Conceptual Representation: A Special Issue of Language And Cognitive Processes

✍ Scribed by James A. Hampton, Helen Moss

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 292
• Series: Special Issues of Language and Cognitive Processes
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Concepts lie at the heart of our mental life, supporting a myriad of cognitive functions - including thinking and reasoning, object recognition, memory, and language comprehension and production. The nature of concepts and their representation in the mind and brain has been studied from many different perspectives and so provides valuable opportunities for integrative, interdisciplinary discussions. This special issue on conceptual representation contains invited papers from leading researchers across the range of cognitive science disciplines, addressing the nature of semantic and conceptual representation in the mind and brain. Contributions include both empirical reports and theoretical reviews, from the fields of cognitive and developmental psychology, neuropsychology, philosophy and linguistics.

✦ Table of Contents

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 2
Copyright......Page 3
Contents......Page 4
Concepts and meaning: Introduction to the special issue on conceptual representation......Page 6
REFERENCES......Page 12
Situated simulation in the human conceptual system......Page 14
THEORIES OF THE CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM......Page 16
Semantic memory......Page 17
Exemplar models......Page 18
Feed-forward connectionist nets......Page 20
The situated simulation theory......Page 21
Evidence for a modal non-modular conceptual system......Page 23
Evidence for situated simulations......Page 35
Evidence for dynamical simulations......Page 42
Evidence for organisation around the action-environment interface......Page 45
CONCLUSIONS......Page 50
REFERENCES......Page 52
Artifacts are not ascribed essences, nor are they treated as belonging to kinds......Page 63
ESSENTIALIST VIEWS OF ARTIFACTS: I. INTENDED FUNCTION AS ESSENCE......Page 64
ESSENTIALIST VIEWS OF ARTIFACTS: II. CREATOR’S INTENTION AS ESSENCE......Page 69
CONCLUSIONS REGARDING ESSENTIALISM......Page 72
THE MINIMALIST VIEW......Page 73
HOW DOES THE MINIMALIST VIEW FARE WITH ARTIFACTS?......Page 76
CONCLUSION......Page 77
REFERENCES......Page 80
On the conceptual basis for the count and mass noun distinction......Page 83
THE COGNITIVE INDIVIDUATION HYPOTHESIS......Page 86
Scope of predication......Page 87
Construal......Page 88
EVIDENCE FOR THE COGNITIVE INDIVIDUATION HYPOTHESIS AND A CONCEPTUAL BASIS FOR COUNT/MASS SYNTAX......Page 89
Wierzbicka’s analysis of count and mass nouns......Page 90
Superordinate categories......Page 91
Aggregate terms......Page 97
Exceptions......Page 99
Sounds and sensations......Page 104
Developmental research......Page 106
Summary......Page 108
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN USE OF COUNTMASS SYNTAX AND OTHER COMMUNICATIVE ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE......Page 109
THE CROSS-LINGUISTIC STATUS OF THE COUNT-MASS NOUN DISTINCTION......Page 113
Cross-linguistic studies of the count-mass distinction......Page 114
Count-mass versus numeral classifier languages......Page 115
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS......Page 119
REFERENCES......Page 120
Object recognition under semantic impairment: The effects of conceptual regularities on perceptual decisions......Page 123
PAST RESEARCH ON VISUAL OBJECT PROCESSING......Page 125
EXPERIMENT 1: THE OVER-REGULAR ANIMAL TEST (OAT)......Page 129
Results......Page 132
DISCUSSION......Page 134
COMPARING THE OAT AND THE BORB......Page 135
Results......Page 136
Experiment 2b: Over-regularisation in the BORB......Page 139
RESULTS......Page 140
COMPARING OBJECT DECISION AND SEMANTIC TASKS......Page 142
Method......Page 143
Results: Analysis 1......Page 144
Analysis 2......Page 145
Results......Page 148
Discussion......Page 149
GENERAL DISCUSSION......Page 150
REFERENCES......Page 154
Categorisation, causation, and the limits of understanding......Page 159
CAUSATION, COMPLEXITY, AND CATEGORISATION......Page 160
BLESSED IGNORANCE......Page 163
ESSENCES—WHAT LIES BENEATH?......Page 168
SHALLOWNESS AS A VIRTUE......Page 170
Causal relevance......Page 171
Causal powers......Page 173
Causal relations......Page 174
DEPENDENCY AND DEFERENCE......Page 175
THE COGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF KNOWING WHO KNOWS WHAT......Page 179
CONCLUSIONS......Page 181
REFERENCES......Page 184
Concepts, language, and privacy: An argument “vaguely Viennese in provenance”......Page 188
INTRODUCTION......Page 189
Wittgenstein and psychology......Page 191
CONCEPTS......Page 192
WITTGENSTEIN AND THE PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT......Page 193
PI 258......Page 195
PI 265......Page 197
PI 237......Page 198
Theory of concepts......Page 199
Relating philosophy and psychology......Page 202
Peacocke and private language......Page 203
Theory of concepts......Page 205
Fodor and (private) language......Page 208
CONTENT EXTERNALISM AND INTERNALISM......Page 211
Burge’s arthritis......Page 212
Two factor theories......Page 213
EXPLANATION, CONCEPTS AND LANGUAGE......Page 214
One final consideration......Page 215
REFERENCES......Page 216
Access to knowledge from pictures but not words in a patient with progressive fluent aphasia......Page 218
CASE DESCRIPTION......Page 221
Neuropsychological evaluation......Page 222
Pyramids and Palm Trees Test......Page 226
Responses to Pictures vs. Words from the Philadelphia Naming Test......Page 227
Other tasks involving pictures......Page 228
Investigations of lexical processing......Page 229
Short-term memory......Page 232
Repetition of word and nonword strings......Page 233
Effects of frequency and imageability on repetition of words strings......Page 235
Domains of preserved function: numbers and body parts......Page 236
Implications for the architecture of the semantic system......Page 240
Does BA have semantic dementia?......Page 243
REFERENCES......Page 245
Categories for names or names for categories? The interplay between domainspecific conceptual structure and language......Page 250
THE DOMAIN-SPECIFIC NATURE OF CHILDREN’S CATEGORIES......Page 253
Cross-cultural categorisation......Page 256
Infant categorisation......Page 260
Language and categorisation......Page 262
General patterns......Page 267
Why do domains differ?......Page 268
REFERENCES......Page 270
Language and Cognitive Processes Subject Index......Page 279
Language and Cognitive Processes Author Index......Page 284