static interrelationships and the dynamics of the creation and dissolution of a variety of sensory, conceptual and linguistic phenomena to be explicated. I will utilize the tip-of-tongue phenomenon as an illustrative example.Steven Ravett Brown2002-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2383This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23832002-08-08ZSurvey of Nutrition Education in U.S. Medical Schools – An Instructor-Based Analysis
Background: Recent reports on the state of nutrition in U.S. medical schools suggest that these schools are challenged to incorporate nutrition into an already full curriculum.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the current state of nutrition education in US medical schools based on information reported by individuals responsible for teaching nutrition to medical students.
Design: Between July 1999 and May 2000, we surveyed 122 U.S. medical and osteopathic schools. The survey was mailed to the nutrition educator at each institution; recipients could return the survey via mail, fax, or the web.
Results: The majority of the 98 medical schools responding to the survey provided nutrition education. In 90% of responding U.S. medical and osteopathic schools (representing 88 of 98 schools and over 65% of all institutions), all students were guaranteed exposure to nutrition. An average of 18 ± 12 hours of nutrition was required, including material integrated into other types of courses.
Conclusions: Our findings indicate that nutrition education is an integral part of the curriculum for the majority of US medical schools surveyed. A number of medical schools have chosen to incorporate nutrition education into already established basic science and clinical courses.
Frank M. Torti JrKelly M. Adams MPH, RDLloyd J. Edwards PhDKaren C. Lindell MS, RDSteven H. Zeisel MD, PhD2001-04-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1439This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14392001-04-08ZTestosterone and grasp-reflex differences in human neonatesAccording to the Geschwind-Behan-Galaburda (GBG) hypothesis, prenatal testosterone (T) causes a slowing in the development of the left brain with a consequent compensatory growth in the right brain, creating a reverse organisation of the cerebral lateralisation. That is, left- and right-handedness might be associated with high and low prenatal T levels, respectively. To test this
hypothesis, the relations of T levels (umbilical cord blood) to grasp-reflex strengths were studied in human neonates. Handedness was assessed by measuring
the grasp-reflex strengths from the right and left hands in 10 trials from each hand alternatively. There were two handedness groups: right-handers (R-L significantly
greater than zero) and left-handers (significantly smaller than zero). Contrary to the GBG model, the mean free T concentration was found to be significantly higher in
right-handers than left-handers for males and females. There was no significant difference in the total T levels between right- and left-handers. Free T concentrations positively correlated with R-L grasp-reflex strengths, i.e. right-handedness increased as T increased, and left-handedness increased as T decreased. Contrary to these positive correlations, T negatively correlated with
the grasp-reflex strengths from the right and left hands. These results partly supported the GBG hypothesis for this spinal-motor-asymmetry model. Total T did not significantly correlate with grasp-reflex strengths. The results suggest that prenatal T may at least play a role in prenatal determination of spinal motor lateralisation, with a possible consequent upward regulation of cerebral
lateralisation.
Uner TanMeliha Tan2001-08-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1635This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16352001-08-12ZTheory Grounding in Embodied Artificially Intelligent SystemsTheory grounding is suggested as a way to address the unresolved cognitive science issues of systematicity and productivity. Theory grounding involves grounding the theory skills and knowledge of an embodied artificially intelligent (AI) system by developing theory skills and knowledge from the bottom up. It is proposed that theory grounded AI systems should be patterned after the psychological developmental stages that infants and young children go through in acquiring naïve theories. Systematicity and productivity are properties of certain representational systems indicating the range of representations the systems can form. Systematicity and productivity are likely outcomes of theory grounded AI systems because systematicity and productivity are theoretical concepts. Theory grounded systems should be well oriented to acquire and develop these theoretical concepts.Christopher Prince2001-10-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1836This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18362001-10-22ZThe three gorillas: an archetype orders a dynamic systemThe personality is a dynamic system. Like all other dynamic systems, it must be self-organized. In this paper I focus upon the archetype-as-such, that is, upon the essential core around which both an archetypal image and a complex are organized. I argue that an archetype-as-such is a pre-existing principle of organization. Within the personality that principle manifests itself as a psychological vortex (a complex) into which we are drawn. The vortex is impersonal. We mediate it through myths and rituals or through consciousness. In this paper I show that
Jungs intuition about the archetype-as-such is supported by recent science. I evaluate other concepts of the
archetype. My concept allows each archetype-as-such to be defined precisely in mathematical terms. It also addresses our spiritual experience of an archetype.The human genome has only about 32,000 genes. How does human complexity arise from so few genes? Part of the answer must lie in the archetypes. Because of its familiarity with the archetypes, analytical psychology has a contribution to make here. Because the archetypes-as-such are fundamental to the personality, the better we understand them the better we understand our patients. The paper is grounded with clinical examples. Maxson J. McDowell2007-08-20Z2011-03-11T08:56:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5644This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/56442007-08-20ZTime course of oxidative damage in different brain regions following transient cerebral ischemia in gerbilsThe time course of oxidative damage in different brain regions was investigated in the gerbil model of transient cerebral ischemia. Animals were subjected to both common carotid arteries occlusion for 5 min. After the end of ischemia and at different reperfusion times (2, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96 h and 7 days), markers of lipid peroxidation, reduced and oxidized glutathione levels, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) and copper/zinc containing SOD (Cu/ZnSOD) activities were measured in hippocampus, cortex and striatum. Oxidative damage in hippocampus was maximal at late stages after ischemia (48-96 h) coincident with a significant impairment in glutathione homeostasis. MnSOD increased in hippocampus at 24, 48 and 72 h after ischemia, coincident with the marked reduction in the activity of glutathione-related enzymes. The late disturbance in oxidant-antioxidant balance corresponds with the time course of delayed neuronal loss in the hippocampal CA1 sector. Cerebral cortex showed early changes in oxidative damage with no significant impairment in antioxidant capacity. Striatal lipid peroxidation significantly increased as early as 2 h after ischemia and persisted until 48 h with respect to the sham-operated group. These results contribute significant information on the timing and factors that influence free radical formation following ischemic brain injury, an essential step in determining effective antioxidant intervention.Eduardo Candelario-JalilNoel H. MhaduSaied M. Al-DalainGregorio MartinezOlga S. Leon2004-05-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:33Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3610This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/36102004-05-06ZThe triple task technique for studying writing processes : on which task is attention focused ?The triple task technique measures the time and cognitive effort devoted to specific writing processes by combining directed retrospection with secondary task reaction time (RT). Writing a text is the primary task and rapidly detecting auditory probes to index cognitive effort is the secondary task. The third task is retrospecting and categorizing the contents of working memory at the time of each probe. The present paper reviews studies on the reactivity and validity of the technique. Further, one recent criticism of the method's validity is tested here: namely, that the primary task for the experimenter is not the primary task for the writer, thus distorting the time and effort measurements. We found that time and effort allocated to planning, translating, executing, evaluating, and revising was the same when the writer was encouraged by instructions to focus either on the speed of responding or the accuracy of retrospection instead of the text itself. Because writing requires sustained thought and attention to produce a cumulative product, it is apparently difficult to make text production anything but the primary task. The triple task technique offers a useful alternative to pause analysis and verbal protocols for investigating the functional features of writing.A PiolatR T KelloggF Farioli2001-06-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1615This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16152001-06-19ZTuring Indistinguishability and the Blind Watchmaker Many special problems crop up when evolutionary theory turns, quite naturally, to the question of the
adaptive value and causal role of consciousness in human and nonhuman organisms. One problem is that -- unless we are
to be dualists, treating it as an independent nonphysical force -- consciousness could not have had an independent adaptive
function of its own, over and above whatever behavioral and physiological functions it "supervenes" on, because evolution
is completely blind to the difference between a conscious organism and a functionally equivalent (Turing Indistinguishable)
nonconscious "Zombie" organism: In other words, the Blind Watchmaker, a functionalist if ever there was one, is no more
a mind reader than we are. Hence Turing-Indistinguishability = Darwin-Indistinguishability. It by no means follows from
this, however, that human behavior is therefore to be explained only by the push-pull dynamics of Zombie determinism, as
dictated by calculations of "inclusive fitness" and "evolutionarily stable strategies." We are conscious, and, more important,
that consciousness is piggy-backing somehow on the vast complex of unobservable internal activity -- call it "cognition" --
that is really responsible for generating all of our behavioral capacities. Hence, except in the palpable presence of the
irrational (e.g., our sexual urges) where distal Darwinian factors still have some proximal sway, it is as sensible to seek a
Darwinian rather than a cognitive explanation for most of our current behavior as it is to seek a cosmological rather than an
engineering explanation of an automobile's behavior. Let evolutionary theory explain what shaped our cognitive capacity
(Steklis & Harnad 1976; Harnad 1996, but let cognitive theory explain our resulting behavior. Stevan Harnad2001-08-07Z2011-03-11T08:54:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1730This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17302001-08-07ZUnderstanding death as the cessation of intentional action: A cross-cultural developmental studyDetermining whether or not an entity is capable of acting intentionally is a fundamental cognitive skill that emerges in the first year of infancy, and the inability to act is a key aspect distinguishing dead from living things. Though young childrens understanding of death is generally thought to be poor, an understanding of death as the permanent cessation of agency might develop early in childhood. This study tested the cessation-of-agency hypothesis cross-culturally, by examining the differences between childrens judgments about sleeping and dead animals. The results showed that children understand that death entails the permanent cessation of the ability to act by age 4 in two different cultures. This is consistent with a view that those distinctions that are most crucial for adaptive decision-making are the ones that develop earliest.H. Clark BarrettTanya Behne2006-04-29Z2011-03-11T08:56:24Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4857This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/48572006-04-29ZUniversal Dynamic Complexity as the Basis for Theoretic Ecology and Unified Civilisation Transition to Creative Global SustainabilityThe recently proposed new, universally applicable, rigorously derived and reality-based concept of dynamic complexity provides a unified basis for the causally complete understanding of any real, multi-component and multi-level system of interacting entities, including the case of earth system and global civilisation development. This crucial extension with respect to other existing notions of complexity is obtained due the unrestricted, universally nonperturbative analysis of arbitrary interaction process leading to the new, rigorously derived concept of dynamically multivalued (redundant) entanglement of interacting components. Any real system with interaction is described as a sequence of autonomously emerging "levels of complexity", where each level includes unceasing, dynamically random change of multiple system configurations, or "realisations", each of them resulting from dynamic entanglement of interaction components coming, generally, from lower complexity levels. Dynamic complexity as such is universally defined as a growing function of the number of those explicitly obtained system realisations (or related rate of their change). Mathematically rigorous, realistic and universal nature of unreduced dynamic complexity determines its unique role as a basis for theoretical ecology. This conclusion is confirmed by several directions of universal complexity application to global change understanding and monitoring. They include the rigorously substantiated necessity of civilisation transition to the superior level of complexity involving new, intrinsically unified and causally complete kind of knowledge (initiated by the "universal science of complexity"), qualitatively new kind of material production, social structure, and infrastructure. We show why that new level of civilisation development is intrinsically "sustainable", i. e. characterised by creative, complexity-increasing interaction between "production" and "natural resources" that replaces current contradiction between them.Andrei Kirilyuk2001-07-02Z2011-03-11T08:54:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1665This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16652001-07-02ZVaccine strategy when the smallpox model fails: 1. immune cognition, Malaria and the FulaniWe begin to examine the implications of IR Cohen's work on immune cognition [1-3] for vaccine strategies when simple
elicitation of sterilizing immunity fails, as is the case
for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. Cohen's approach takes on a special importance in the context of recent work by Nisbett et al. [4] showing clearly that central nervous system (CNS) cognition is not universal, but rather differs fundamentally for populations having different cultural systems. A growing body of evolutionary anthropology indeed suggests that such effects are inevitable, since culture is as much a part of human biology 'as the enamel on our teeth.' Thus a successful vaccine strategy for use when the smallpox model fails must address a condensation of sociocultural and immune cognition, in the same sense that neuroimmunology and immunogenetics describe the condensation of CNS and genetic 'languages' with immune function. We reinterpret recent studies of African cultural variation in immune response to malaria from this perspective.Rodrick WallaceRobert G Wallace2003-07-25Z2011-03-11T08:55:19Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3082This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/30822003-07-25ZVisualization of Data by Method of Elastic Maps and Its Applications in Genomics, Economics and Sociology Technology of data visualization and data modeling is suggested. The basic of the technology is original idea of elastic net and methods of its construction and application. A short review of relevant methods has been made. The methods proposed are illustrated by applying them to the real economical, sociological and biological datasets and to some model data distributions.
The basic of the technology is original idea of elastic net - regular point approximation of some manifold that is put into the multidimensional space and has in a certain sense minimal energy. This manifold is an analogue of principal surface and serves as non-linear screen on what multidimensional data are projected.
Remarkable feature of the technology is its ability to work with and to fill gaps in data tables. Gaps are unknown or unreliable values of some features. It gives a possibility to predict plausibly values of unknown features by values of other ones. So it provides technology of constructing different prognosis systems and non-linear regressions.
The technology can be used by specialists in different fields. There are several examples of applying the method presented in the end of this paper.
Prof. Alexander. N. GorbanDr. Andrei Yu. Zinovyev2003-08-08Z2011-03-11T08:55:19Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3088This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/30882003-08-08ZVisualization of Data by Method of Elastic Maps and Its Applications in Genomics, Economics and Sociology Technology of data visualization and data modeling is suggested. The basic of the technology is original idea of elastic net and methods of its construction and application. A short review of relevant methods has been made. The methods proposed are illustrated by applying them to the real economical, sociological and biological datasets and to some model data distributions.
The basic of the technology is original idea of elastic net - regular point approximation of some manifold that is put into the multidimensional space and has in a certain sense minimal energy. This manifold is an analogue of principal surface and serves as non-linear screen on what multidimensional data are projected.
Remarkable feature of the technology is its ability to work with and to fill gaps in data tables. Gaps are unknown or unreliable values of some features. It gives a possibility to predict plausibly values of unknown features by values of other ones. So it provides technology of constructing different prognosis systems and non-linear regressions.
The technology can be used by specialists in different fields. There are several examples of applying the method presented in the end of this paper.
Prof. Alexander. N. GorbanDr. Andrei Yu. Zinovyev2002-07-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2324This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23242002-07-16ZWhat does it take to evolve behaviorally complex organisms?What genotypic features explain the evolvability of organisms that have to accomplish many different tasks? The genotype of behaviorally complex organisms may be more likely to encode modular neural architectures because neural modules dedicated to distinct tasks avoid neural interference, i.e., the arrival of conflicting messages for changing the value of connection weights during learning. However, if the connection weights for the various modules are genetically inherited, this raises the problem of genetic linkage: favorable mutations may fall on one portion of the genotype encoding one neural module and unfavorable mutations on another portion encoding another module. We show that this can prevent the genotype from reaching an adaptive optimum. This effect is different from other linkage effects described in the literature and we argue that it represents a new class of genetic constraints. Using simulations we show that sexual reproduction can alleviate the problem of genetic linkage by recombining separate modules all of which incorporate either favorable or unfavorable mutations. We speculate that this effect may contribute to the taxonomic prevalence of sexual reproduction among higher organisms. In addition to sexual recombination, the problem of genetic linkage for behaviorally complex organisms may be mitigated by entrusting evolution with the task of finding appropriate modular architectures and learning with the task of finding the appropriate connection weights for these architectures.Raffaele CalabrettaAndrea Di FerdinandoGünter P. WagnerDomenico Parisi2001-12-02Z2011-03-11T08:54:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1954This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19542001-12-02ZWhat have we learned from evolutionary psychology?Evolutionary psychology claims biological inclinations for certain behaviors (e.g., a desire for more frequent sex and more sexual partners by males as compared to females), and the origin of these inclinations in natural selection. Jerry Fodors recent book, The Mind Doesnt Work that Way (2000), grants the nativist case for such biological grounding but disputes the presumed certainty of its origin in natural selection. Nevertheless, there is today a consensus that at least some of the claims of evolutionary psychology are true, and their broad appeal suggests that many see them as easy insights into and possible license for some controversial behaviors. Evolutionary psychologists, on the other hand, caution that an origin in natural selection implies only an inclination for certain behaviors, and not that the behaviors will be true of all people, will lead to happiness or are morally correct. But such cautions can be as facile as the simplistic positions they are intended to counter. A biological basis implies tendencies to behaviors that will be pleasurable when engaged in, and that can be modified to an extent and at a psychic cost that is, at best, not fully understood. Also, while it is true that naturally selected behaviors are not necessarily moral, the implications of current evolutionary psychology cast doubt on any absolute foundation for morality at all, as well as suggesting limits on our ability to fully understand both ourselves and the universe around us. However, this does not mean that our (relative) values or apparent free will are any less real or important for us.Marc Krellenstein2001-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1468This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14682001-04-30ZWhat is at stake in taking responsibility? Lessons from third-party property insuranceThird-party property insurance (TPPI) protects insured drivers who accidentally damage an
expensive car from the threat of financial ruin. Perhaps more importantly though, TPPI also protects
the victims whose losses might otherwise go uncompensated. Ought responsible drivers therefore
take out TPPI?
This paper begins by enumerating some reasons for why a rational person might believe that they
have a moral obligation to take out TPPI. It will be argued that if what is at stake in taking
responsibility is the ability to compensate our possible future victims for their losses, then it might
initially seem that most people should be thankful for the availability of relatively inexpensive TPPI
because without it they may not have sufficient funds to do the right thing and compensate their
victims in the event of an accident.
But is the ability to compensate one's victims really what is at stake in taking responsibility? The
second part of this paper will critically examine the arguments for the above position, and it will
argue that these arguments do not support the conclusion that injurers should compensate their
victims for their losses, and hence that drivers need not take out TPPI in order to be responsible.
Further still, even if these arguments did support the conclusion that injurers should compensate
their victims for their losses, then (perhaps surprisingly) nobody should to be allowed to take out
TPPI because doing so would frustrate justice.Nicole Vincent2001-06-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1622This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16222001-06-19ZWhat's Wrong and Right About Searle's Chinese Room Argument?Searle's Chinese Room Argument showed a fatal flaw in computationalism
(the idea that mental states are just computational states) and helped usher in
the era of situated robotics and symbol grounding (although Searle himself
thought neuroscience was the only correct way to understand the mind).Stevan Harnad2005-01-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4023This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/40232005-01-06ZWhat's Wrong and Right About Searle's Chinese Room Argument?Searle's Chinese Room Argument showed a fatal flaw in computationalism
(the idea that mental states are just computational states) and helped usher in
the era of situated robotics and symbol grounding (although Searle himself
thought neuroscience was the only correct way to understand the mind).Stevan Harnad2001-11-14Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1886This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18862001-11-14ZWhen is a conclusion worth deriving? A relevance-based analysis of indeterminate relational problemsWhen is a conclusion worth deriving? We claim that a conclusion is worth deriving to the extent that it is relevant in the sense of relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995). To support this hypothesis, we experiment with "indeterminate relational problems" where we ask participants what, if anything, follows from premises such as A is taller than B, A is taller than C. With such problems, the indeterminate response that nothing follows is common, and we explain why. We distinguish several types of determinate conclusions and show that their rate is a function of their relevance. We argue that by appropriately changing the formulation of the premises, the relevance of determinate conclusions can be increased, and the rate of indeterminate responses thereby reduced. We contrast these relevance-based predictions with predictions based on linguistic congruence.Jean-Baptiste Van der HenstGuy PolitzerDan Sperber2001-11-17Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1888This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18882001-11-17ZWhite Hole, Black Whole, and The BookIntellectual space is defined as the set of all proofs of mathematical logic, contained in The Book conceived by Erdos. Physical and intellectual spaces are visualized, making use of concepts from intuitive set theory.
Kannan Nambiar2004-07-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:27Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3395This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/33952004-07-06ZWhy and how research ethics matters to you, yes YOU!none.Janice SingerNorman G Vinson2001-05-09Z2011-03-11T08:54:38Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1492This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14922001-05-09ZWhy Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?In the 1950's, dream researchers commonly thought that dreams were predominantly a black-and-white phenomenon, although both earlier and later treatments of dreaming presume or assert that dreams have color. The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of black-and-white film media, and it is likely that the emergence of the view that dreams are black-and-white was connected with this change in media technology. If our opinions about basic features of our dreams can change with changes in technology, it seems to follow that our knowledge of the phenomenology of our own dreams is much less secure than we might at first have thought it to be.Eric Schwitzgebel2001-07-17Z2011-03-11T08:54:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1683This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16832001-07-17ZWhy I think research access, impact and assessment are linkedThe RAE can help hasten the freeing of access to this literature by mandating that all UK universities self-archive all their
annual refereed research in their own eprint archives. The harvesters (e.g., http://citebase.eprints.org )
will provide newer and richer measures of "impact" with the help of citation-linking services for open archives
(http://opcit.eprints.org is an international collaboration between Southampton, Cornell and the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, jointly supported by the NSF in the US and JISC in the UK). Not only the citation impact but the "hit"
impact, for both the papers and the authors at UK universities and abroad, will be not only accessible but assessable
continuously online by anyone who is interested, any time, instead of just in a quadrennial RAE exercise.Stevan Harnad