Concepts and predication from perception to cognition

Quilty‐Dunn, Jake

doi:10.1111/phis.12185

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 107 publications

(150 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…On the vision side, we propose that high-level perception generates representations of symmetry that are abstract and relational, such that they may easily interface with representations of symmetry in the conceptual system (Quilty-Dunn, 2020). Two aspects of our data support this proposal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where word and world meet: Language and vision share an abstract representation of symmetry.

Hafri¹,

Gleitman²,

Landau³

et al. 2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Symmetry is ubiquitous in nature, in logic and mathematics, and in perception, language, and thought. Although humans are exquisitely sensitive to visual symmetry (e.g., of a butterfly), symmetry in natural language goes beyond visuospatial properties: many words point to abstract concepts with symmetrical content (e.g., equal, marry). For example, if Mark marries Bill, then Bill marries Mark. In both cases (vision and language), symmetry may be formally characterized as invariance under transformation. Is this a coincidence, or is there some deeper psychological resemblance? Here we asked whether representations of symmetry correspond across language and vision. To do so, we developed a novel cross-modal matching paradigm. On each trial, participants observed a visual stimulus (either symmetrical or nonsymmetrical) and had to choose between a symmetrical and nonsymmetrical English predicate unrelated to the stimulus (e.g., "negotiate" vs. "propose"). In a first study with visual events (symmetrical collision or asymmetrical launch), participants reliably chose the predicate matching the event's symmetry. A second study showed that this "language-vision correspondence" generalized to objects and was weakened when the stimuli's binary nature was made less apparent (i.e., for one object, rather than two inward-facing objects). A final study showed the same effect when nonsigners guessed English translations of signs from American Sign Language, which expresses many symmetrical concepts spatially. Taken together, our findings support the existence of an abstract representation of symmetry which humans access via both perceptual and linguistic means. More broadly, this work sheds light on the rich, structured nature of the language-cognition interface.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where word and world meet: Language and vision share an abstract representation of symmetry.

Hafri¹,

Gleitman²,

Landau³

et al. 2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We propose instead to take it as an empirical question whether LoT-like representations are deployed in perception, and we'll argue that the answer is likely "Yes". If cognition is largely LoTlike, and perception feeds information to cognition, then we should expect at least some elements of perception to be LoT-like, since the two systems need to interface (Mandelbaum 2018;Quilty-Dunn 2020a;Cavanagh 2021). Our case studies include perceptual representations of objects (e.g., object files), relations within objects (e.g., part-whole relations), and relations between objects.…”

Section: Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xu 2019). Nonetheless, we believe a LoT-based model is better suited to the data than an iconic model (Green & Quilty-Dunn 2017;Quilty-Dunn 2020a;2020c). As far as we know, the possibility of logical operators in object files hasn't been studied.…”

Section: Object Filesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The best game in town: The reemergence of the language-of-thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences

Quilty‐Dunn¹,

Porot²,

Mandelbaum³

2022

Behav Brain Sci

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language of thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate-argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy of mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures—i.e., LoTs—only prove more flexible and well-supported over time.

show abstract

“…Gennaro (2012 : ch.8; says that HOT theory proponents have found evidence of higher-order states (which might be analogous to the type of representational states we are currently discussing), in some animals including some birds. See also Quilty-Dunn (2020) on perception in children and animals as arguably including discursive structure. But such evidence is far from making it plausible that all organisms that one did not wish to summarily ban from the court of consciousness are capable of the required complex representation of internal process portions.…”

Section: Meta-causal Prais Necessity Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness: A Meta-Causal Approach

Barnden

2022

Rev.Phil.Psych.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I present considerations surrounding pre-reflective self-consciousness (PRSC), arising in work I am conducting on a new physicalist, process-based account of [phenomenal] consciousness. The account is called the meta-causal account (MCA) because it identifies consciousness with a certain type of arrangement of meta-causation. Meta-causation is causation where a cause or effect is itself an instance of causation (e.g., A’s-causing-B causes C). The proposed type of arrangement involves a sort of time-spanning, internal reflexivity of the overall meta-causation. I argue that, as a result of the account, any conscious process has PRSC. Hence, PRSC does not need to be taken as a stipulation or argued for on purely phenomenological grounds or as a necessary support for reflective consciousness. I also show how it is natural to the account that PRSC is not an additional, peripheral, sort of consciousness, but is intrinsic to all consciousness, thereby fitting claims about self-intimation and co-constitution by various authors, and also being amenable to an adverbial account. As part of this, consciousness of an external object is just the form that current self-consciousness takes, the meta-causal constitution of it being inextricably modulated by the causal relationship with the object. The article also discusses how MCA helps explore issues of for-me-ness, transparency of perceptual consciousness, and possible immediacy and non-relationality of self-consciousness.

show abstract

Concepts and predication from perception to cognition

Cited by 32 publications

References 107 publications

Where word and world meet: Language and vision share an abstract representation of symmetry.

Where word and world meet: Language and vision share an abstract representation of symmetry.

The best game in town: The reemergence of the language-of-thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences

Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness: A Meta-Causal Approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About