Sort-of symbols?

Dennett, Daniel C.; Viger, Christopher

doi:10.1017/s0140525x99262140

Cited by 20 publications

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“…Neo‐empiricist accounts generally identify concepts with either (1) simulators (i.e., organized systems of perceptual symbols) or (2) simulations (i.e., temporary representations in working memory). The problem with the first option is that it is underspecified with respect to how simulators carry out their functions (Dennett & Viger, ). The semantic pointer framework addresses this shortcoming by identifying concept occurrences with neural processes and by mechanistically describing these processes in terms of independently motivated principles of neural computation and a model‐based implementation, described below.…”

Section: Concepts As Semantic Pointersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model

et al. 2015

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The reconciliation of theories of concepts based on prototypes, exemplars, and theory-like structures is a longstanding problem in cognitive science. In response to this problem, researchers have recently tended to adopt either hybrid theories that combine various kinds of representational structure, or eliminative theories that replace concepts with a more finely grained taxonomy of mental representations. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach involving a single class of mental representations called "semantic pointers." Semantic pointers are symbol-like representations that result from the compression and recursive binding of perceptual, lexical, and motor representations, effectively integrating traditional connectionist and symbolic approaches. We present a computational model using semantic pointers that replicates experimental data from categorization studies involving each prior paradigm. We argue that a framework involving semantic pointers can provide a unified account of conceptual phenomena, and we compare our framework to existing alternatives in accounting for the scope, content, recursive combination, and neural implementation of concepts.

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Section: Concepts As Semantic Pointersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model

et al. 2015

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“…Although the embodied nature of language has received significant recent attention [8][9][10], computational hypotheses formulated in terms of specific representations and processes remain elusive [11]. Models of language grounding open a new avenue for modeling complex crossmodal phenomena arising in situated, embodied language use.…”

Section: Words About the Physical Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grounding words in perception and action: computational insights

Roy

2005

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

128

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We use words to communicate about things and kinds of things, their properties, relations and actions. Researchers are now creating robotic and simulated systems that ground language in machine perception and action, mirroring human abilities. A new kind of computational model is emerging from this work that bridges the symbolic realm of language with the physical realm of real-world referents. It explains aspects of context-dependent shifts of word meaning that cannot easily be explained by purely symbolic models. An exciting implication for cognitive modeling is the use of grounded systems to 'step into the shoes' of humans by directly processing first-person-perspective sensory data, providing a new methodology for testing various hypotheses of situated communication and learning.

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Supernatural Agents

Pyysiäinen

2009

121

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This book provides a cognitive scientific perspective to beliefs about supernatural agents. First, human intuitions about agents, agency, and counterintuitive concepts are outlined and explained. Second, various kinds of folk beliefs and theological doctrines about souls and spirits are analyzed in the light of the human cognitive architecture, using descriptions of spirit possession and shamanism as materials. Third, scholastic discussions of God’s cognitive capacities as well as folk-psychological God beliefs are analyzed. This analysis combines with a discussion of Buddhist ideas of soullesness and of buddhahood in textual traditions and in folk beliefs. Beliefs about God and buddhas are shown to rest on the same cognitive capacities of understanding agency and intentionality that underlie spirit beliefs. The Buddhist doctrine of soullessness was originally a denial of the self as a separate spiritual entity, not a denial of personal agency. God and buddhas differ from ordinary agents in that they are believed to have open access to all minds. Therefore, they can serve as means of representing what persons believe others to believe. Such divine minds are also used as an explanation for the fact that the whole of reality is intuitively experienced as if intentionally directed by a personal will. The book ends with a discussion of the future of religion and atheism.

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Sort-of symbols?

Abstract: Barsalou's elision of the personal and sub-personal levels tends to conceal the fact that he is, at best, providing the “specs” but not yet a model for his hypothesized perceptual symbols.

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model

Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model

Grounding words in perception and action: computational insights

Supernatural Agents

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