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Most of the Cogsci Colloquia are held in Crawford
Hall (Map).
Cogsci Colloquium:
Coming weeks, soonest first |
- Zhengjun Lin. Wednesday, 25 November, 4-5pm, Crawford 618. Meaning Constructions of LIAN (Face) in Chinese. Zhenjun Lin is a postdoctoral lecturer at Northeast Normal University, Changchun Province, China, and currently Visiting Researcher in the Department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University.
- Abstract: This paper studies how nonce senses and conventionalized meanings are constructed from their conventional meaning of Chinese FACE. The Zhengjun Lin argues that meaning construction is an inferential process. The potential range of inferences is constrained by the linguistic expressions that serve as prompts, and cognitive principles, contexts, as well as the language users’ individual factors. In this paper, the meaning constructions of FACE in Chinese are explicated with the Chinese corpora from http://ccl.pku.edu.cn/Yuliao_Contents.Asp and the data from Chinese dictionaries. In this study, we find metonymy-metonymy chains, metonymy-metaphor continua, and metonymy-metaphor combinations in Chinese FACE meaning constructions. Also, the principles of metonymy and metaphor are involved in the conceptual blendings of FACE meaning constructions. Context and individual language users’ factors are the other two variables, without which meaning constructions are impossible.
Past Colloquia,
most recent first |
- Tim Adamson. Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 4-5pm, Crawford 618. Cognitive Approaches to Ritual: Outline of A Research Program. Tim Adamson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Iowa Wesleyan College and a member of the editorial board for Cognitive Semiotics.
- Abstract: Given the emphasis in cognitive linguistics on the centrality of embodied, human-scale meanings in cognition, ritual would seem a natural area for cognitive analysis. Where metaphor and conceptual blends employ imagined scenarios of action and perception in order to work out more abstract meanings, ritual brings these scenes back to life, as it were, playing them out in the flesh at the human scale. In this sense, ritual would seem to be one more expression, now enacted, of the embodied cognition at the heart of cognitive linguistic theory. How far can we take this line of thought when dealing with ritual? To what extent is ritual “metaphor in the flesh” and to what extent does it resist such an analysis? In this presentation I attempt to outline a cognitive approach to ritual, showing where the categories of cognitive linguistics may apply and where different tools are needed.
- Some of the issues I will address include:
- To what extent can we see ritual as a metaphor or blend? In what sense does ritual merge different conceptual spaces, and in what sense does it involve other kinds of spaces, e.g., performance, perceptual, kinetic, etc? Ritual is conceptual—but what does a conceptual approach miss?
- What are the implications of the fact that ritual is lived, enacted, and not merely imagined?
- Given the clear conceptual links between many myths (i.e., blends) and rituals, what does the performance of a ritual add or change to its meaning?
- What is the status of body and perception in ritual, since they are at once enacted and imagined?
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How does the audience, human or superhuman, shape ritual meaning?
- What is the significance of the repetition and formality characteristic of many rituals? How might we view these features from a cognitive (i.e., embodied, human-scale) perspective? I will emphasize the aesthetic dimension of such repetition.
- Many rituals are performed to achieve something, not merely to retell or reenact a story. How does this pragmatic context affect the ritual’s meaning?
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Peter Hanenberg. Monday, 12 October 2009, 4-5pm, Crawford 618. The Power of Tacit Knowledge. Peter Hanenberg is
a member of Faculdade de Ciências Humanas Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Co-Director of the Center for Cognition and Culture in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Abstract: The most famous definition of tacit knowledge is not exactly a definition but just a paradoxal sentence by Michael Polanyi: "We know more than we can tell". What is tacit knowledge? Is it something that is not tellable, something that is not at hand or explicit? Tacit knowledge appears in consciousness, but we do not fully understand why. Tacit knowledge is something that we know without notion of this knowledge. Nevertheless we are prepared to act on it. We will try to develop a clearer definition of tacit knowledge and its importance for cognitive culture studies in three steps: First we will observe some examples of "gut feelings" that lead us to the power of 'problem solving before or beyond knowing'. Then we will deal briefly with the idea of a geography of thought and with cognitive aspects of tacit knowledge for cultural diversity. We will try to relate Polanyi´s ideas on tacit knowledge with Leonard Talmy´s "Cognitive Culture System" in order to prepare three conclusions: tacit knowledge is based on experience, it is shared (and not just individual) and, thus, imparted through education. These conclusions may allow us finally to discuss challenges for tacit knowledge in media society.
Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas. Thursday, 8 October 2009, 3:30-5pm. The Cogsci Forum (612C Crawford). Title: The Cultural Genesis of the Arrows of Love: Blending, Schemata, and Erotic Emissions in Greek Poetry, Rituals, and Art. Dr. Cánovas is a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow. He will be in residence in the Department of Cognitive Science at CWRU for the 2010-2011 year. This small colloquium will be provided by one-way Skype transmission to the Cogsci Forum from the Conceptual Integration Research Group at UC San Diego.
- Abstract: The arrows of love are one of the most frequently used symbols from ancient Greek mythology. Some classical philologists have proposed that they were invented by a specific literary author, Euripides or Anacreon. In cognitive linguistics, image-metaphor has been employed to link this particular cultural model to metaphor systems in everyday language. I argue that neither of the methodologies employed so far are sufficient for two reasons: their diachronic scope is not wide enough and their conceptual analysis lacks detail. The sheer intertextuality of the traditional approach is scientifically problematic and does not address the conceptual intricacies of the symbol. On the other hand, conceptual metaphor theorists often claim universality for metaphoric patterns without engaging in a detailed cultural study.
I use Conceptual Blending Theory (the Grim Reaper blend) and image-schemata (the EMISSION schema) to link Love the archer to pre-existing imaginative products: Apollo the Archer as a personification of deadly disease, a group of conceptual blends for erotic emissions, the conceptual link between love and illness, and possibly also the arrows of glance metaphor. The conceptual structure of the arrows of love and their diachronic development offer some keys for the symbol’s long success in posterity.
Beyond its hypothesis about the genesis of the arrows of love and its claims about the relevant literary texts, the major interest of this research is methodological. I intend to find a common ground in which classical studies and cognitive linguistics can benefit from each other. I also make suggestions about the generalization of conceptual patterns and their study in literature and culture, and I try to achieve relevant theoretical conclusions on the framing of mental spaces through schemata.
- Emergence of Mathematics Workshop. Monday and Tuesday, 11-12 May 2009. 618 Crawford. Sponsored by the Institute for the Science of Origins. Participants include James Alexander, Per Aage Brandt, Marcel Danesi, Gilles Fauconnier, Brendan Foreman, Reuben Hersh, Doug Hofstadter, Greg Huber, Ed Hubbard, Anthony Jack, Rafael Núñez, Todd Oakley, Arnaud Viarouge, Glenn Starkman, Lee Thompson, and Mark Turner. A gallery of photographs from the workshop:
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- The Cogsci Colloquium is pleased to publicize the Spring
2009 Allen and Constance Ford Distinguished Lecture, in partnership
with the Department of Biomedical Engineering: Jeff
Hawkins, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 4:30-5:30pm. Wolstein Auditorium.
Title: Hierarchical Temporal Memory: How a theory of the neocortex
may lead to truly intelligent machines. Jeff Hawkins is
a co-founder of Palm, Handspring, and Numenta and the author of
On Intelligence. Seating is limited. Register by clicking
on the link above.
- Roland Posner. Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 4-5pm. 618 Crawford.
Title: Polysemy in Gestures. Roland Posner is Director
of the Research Center for Semiotics, Technische Universität
Berlin.
- Abstract: Emblematic gestures are body movements that carry conventional
meanings. These meanings are semantically based either on a body
reflex or on the utilization of an artifact. The artifact is presented
either by direct embodiment (such as the hand shape imitating a
mobile phone in the gesture 'Phone me!') or/and by operating on
it (e.g., by holding the hand in this shape at the cheek, as in
real phoning). The lecture shows that in normal gestures these sources
of meaning can be applied to convey a multiplicity of meanings that
are connected by metaphors and metonymies just like in the meanings
of verbal expressions.
- Kristina Woolsey. Saturday, 14 March 2009, 12-12:45pm.
Cleveland Museum of Art. Title: Learning and Teaching From Objects.
Kristina Woolsey is adjunct professor of cognitive science at Case
Western Reserve University. Her talk is hosted by the Cleveland
Museum of Arts and the Baker-Nord
Center for the Humanities. For details, see http://cma.org/events/conference.aspx
and the flyer. Admission is free
but registration is required. Click here
to register.
- Jessica Gerard. Wednesday, 25 February 2009, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: The Reading of Multiword Items in L1 and L2: A Corpus Informed Eye-Movement Analysis. Jessica Gerard is Lecturer in
the English Department and Coordinator of ESL for SAGES at Case
Western Reserve University. Her Ph.D research is in the psycholinguistics
of idiom processing in non-native speakers of English.
- Abstract: This study contributes to the growing body of formulaic
language research indicating that formulaic sequences (e.g., idioms,
collocations, metaphors, and other conventionalized multi-word items)
facilitate comprehension by reducing processing load (Wray, 2002).
Expanding on Underwood et. al. (2004), this study combines corpus
analysis and eye-movement data to assess the contribution of formulaicity
to the comprehension of a whole, authentic text. Information regarding
grammatical, lexical, and contextual conventions for each formulaic
item in the text was obtained via the Collins COBUILD Online Corpus
and the British National Corpus. Additionally, using an Applied
Science Laboratories Eye Tracker, the eye movements of two native
speakers and one non-native speaker of English were recorded and
the fixations for formulaic sequences were compared. All eye movement
data was interpreted in light of Goodman's Transactional model of
reading (2003). Specifically, eye movements for each participant
were compared across two conditions: 1) a condition comprised of
the formulaic sequences in the text and 2) a baseline segment from
the text which was free of formulaic items. Paired t-tests were
performed for each participant to determine whether or not the eye
movement behavior differed significantly in the two conditions.
Data analysis indicates that both native and non-native readers
of English showed significant differences in the eye movement patterns
for the two conditions. However, these significant differences were
reversed for the two participant groups. In the case of the native
readers, the predictable nature of formulaic sequences facilitated
the processing of written text, as evidenced by a significantly
lower percentage of words fixated in the formulaic sequences in
comparison with the percent of words fixated in the baseline condition.
However, for the non-native readers, 1) lack of experience with
the formulaic items and 2) their opaque nature appeared to hinder
comprehension, resulting in a significantly higher percentage of
words fixated in the formulaic condition than in the baseline, non-formulaic
condition. This dissertation has implications for the fields of
first and second language acquisition, particularly literacy theory
and instruction.
- David Pincus. Wednesday, 11 February
2009, 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: The Social Brain: the Neurohormones
of Attachment and Intersubjectivity. David Pincus, D.M.H.,
is Director of the MindBrain Consortium at Summa Hospitals in Akron,
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Assistant Professor
in Psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine,
and Adjunct Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina.
He has been inducted as an Honorary Lifetime Member of the American
Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) because of his contributions
bridging neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Pincus is a member of
the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Psychology, Contemporary
Psychology and Science and Consciousness Review. He is the founder
and director of the Cleveland MindBrain Group which convenes on
a monthly basis at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center. He is also
a psychotherapist in private practice in Cleveland Heights and Akron.
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Abstract: The neurohormones of the
opiod system and oxytocin/vasopresin largely underwrite bonding, attachment,
personality development and later adaptation or psychopathology. David
Pincus will discuss theoretical and empirical literature connecting
early bonding with personality development, ongoing relationship patterns,
and tendencies for psychiatric difficulties. The speaker will discuss
research he is involved in, including:
- (1) an fMRI study of depressed individuals administered oxytocin
(looking at depression as a social and phenomenological disconnection
syndrome)
- (2) a study looking at social responses to friends or romantic
partners after intranasal oxytocin administration
- (3) a newly approved study of the effect of a synthetic opioid
on treatment refractory depression
- D. Fox Harrell. Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: Imagination, Computation, and Expression:
A Cognitive Approach to Digital Media Arts. Fox Harrell
is Director of the ICE (Imagination, Computation,
and Expression) Laboratory/Studio and Assistant
Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Communication,
and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His Ph.D. is
in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, from the University of
California, San Diego. Website.
- Abstract: Fantastic blends of ideas, rich metaphors, social hierarchies,
and cultural identities all exemplify the diverse power of imaginative
cognition. Harrell's work constructs creative computational systems
with bases in imaginative cognition. Such systems include interactive
and generative narratives and poetry, games, social identity/networking
sites, and, most important, new hybrid forms unanticipated by any
of the above. The foundations for his approach are based in cognitive
semantics theories of how concepts are generated and mapped to each
other (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989), formal approaches to
semiotics and cognition from computer science that acknowledge critical
perspectives on artificial intelligence and do not attempt to reduce
human cognition to computation (Goguen, 1998; Harrell 2005), and
cross-cultural and media-theoretic approaches to expressive multimedia
narrative, poetry, and other imaginative discourse forms (Gates
Jr., 1988; Harrell, 2006, 2007b, 2007c; Murray, 1997). An original
key method arising from this framework is that formal representations
can be leveraged with understanding a system designer/author’s
expressive intent and the affordances provided by the system for
user interpretation. Core to Harrell's work is the development of
theoretical tools that allow authors, programmers, and artists to
(1) enable digital media authors/artists to “add meaning to
media,” i.e. construct ontologies (formal descriptions of
knowledge structures) as metadata for their media elements (graphics,
animation, text, etc.), (2) generate meaningful text and multimedia
discourse compositions dynamically, and (3) blend multimedia structures
to generate new content dynamically for use in interactive narratives
and related works. This approach enables the creation of digital
media technologies within which meaning can be reconfigured and
generated on the fly. Examples of recent systems will be discussed.
- Capstone Presenters. Wednesday, 10 December, 4-6 pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Ryan Kulp: Do Interviewer Gestures Influence
Recall? Amanda Dewitt: Gesture Comprehension in
Individuals With and Without Asperger's Syndrome. Rahul
Sharma: Effects of Glioma and Similar Deep-Seated Brain
Tumors on Cognitive Functioning. Viyan Udawatta:
Perceptions of Mindedness and Moral status: A Cross-Cultural Study.
- William Deal. Wednesday, 19 November 2008, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: Framing the Bodhisattva: Cognitive Semantic
Perspectives on Japanese Buddhism. William
Deal is the Severance Professor of the History of Religion at Case
Western Reserve University. Website.
- Abstract: Religious studies scholars have shown increasing interest
in the cognitive science of religion, an assemblage of new approaches
to the academic study of religion spearheaded by scholars such as
Pascal Boyer and Thomas Lawson. Evidence of this interest appeared
in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Academy
of Religion, which featured an article by Edward Slingerland
on the significance of cognitive science to the study of religion.
Within the cognitive science of religion, however, there have been
few attempts to theorize and apply cognitive semantics to an analysis
of religion and religious texts (Slingerland’s own research
is a prominent exception). My attraction to cognitive semantics
derives from my work on issues of interpretation, rhetoric, and
ideology in the study of Japanese Buddhist texts. My work to date
has primarily applied postmodern methodologies to these Buddhist
texts, with little attention given to the cognitive constructs that
are in operation in this literature. For reasons I will make clear
in my presentation, I no longer find postmodern approaches sufficient.
Within cognitive semantics I find the possibility of concepts and
theories that can provide a far richer and more robust account of
what is occurring in these Japanese Buddhist texts. In short, I
seek a way to reconcile issues of embodied cognition with the cultural
contexts in which religious discourse is produced, and to do so
in a way that takes into consideration the cognitive limitations
on what counts as a plausible interpretation. In this colloquium,
I apply frame semantics and mental space theory to the Hokke genki
(“Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra”), an eleventh
century Japanese collection of brief stories extolling the spiritual
benefits of the Lotus Sutra, historically one of the most influential
Buddhist scriptures in East Asia. I explore how the interpretation
of these stories is both cognitively and contextually constrained,
and consider how cognitive activity negotiates language and context
to produce the Buddhist meanings found in these narratives.
- Tarcisio de Arantes Leite and Leland McCleary. Wednesday,
5 November 2008, 4pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: Prosody, attentional
gesture and segmentation in Brazilian sign language conversation.
Tarcisio de Arantes Leite has been admitted as professor of Libras
at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and Leland McCleary
is professor of modern languages at the University of São
Paulo, Brazil. Website.
- Abstract: An enduring issue in sign language linguistics based
on
naturalistic discourse is knowing how to segment the stream of speech
without imposing grammatical categories and relations which may
be more appropriate to the oral-language gloss than to the language
on its own terms (Baker & Padden 1978). One way to< investigate
how the language is segmented "on its own terms" is to
tap into the intuitions of native speakers as they project possible
turn-completion points in the course of a conversation. Having established
that Brazilian sign language (Libras) speakers follow the one-speaker-at-a-time
heuristic common for oral languages (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson
1978), this presentation will focus on the analysis of how sign
language prosody and orientational and indexical gestures (especially
eye gaze, body and head orientation, pointing and sign spatialization)
contribute to the production of attentional framings (Langacker
2001) toward which conversationalists orient in performing complex
turns such as lists and contrasts.
- Dimitria Gatzia. Wednesday, 15 October 2008, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: Color Subjectivity: The Individual Variability
problem. Dimitria Gatzia is Assistant
Professor in the Department
of Philosophy at the University of Akron. Individual
website.
- Abstract: Studies show that there are widespread intrasubjective
and intersubjective color variations among subjects who do not suffer
from color deficiencies, i.e., normal subjects. I argue that these
variations present difficulties, albeit not the same kind, for both
realists and subjectivists about color. This suggests that we ought
to rethink the debate about the nature of color. I offer some alternative
ways of thinking about the problem of color.
- Ana Eliza Barbosa de Oliveira and Bento Carlos Dias da
Silva. Wednesday, 15 October 2008, 3-3:30pm. 618 Crawford Hall.
Title: "Metaphors and WordNets." Ana Eliza Barbosa
de Oliveira is Ph.D Student and Bento Carlos Dias da Silva is Associate
Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at Sao Paulo State
University (UNESP), Araraquara, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Antônio
S. Abreu and Sarah Barbieri Vieira. Wednesday, 15 October 2008,
3:30-4pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Projections, culture,
and image schemas as metacognitive resources for learning English
as a second language."
- Abstract 1: "Metaphors and Wordnets."Research in Human
Language Technology has proven the need for extensive and complete
machine tractable lexical resources for natural language processing
(Saint-Dizier & Viegas, 1995; Dale et al., 2000). While the
lexical-bottleneck problem seems to be softened to English, Brazilian
Portuguese wide range lexicons are not available. To bridge such
a gap, our research group in Brazil has been working on the development
of a particular sort of lexicon (Dias-da-Silva et al., 2002, 2003,
2006): the Brazilian Portuguese WordNet, based on both Princeton
WordNet (Fellbaum, 1998) and EuroWordNet (Vossen, 1998). These lexicon-building
projects have consolidated as methodological standards for encoding
both (i) robust conceptual atoms and domains that are lexicalized
by natural language words and phrases (Levin & Pinker, 1991)
and (ii) cross-linguistic lexical and conceptual relations (Miller&Fellbaum,
1991; Vossen, 1998). These two features motivated the study we present
at this colloquium: metaphors in wordnets. Metaphor is defined as
a cognitive process that co-relates and transposes cognitive structures
between Cognitive Domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). By examining
conceptual metaphors that guide production and understanding of
metaphorical sentences, words, and phrases, the task has been to
identify distinct kinds of metaphor (Kövecses, 2002; Croft
& Cruse, 2004) and the grammatical types of metaphor instantiation
(Sullivan, 2007; Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2006). The mining, analysis,
and encoding of conceptual metaphors and their linguistic instantiations
are supported by the following cognitive-linguistic and computational-linguistic
constructs: Image Schemas (Johnson, 1987), Cognitive Domains (Lakoff
& Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987, 1993), Semantic Fields (Leher,
1974; Kittay, 1987), and Frames (Minsky, 1972; Fillmore, 1981).
In a nutshell, we follow Alonge&Lönneker (2004), and claim
that metaphorical meaning can be represented into wordnets by means
of pairs of hierarchically-structured Inter-Lingual-Indexes (CILI)
that encode conceptual metaphors. Each CILI in turn clusters pairs
of individual language synsets (i.e. individual language synonym
sets that represent lexicalized concepts) that manifest the appropriate
conceptual metaphors linguistically.
- Vito Evola. Wednesday, 30 April 2008, 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: Multimodal Semiotics of Spiritual Experiences: Representing
Beliefs, Metaphors, and Actions. Vito Evola is a doctoral
student at the University of Palermo, Italy.
- Abstract: Traditionally, spiritual experiences have been considered
"ineffable," but metaphors pervade the representations of certain
concepts of the transcendental in an attempt to talk about such
abstract ideas. Whether it be during the description of a vision
or simply talking about morality, people use conceptual metaphors
to reason and talk about these concepts. Many representations of
God, spirits, or the afterlife are culturally based, but whereas
some may differ based on individual experiences, others seem to
have a more universal character. From a phenomenological point of
view, it seems that the descriptions are contingent and not necessary,
that is, the language a believer is exposed to may influence, but
not condition a priori, his or her own spiritual experience as Constructivists
have thought. People's views about themselves and the world around
them are deeply rooted in their conceptual systems, which are created
by their experiences and their bodily interactions with the world,
whether it's having to do with gravity in the case of UP and DOWN,
or what our individual and social concepts are. When people talk
about religious and spiritual concepts, they are revealing a great
deal about their world and themselves and the way they interact
with it. Concepts dealing with people's system of beliefs are very
"meaningful" for the individual, and the more entrenched a frame
of mind is, the less plastic it is, a fact confirmed by the neurosciences,
which claim that it is difficult to break down and reconstruct certain
synaptic structures of the brain. How do today's common "faithful"
relate to certain metaphors about spiritual concepts transmitted
by their faiths? What do these metaphors say about the individuals'
concepts of themselves and their world? I will explore some of my
own conclusions concerning conceptual metaphors and figurative language
collected in various sacred texts and during a series of interviews
of religious people with different backgrounds of religious systems.
The data include linguistic expressions as well as gesture. Moreover,
the interviewees were asked to draw on paper certain experiences
of religious nature and then to describe their pictures. My investigation
will try to shed new light on the phenomenology of religious experiences
and personhood, using cognitive linguistics as a prime tool of analysis.
- Savin
SAGES Lecture. Michael Schoop. Monday, 7 April 2008, 4pm. Amasa
Stone Chapel. Title: Teaching Imagination in the Age of Digital
Experience.
- Eve Sweetser. Case
TV Recording. Wednesday, 26 March 2008. 4-5pm. 9
Crawford Hall (Inamori Center). ACES Distinguished Lecturer. Reception
to follow at 5:15pm in 111 Crawford, the SAGES Seminar Room.
Title: Viewpoint and perspective in language and gesture.
Website.
Eve Sweetser is Professor of Linguistics and former director of
the Cognitive Science program at UC Berkeley.
- Abstract: Viewpoint permeates human cognition and communication
—predictably, since we never have experience of the world
except as a viewpoint-equipped embodied self among other viewpointed
embodied selves. Examination of some of the areas where perspective
is known to be central—such as linguistic deixis (Hanks 1990),
or gestural pointing (Kita 2003)—has helped motivate researchers
to examine the much broader presence of perspectival phenomena in
language and bimodal communication. Signed language data—necessarily
embodying portrayed viewpoints in ways which spoken language does
not (Dudis 2003, 2008)—has also helped spoken language researchers
to notice parallel phenomena in their data. In this presentation,
I will examine multimodal viewpoint in linguistic and gestural data,
and will go on to suggest that we should in general be thinking
of viewpoint as an intersubjective phenomenon rather than a unitary
first-person phenomenon. Data from all the relevant sources come
together to push us towards a theory which includes mutual awareness
of viewpoints between participants—and incorporation of addressees’
and spectators’ (and readers’ [see Verhagen 2005, Tobin
2008]) perceived viewpoints into the cognitive perspectives of speakers,
narrators and writers. Intersubjective viewpoint contruction is
important at every level, from construal of local physical spatial
affordances to literary narrative.
Mark Johnson. Tuesday, 18 March 2008.
4-5pm. 9 Crawford Hall (Inamori Center). Title: Natural Sources
of Morality. Website.
Mark L. Johnson is Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences
at the University of Oregon.
- Abstract: Our moral values are shaped by the nature of our interactions
with our physical, social, and cultural environments. They are born
in our flesh, not handed down from some transcendent source. Moral
reasoning is a form of ongoing problem solving that is tied to the
bodily origins of our values. Our reason is both emotional and imaginative.
Consequently, moral deliberation is akin to the creation of art.
To appreciate this analogy, we have to understand the bodily and
neural bases of aesthetics. The result is a moral pluralism, not
a relativism or subjectivism.
Symposium on Morality and Mind: Ethics at the Crossroads
of Culture and Science. Friday, 29 February 2008. 8:30am-6pm.
George
S. Dively Building, Room 214. See the Case
News Center Story. Speakers: Pascal Boyer (Department of Anthropology,
Washington University in St. Louis), John Doris (Department of Philosophy,
Washington University in St. Louis), Jesse Prinz (Department of
Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Stephen
Stich (Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University), Chris Meyers
(Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of Southern Mississippi).
Abstract: Recent research in cognitive science challenges ethical
perspectives founded on the assumption that rationality is key to
moral knowledge or that morality is the product of divine revelation.
Bedrock moral concepts like free will, rights, and moral agency
also have been questioned. In light of such critiques, is the study
of ethics best understood as a humanities discipline or as the science
of morality? Is ethics an issues of moral philosophy and religious
reflection or is it an issue in cognitive science and evolutionary
biology? Is ethics primarily informed by nature or by culture? Or
is ethics informed by both?
- The Project on Ethics and Cognitive Science at Case Western
Reserve University, in conjunction with the Departments of Cognitive
Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies, will explore junctions
and disjunctions between ethics, culture, and cognitive science
in a daylong symposium titled “Morality and Mind: Ethics ad
the Crossroads of Culture and Science.”
- Organizers: William Deal (Religious Studies), Anthony Jack (Cognitive
Science), and Sara Waller (Philosophy).
-
The symposium is free and open to all faculty, staff, and students,
but reservations are required. Reservations can be made at http://morality-and-mind.eventbrite.com.
- Friday, February 29, 2008
8:30-9:00. Continental Breakfast provided in the Dively
Building
9:00-10:15. Dr. Jesse Prinz (introduced by William Deal)
"How Do Emotions Relate to Morality? A Review of Competing
Models." There is a growing body of evidence that emotions
occur when people make moral judgments. This fact alone, however,
is consistent with a variety of processing models. Emotions might
be the effects of moral judgment, or the causes of moral judgments,
or components. Emotions might be involved in all moral judgments,
or just some (a dual process theory). I argue that emotions are
components of moral judgments and against dual processing theory.
I also consider competing "philosophical models", i.e.,
metaethcial theories of the role that emotions play in morality.
I present empirical evidence of a "response-dependent"
view as opposed to an "error theory" or "emotivism."
10:30-11:45. Dr. John Doris (introduced by Anthony Jack).
"On Reflection ( . . . more or less)." In philosophy,
persons are often distinguished by a propensity for reflection
-- a conscious and concerted mentation effecting control of behavior.
In psychology, research on unconscious processing suggests that
this philosophical conception of persons is unrealistic; ethically
significant human behavior is very often beyond reflective control.
A psychologically lifelike conception of persons will therefore
de-emphasize reflective control; instead, the human ethical distinctiveness
marked with such philosophical honorifics as “person,”
“agency,” “practical rationality,” and
“the self” is found in the collaboratively developed
rationalizing explanations of behavior by which humans living
in groups regulate their lives.
12:00-1:00. Lunch provided in the Dively Building.
1:00-2:15. Dr. Pascal Boyer (introduced by Anthony Jack)
"Imagination as constraint: Mental Time-Travel & Moral
Psychology." What is the function of our capacity for episodic
memory, or ‘mental time-travel’? Evolutionary considerations
suggest that vivid memory but also imaginative foresight may be
crucial cognitive devices for human agents, otherwise drawn towards
impulsive, myopic opportunism. This model of evolved self-restraint
casts doubt on the psychological reality and unity of a moral
psychology.
2:30-3:45. Dr. Stephen Stich (introduced by Sara Waller).
"The Definition of Morality." Debates about the definition
of ‘moral judgment’ and ‘moral rule’ have
a venerable history in philosophy. In addition to debating the
merits of various proposed definitions, philosophers have also
disagreed about what the definition is supposed to do: What counts
as getting the definition right? One proposal is that moral rules
or moral judgments are a psychological natural kind, and that
the correct definition should specify the essential features of
this kind. Recently, a number of philosophers and psychologists
have suggested that research using the moral / conventional task,
first introduced by Elliot Turiel, has uncovered some of the essential
properties of this natural kind. If the empirical generalizations
drawn from this work were correct, it would be reasonable to conclude
that we have indeed discovered the essence of morality. However,
a growing body of evidence indicates that those generalizations
are not correct, and thus that the moral / conventional task tells
us nothing of interest about the definition of morality. So, I
will argue, we still do not have good answer to the question “How
should ‘morality’ be defined?” But with the
explosion of interest in empirically informed moral psychology
in recent years, the issue has taken on added importance. Indeed,
some of the most heated debates in empirical moral psychology
are actually debates over the definition of morality.
4:00-5:00. Discussion: Dr. Chris Meyers (introduced by
Sara Waller).
5:00-6:00. Symposium Reception in the Dively Building.
- David Quinto-Pozos. Friday, 8 February
2008. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: Depicting animacy in American
Sign Language: Examining gestural and linguistic strategies. University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Abstract: Perhaps one of the most obvious facets of signed languages
to the non-signer is the manner in which signers use their bodies
in mimetic ways to depict the actions of characters while also producing
signs and other linguistic structures that are not understandable
to a naïve language user. So, a signer of American Sign Language
(ASL) may commonly utilize her head and face, upper torso, and hands/arms
to depict corresponding parts of animate objects and certain actions
of those animate beings. I refer to this method for communicating
the actions of an animate referent as constructed action (following
Metzger 1995), although it has also been labeled—throughout
various literatures—using other terms such as character-viewpoint,
demonstrations, and reported action. Some authors (e.g., Liddell
& Metzger, 1998) claim that constructed action is gestural in
nature, whereas other writers have described such meaningful articulations
within ASL as linguistic devices at the lexical and the sentential
levels of structure (e.g., Supalla 1982, 1990, 2003; Lillo-Martin,
1995; Kegl, 1985, Padden 1990). In this presentation, I will discuss
data from several studies of constructed action in signed language.
In particular, I will use examples of constructed action production,
judgments of such productions, and investigations of constructed
action across different ASL registers and different sign languages
to provide a picture of how and why signers depict animacy by using
this strategy. In the presentation I will also present data that
speak to the following points: 1) constructed action does not seem
to pattern in some traditional linguistic ways, 2) for many signers,
constructed action can be considered to be an obligatory mechanism
for the description of animate objects, and 3) constructed action
can alternate and co-occur with linguistic strategies for depicting
or describing animate objects. The points discussed in this presentation
raise various questions about this communicative device. For instance,
why might this strategy for meaning communication be a necessary
part of a signed utterance even though it lacks some traditional
linguistic properties? Are there other ways that signers can communicate
similar information about animate objects without utilizing constructed
action? Might there be constraints that govern the production of
constructed action? Finally, how can work on co-speech gesture inform
studies of constructed action within the signed modality (and vice-versa)?
Peter
Whitehouse. Monday, 4 February 2008.
4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: The Myth of Alzheimer’s:
lessons in applied cognitive science. Website.
Peter J. Whitehouse, MD, PhD is Professor of Neurology and founding
member of the Department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve
University, staff at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and
Director of Adult Learning at The Intergenerational School Professor
of Cognitive Science.
- Abstract: “Discovering a disease, taking a history, and
making a diagnosis” are all cognitive processes undertaken
by physicians. Put differently these process become “inventing
a disease, sharing an illness experience, and applying a social
label.” In this talk I will relate the story of an idea which
became a book, The
Myth of Alzheimer’s: What You Aren’t Being Told About
Today’s Most Dreaded Diagnosis, coauthored with Danny
George. Alzheimer’s is a label constructed 100 years ago which
provokes fear and dread in individuals and health policy makers
alike. Whereas the phenomenology of age associated cognitive decline
is real, of course, and does potentially create suffering, Alzheimer’s
is not one single condition but rather a variety of biological processes
that start early in life. Alzheimerization of the brain is probably
another name for aging processes. Hence the dominant story that
Alzheimer’s is one disease, different from aging, which can
ultimately fixed with sufficient investment in reductionistic scientific
approaches is wrong. Exploring the myth should lead to different
and more hopeful ways of conceptionalizing cognitive aging and of
meeting its challenges. For example, a sense of purpose, community
engagement and legacy is critical to cognitive well-being as we
age. The Intergenerational School,
founded with my wife, Catherine, another cognitive scientist, will
be used to illustrate these ideas. In the broad sense of cognitive
science developed here at Case, we will explore the historical,
cultural and ethical, as well as scientific and clinical, aspects
of the myth of Alzheimer’s.
- Gaurav Patel. Wednesday, 23 January 2008. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: Attention networks in the macaque monkey.
Gaurav Patel has just defended his Neuroscience PhD as part of the
MD/PhD program at Washington University in St Louis. His research,
conducted in collaboration with the laboratories of Maurizio Corbetta
and Larry Snyder, uses fMRI of awake behaving monkeys to look at
the relationships between human and monkey functional brain anatomy.
- Abstract: We have performed a series of experiments using fMRI
in awake behaving macaques to characterize the cortical networks
underlying visual processing and attention. These experiments have
revealed several previously unknown topographic and functional properties
of the visual attention system in macaques, and also indicate that
there may be substantial differences with humans.
- Daniel Casasanto. Thursday, 17 January 2008. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: Meaning & Motor Action: The role of motor
experience in concept formation. Website.
Daniel Casasanto is an NRSA postdoctoral fellow in the department
of psychology at Stanford University and Ph.D. in Brain & Cognitive
Sciences, MIT, 2005.
- Abstract: How do people transform experience into knowledge? This
talk reviews a series of studies testing the hypothesis that our
physical experiences in perception and motor action contribute to
the construction of even our most abstract thoughts (e.g., thoughts
about value, time, happiness, etc.) These studies begin to distinguish
the contributions of linguistic experience, cultural experience,
and perceptuo-motor experience to the formation of concepts and
word meanings. Some experiments show that people who talk differently
think differently; others show influences of non-linguistic cultural
practices on conceptual structure; others show that people with
different bodies, who interact with their environments in systematically
different ways, form dramatically different abstract concepts. These
demonstrations of linguistic relativity, cultural relativity, and
what I will call ‘bodily relativity’ highlight the diversity
of the human conceptual repertoire, but also point to universals
in the processes of concept formation.
- Suzy Scherf. Monday, 14 January 2008. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: Faces on the Brain: Developing the Neural Basis of
Category-Specific Representations. Website.
Suzy Scherf is Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Cognitive Neuroscience
Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and Ph.D., Developmental
Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, 2003.
- Abstract: In adults, the ventral visual cortex is organized in
a category-selective map with particular stimulus categories (e.g.,
faces, places, objects) eliciting distinct patterns of cortical
activation. This functional organization supports fast and efficient
recognition of visual objects, and particularly faces, and represents
an ideal system in which to study developmental changes in brain-behavior
correspondences. I will describe several behavioral, functional
and structural neuroimaging studies that demonstrate how the location
and selectivity of face-related cortex is uniquely developmentally
delayed into adolescence, while place- and object-related cortex
matures in childhood. Furthermore, the nature of the computations
performed within face-related cortex do not mature until early adulthood.
This delay in the functional specialization of face-related regions
co-occurs with the maturation of face and emotion recognition skills
and late developing structural changes in white matter tracts that
connect regions in the broader face-processing network. I have used
this same approach to understand atypical brain development in developmental
disorders in which visuoperceptual processes appear to be disrupted.
For example, face-processing deficits are some of the most widely
cited symptoms in autism. I will also describe a series of parallel
studies in children with autism, which demonstrate that there is
a selective abnormality in the development of face-related cortex.
This abnormal pattern of brain development may reflect atypical
development of very basic visuoperceptual processing skills in autism
that are especially disruptive for face processing. This research
reveals important mechanisms by which brain-behavior correspondences
change developmentally and may identify vulnerable developmental
periods in which targeted intervention programs could have more
success for individuals with developmental disorders.
- Rick Grush. Thursday, 10 January 2008. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: Is it now? Some explorations of the metaphysics of
the mind and the semantics of indexicals. Website.
Rick Grush is Professor of Philosophy and of the Interdisciplinary
Ph.D. program in Cognitive Science at UC San Diego. He specializes
in theoretical cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy
of language.
- Abstract: Cognitive semanticists seek to explain linguistic meaning
in terms of relations between linguistic items and cognitive representations,
as opposed to relations between linguistic items and states and
objects in the world. On this approach, indexicals such as 'I',
'here', and 'now' can seem to be straight forward, but in fact the
opposite is the case. Exactly what a language user is representing,
and how she is representing it, when using or interpreting such
expressions is subtle and surprising. I will approach this issue
from an oblique angle, by exploring the nature of the subjective
agent (the putative referent of 'I'), and its relation to time and
space, the 'here' and 'now'. In particular, I will ask the simple
question: Where (and when) is the speaker?
- Edward Hubbard. Friday, 4 January 2008. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: Neural Mechanisms Underlying Mappings between Number
and Space. Website.
Edward Hubbard is NUMBRA Post-Doctoral Fellow at the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging unit and Ph.D. Psychology and Cognitive
Science, UC San Diego.
- Abstract: Various studies have suggested that spatial metaphors
are often used to structure cognitive representations. One such
metaphor is the "mental number line," in which small numbers
are mapped to the left side of space, and large to the right. We
have previously suggested that this mapping arises through a process
of "neuronal recycling" of pre-existing mechanisms involved
in numerical and spatial abilities (Hubbard et al., 2005; in press).
In our first test of this hypothesis, we used fMRI to measure BOLD
signal change while subjects judged the parity status of a number.
We found that parietal regions involved in shifts of attention and
eye movements were differentially activated depending on the magnitude
of the number; the left hemisphere region was more active for large
numbers compared to small numbers, while the corresponding right
hemisphere region was more active for small numbers compared to
large numbers (Hubbard et al., submitted). In a second set of fMRI
studies, we used three tasks—mental arithmetic, a multisensory
localizer, and saccades—to further explore homologies between
human and macaque parietal regions, and test their roles in mental
arithmetic. Our results demonstrate a partial overlap between calculation
and multisensory regions bilaterally, with overlap between calculation
and saccade related regions in parietal cortex and frontal eye fields.
Correlation analyses within these regions demonstrate that this
overlap extends to the pattern of activations across voxels (Hubbard
et al., in prep). In a third experiment, we used event-related potentials
to demonstrate that processing of non-informative numerical cues
lead to attention-related ERP components similar to those elicited
by arrow cues (Ranzini et al., in prep). Taken together, these results
support the hypothesis that similar brain circuits are involved
in processing of numerical and spatial processing in numerate adult
human subjects. Building on these results, I will discuss future
studies exploring the role of space in the acquisition of basic
mathematics, the role of these same neural circuits in number-space
synesthesia, and in structuring higher-order mathematical representations,
such as in algebra or calculus. Finally, I will discuss how these
methods can be applied to elucidate the role of space in structuring
other, non-numerical, cognitive representations.
- Charles Burroughs. Wednesday, 28 November 2007. 4-5pm.
618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Constructions of Knowledge and the Organization
of Consciousness: Architecture and Cognition in a Time of Transition."
Website.
Charles Burroughs is the Elsie B. Smith Professor of Liberal Arts
and Professor of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University.
- Abstract: Cognition occurs in an environment. In certain cultural
milieus, cognition occurs through the environment, sometimes through
an environment expressly shaped or enhanced to cue recollection
and to structure perception. What happens when humans are confronted
with a milieu in which familiar cues and signs are missing, or undergo
change? That is, when a means and medium for cognition suddenly
becomes the object of the effort to understand the physical milieu,
to organize perception and response? In the early Italian Renaissance,
the ordering of the environment in a radically new way was closely
bound up with the ordering of vision itself, and with the appeal
to various strategies for making sense of the phenomenal world.
At the same time, the separation of the observer from the observed
and experienced scene was implicit in many cultural productions,
and at times given more or less explicit articulation. "Cognition
of," perhaps, rather than "cognition in." I will
present an extreme case of architectural/environmental transformation,
suggesting what may have been at stake for contemporaries, and inviting
the members of the colloquium—who all have very different
disciplinary perspectives from mine—to reflect on the implications
in terms of models or theories of cognition.
- Roy Ritzmann. Wednesday, 14 November 2007. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: How do Insects and Insect Inspired Robots
Deal with Barriers? Website.
Roy Ritzmann is Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurosciences
at Case Western Reserve University.
- Abstract: The ability of animals to negotiate unpredicted barriers
in natural terrain makes them attractive models for robotic design.
Animals evaluate objects in their path using sensors on their head
then use that information to formulate commands that alter movement.
In order to understand this process in insects, we employ a range
of behavioral and neurobiological studies directed at both thoracic
local control circuits and brain centers. Behavioral studies indicate
that cockroaches use antennae to investigate objects in their path.
For example, if the antennae contact a shelf from the top, the insect
will climb over, while contact from the bottom will cause it to
tunnel under the barrier. Turning movements can be evoked in cockroaches
tethered over a lightly oiled glass plate. Pushing on one antenna
generates turning movements that switch from symmetrical left-right
leg movements to asymmetrical actions. In particular, the leg on
the inside of the turn changes from rearward extension during stance
to lateral extension during swing. Associated with this alteration
is an increase in distal motor activity, reduction of proximal activity
and changes in relative timing of joint extension. Lesion studies
suggest that a region of the insect brain called the Central Complex
(CC) uses antennal and other sensory information to generate appropriate
descending commands. We, therefore, investigated responses of CC
units to mechanical stimulation of antennae. Using multi-channel
recording techniques, we described a large population of multi-sensory
antennal sensitive neurons in the CC. Velocity is encoded in most
of these units and about one third of them are biased to one antenna.
Most of these units are also sensitive to visual stimulation.
- Leland McCleary (Department of Modern Languages) &
Evani Viotti (Department of Linguistics) at the University of São
Paolo. Wednesday, 7 November 2007, 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title:
Verbal and gestural contributions to narrative structure in a Brazilian
Sign Language narrative.
- Abstract: Building on the concepts of real-space blends (Liddell
2003) and body partitioning (Dudis 2004) in American Sign Language,
we have been looking at how verbal and gestural elements in Brazilian
Sign Language combine to produce narrative discourse, with its overlays
of narrative, metanarrative and paranarrative blends (McNeill 1992;
Oakley 1998). In sign language linguistics, maintaining the distinction
between the verbal and the gestural has traditionally been an issue
of theoretical import in the effort to establish sign languages
as natural languages. Liddell first showed how the rich use of the
body-in-space in sign languages can solve linguistic problems using
a different mix of verbal and gestural elements than has traditionally
been thought of as falling within language proper. This study uses
these insights to analyze an area of language use in sign language
which has already been the site for attempts at rapprochement between
the verbal and the expressive verbal and gestural envelope of performance
in oral languages: narrative structure. In narrative, a matrix of
multiple voices, thematic sources and points of view is built up
and maintained through not only verbal but also performatic shifts
which mark off distinct frames of time, setting and interpretation.
Our analysis of a pear story told in Brazilian Sign Language investigates
how the narrator manages these shifts in a seamless stream of sign
and gesture.
- Richard Boyatzis. Monday,
29 October 2007, 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Resonant
Leadership: Creating Sustainable Leaders Through Mindfulness, Hope
and Compassion." Website.
Richard Boyatzis is professor of organizational behavior and psychology
at Case Western Reserve University.
- Abstract: Great leaders move us. They move us through a basic
human process—our emotions. Although they talk of strategy
and competition, the great leaders establish a deep emotional connection
with others called resonance. They are literally, in tune with others
around them. Their own levels of emotional intelligence allow them
to create and nurture these resonant relationships. They use their
EI as a path to resonant leadership through mindfulness, hope and
compassion. But these are also the experiences essential to renewal
of the human organism at the neurological, hormonal, emotional,
and behavioral levels. Based on decades of research into emotional
intelligence competencies and longitudinal studies in their development,
Professor Richard Boyatzis will lead the audience through examples
of what resonance looks and feels like, as well as ideas as to develop
someone's "resonant leadership" capability, their emotional
intelligence, and the experiences of mindfulness, hope, and compassion.
This session will address the following:
(1) The experience of "resonant leadership" in an organization,
the role of emotional intelligence, mindfulness, hope and compassion.
(2) Understanding the cycle of stress/sacrifice and renewal at the
neural and behavioral levels. (3) A process for developing sustainable
improvement on EI and resonant leadership. (4) How to coach others
to develop EI, resonant leadership, mindfulness, hope and compassion.
(Some readings of possible interest:
Boyatzis and McKee, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and
Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion,
Harvard Business School Press, 2005; the August 2006 special
issue of the Journal of Management Development on Intentional
Change Theory from a Complexity Perspective.)
- Alberto Vazquez. Wednesday, 24 October 2007, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Experimental Considerations for Cognitive-based
fMRI Studies."
- Abstract: Functional MRI (fMRI) has had a tremendous impact in
studies of brain function. As fMRI continues to mature, its use
is quickly moving beyond the mapping of brain function. For example,
fMRI could be used (and has been used) to compare brain functions
between different populations, and to determine temporal connections
between brain areas, to name a few. However, making these inferences
from fMRI signals requires experimental designs that consider its
physiological contributions in order to avoid confounding factors.
This talk will discuss the physiological basis of the fMRI signal
as well as contributions to its variability. Experimental designs
that exploit the information embedded in the fMRI signal will also
be discussed.
- Francis Steen. Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Incorporating Consciousness: A Cognitive
Model of the Mind's Display Layer." Website.
Francis Steen is assistant professor of communication studies at
UCLA.
- Abstract: Cognitive science has largely avoided the topic of consciousness,
or attempted to explain it away, arguing we can understand core
mental functions without taking it into account. It is not obvious
that this is a plausible assumption. Consciousness has the hallmarks
of a complex adaptive structure, and it is not likely that it serves
no significant biological function. In this talk, I'll go over some
of the historical reasons the computational model of mind had no
use for consciousness, argue we have been led astray, and propose
that consciousness may in fact be playing a vital computational
role. The project of integrating consciousness into the causal chains
of sensory and conceptual inferences—the so-called "easy
problem"—has a series of interesting consequences, theoretical
as well as practical. Our understanding of bodily self-regulation,
sensory perception and object recognition, imagination, language,
and communication technologies are all affected. I'll try to show
that even a flawed theory of consciousness is an improvement on
the current situation, and develop some strands of what promises
to be a rich field for research.
- Daniela Calvetti. Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Food For Thought: Sweet or Sour?"
Daniela Calvetti is Professor of Mathematics at Case Western Reserve
University. Website
- Abstract: The discussion about what fuels neuronal activity has
been vibrant for a few decades. The prevailing hypothesis of the
primacy of glucose as the preferred substrate for neurons started
being questioned a little over a decade ago after a discrepancy
found via quantitative imaging techniques, eventually leading to
the formulation of the hypothesis that hungry neurons indeed prefer
lactate. The difficulty in obtaining direct measurements of metabolites
and intermediate concentrations during neuronal activity has kept
the debate of whether neurons have a sweet or sour taste alive.
In the search for an answer, the role of astrocytes during neuronal
activity has been upgraded, and the interactions between neurons
and glia cells have been studied in more depth. In this talk we
introduce a multicompartment mathematical model of the astroglia-neuron
cellular complex and a methodology which allows its utilization
to study brain energy metabolism. We will present the results of
preliminary investigations with our model in the light of the existing
hypotheses, and discuss extensions of this methodological approach
to quantitative imaging of brain activity.
- Wolfgang Wildgen. Wednesday, 3 October 2007, 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Evolution and Discourse ."
Guest Professor, Linguist, University of Bremen, Germany.Website
1. Website
2.
- Abstract: The evolution of language has two sides corresponding
to different semiotic aspects of linguistic signs: the social /
referential meaning and the organization of signs in words/sentences/discourse.
The first aspect is linked to the evolution of significance (“prégnance”)
and René Thom has linked it to basic features of light (visual
perception) and to evolutionary significance (survival values).
The second aspect is of a pragmatic nature. Out of behavioral patterns,
cultural techniques, rituals etc., discourse features emerge and
open the way for complex linguistic competences. The theoretical
preconditions for these two major evolutionary forces are discussed
and their relevance for the explanation of modern linguistic competences
is exemplified. The consequences for an evolutionary theory of language
and grammar are drawn.
- Ethics & Cognition. Wednesday, 12 September 2007.
4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Presenters include Sara Waller,
Anthony Jack, William Deal, and Per Aage Brandt. Abstracts
- Jay Alexander. Wednesday, 5 September 2007. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Blending and Mathematics."
Alexander's
Website. The Blending Webiste is at http://blending.stanford.edu.
Jay Alexander is Levi Kerr Professor of Mathematics and Cognitive
Science and Chair of Mathematics at Case Western Reserve University.
- Abstract: A number of cognitive scientists—Mark Turner,
Gilles Fauconnier, and others—have emphasized the role that
cognitive blending plays in human cognition. George Lakoff and Raphael
Núñez have stated, "Many of the most important
ideas in
mathematics are ... conceptual blends." Mathematics is rigorously
deductive, formally based on a few axioms and constructions. As
such, it could easily become sterile, but in fact it is an incredibly
rich and fecund discipline. I posit that one reason is that it rather
explicitly incorporates cognitive constructions in its formal structure.
I would like to support this thesis, both by explaining how blending
has been incorporated into the methodology of mathematics and presenting
some case studies.
- Michele Feist. Thursday, 30 August 2007. 3-4pm. 618 Crawford.
Title: "Inside in and on."
Website. Michele
Feist is Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at the Institute
of Cognitive Science at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
Pdf of background reading.
- Abstract: What do we pay attention to when we talk about space?
At first blush, spatial relational terms appear simple, clear, and
obvious. Research into their use and meanings, however, suggests
that they are semantically quite complex, encoding geometric, functional,
and qualitative physical aspects of the scenes they describe. In
this talk, I will consider two kinds of evidence for these three
aspects of spatial relational meaning with respect to topological
spatial terms: psycholinguistic evidence (within English), and cross-linguistic
evidence. I will conclude that the use of these terms is in fact
influenced by geometric, functional, and qualitative physical aspects
of spatial scenes, suggesting that our representations of topological
spatial meaning must be similarly complex.
- Lev Gonick. Wednesday,
9 May 2007. 4-5pm. 9 Crawford Hall (on the floor below SAGES café).
Title: "Considerations of Learning Experiences and Cognition
in the 3D Virtual World—or where Cog Sci meets the Next Big
Platform from the Tech World." Lev Gonick is Vice-President
for Information Technology and Adjunct Professor of Information
Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. In addition to numerous
national titles and appointments, he holds a Ph.D. in International
Political Economy from York University in Ontario, Canada. Bio.
Bytes from Lev.
- Mathew McCubbins.
Thursday, 26 April 2007. 4-5pm. 9 Crawford Hall (on the floor below
SAGES café). Title: "The Possibility of Deliberation."
McCubbins is Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's
Associates Chair in the Department of Political Science at UC San
Diego, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School
of Law, and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Southern
California. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Website.
Abstract: Is deliberation possible? This talk will survey experiments
on reason, social cognition, communicaton, persuasion, and agreement
to propose a model of decision and a theory of the possibility of
deliberation.
- Edward Slingerland, Wednesday, 11 April 2007. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Thinking with the Body: Somatic Marking
and Blending Jujitsu in Early China." Edward Slingerland
is Associate Professor of Asian Studies and Canada Research Chair
in Chinese Thought and Embodied Cognition at the University of British
Columbia. He received a B.A. from Stanford in Asian Languages (Chinese),
an M.A. from UC Berkeley in East Asian Languages (classical Chinese),
and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University. His research
specialties and teaching interests include Warring States Chinese
thought, cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphor theory, cognitive
science and behavioral neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, methodologies
for comparative religion and philosophy, virtue ethics, and the
classical Chinese language. pdf of slideshow
to accompany the talk. Website.
Background
Reading: "Conceptual Blending, Somatic Marking, and Normativity:
A Case Example from Ancient China."
Abstract: This talk will draw upon blending theory and Antonio Damasio's
concept of "somatic marking" to analyze samples of philosophical
argumentation in 4th B.C.E. China. Themes will include how blends
are used to recruit somatic markers and thereby influence normative
judgments, how extremely complex multiple-scope blends can be built
up in the course of verbal exchanges, and how the normative implications
of multiple-scope blends can be quickly and skillfully altered by
the introduction of novel spaces.
- Thinking Animals: Animal
Cognition and Consciousness? A colloquium and discussion. Wednesday,
28 March 2007. 4-5:15pm. 618 Crawford Hall.
- Richard Boland.
Wednesday, 21 March 2007. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Designing
Visual Thinking Environments for Situated Action."
Richard J. Boland, Jr., is Professor of Information Systems in the
Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.
Website: http://weatherhead.case.edu/faculty/boland.
Vita. Background paper: "The
Tyranny of Space in Organizational Analysis." Background paper:
"An Ecology of Distributed
Mediated Cognition."
Abstract: Our research is on the design of visual thinking environments
for acting responsibly in organizational settings. I will discuss
two examples of visual thinking environments we are developing,
and will demonstrate a software system we have created for one of
them. In the first example, the actor is understood as being located
in a situation and experiencing forces that shape her possibilities
for action. Representations in this environment depict the experience
of being embodied and confronting the problem of self and other.
In the second example, the actor is understood as intervening in
a situation and encountering a social structure that is stretched
across time and space. Representations in this environment depict
her perceptions of the elements and relationships causing the social
structure to be produced and reproduced. The software I will demonstrate
is based on the second example and is named Theory Garden.
- Ciarán Benson. Wednesday, 7 March 2007. 4-5pm.
9 Crawford Hall (on the floor below SAGES café). Title: “Emotions
in the Maintenance & Reproduction of Identities: From Cultural
to Personal Memory.” Ciarán Benson is Professor
of Psychology at University College, Dublin. Website: http://www.ucd.ie/psychology/academicstaff/benson/research.html.
This presentation was part of a minisymposium
on "Time and Memory."
- Lawrence Zbikowski. Wednesday, 7 February 2007. 4-5pm.
9 Crawford Hall. Title: "Music, Gesture, and Musical Grammar."
Lawrence Zbikowski is Associate Professor of Music, University of
Chicago. Website: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/zbikowski/.
Abstract: Musicians have long made recourse to the notion of gesture
when they want to evoke the kinesthetic and expressive part of musical
experience. In my presentation I explore this notion in a slightly
more systematic fashion by drawing on recent work by David McNeill
and Susan Goldin-Meadow on the gesture that accompanies language.
In brief, this work shows that the gestures that accompany our speech
reflect a mode of thought that is independent from but coordinated
with language. Through an analysis of Jerome Kern’s “The
Way You Look Tonight” I show that musical gestures can play
a role analogous to the gestures that accompany speech. This finding
in turn suggests how a construction grammar for music might be developed,
something I sketch in the concluding portion of my presentation.
- Benjamin Bergen. Wednesday, 24 January 2007. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Mental Simulation and Grammar."
Benjamin Bergen is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive
Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Website: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~bergen/.
Abstract: Converging evidence from text analysis, behavioral experimentation
and brain imaging suggests that in understanding language, comprehenders
construct mental simulations - mental imagery - of motor and perceptual
components of described scenes. For instance, processing a sentence
like 'Jenny hurled the water balloon at her little brother' might
drive understanders to mentally simulate the motor action of throwing
a water balloon, including the required handshape, amount of pressure
applied by the hand, and trajectory of the arm. Or they might simulate
visual components of the scene - a water balloon being thrown, flying
through the air, or making contact with a face; this visual imagery
can take place from any of a number of perspectives - that of the
thrower, of the throwee, or an outside viewpoint. In this presentation,
I will present evidence that grammar plays a role in configuring
how mental simulations enacted by understanders take place. First,
we'll investigate how grammatical aspect ('Jenny has hurled the
water balloon' versus 'Jenny is hurling the water balloon') affects
the degree of detail with which a motor image is constructed. Second,
we'll look at how grammatical person ('you' versus 'Jenny') affects
the perspective adopted in visual simulation. And finally, we'll
look at how word order (Subject-Verb-Object as in English versus
Subject-Object-Verb as in Japanese) affects the timecourse of mental
simulation of described components of a scene.
- Sarah Shomstein. Tuesday, 23 January 2007. 4:15-5:15pm,
618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Mechanisms of Selective Attention
in Human Cortex." Sarah Shomstein is Postdoctoral
Research Associate, Carnegie Mellon University, and Ph.D., Psychological
and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 2003. Website: http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~shomstein/.
- Abstract: Attention is the cognitive process by which behaviorally
relevant information is selected in accordance with the current
goal of the organism. After several decades of behavioral research,
the neural substrate of attentional selection remains elusive. I
will present evidence suggesting that attention is a flexible mechanism
that selects information from the environment based on different
properties—spatial locations and objects that occupy them—
that are modality-independent. I will discuss how these types of
attentional mechanisms are instantiated in the human cortex by presenting
several fMRI experiments demonstrating that (a) independent of what
the basis of selection is, attended information benefits perceptually
and (b) that posterior parietal cortex is the possible neural substrate
of attentional control. In addition, I will present series of experiments,
conducted with patients who have sustained damage to parietal cortex,
that examine whether specific regions of the cortex are necessary
or sufficient for attentional selection. This research uncovers
the neural substrate of attentional control, and addresses the importance
of employing multiple methodologies, thus further constraining theories
of attentional selection.
- Osamu Fujimura. Wednesday, 17 January
2007. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Symbolic representation
in language and biology." Dr. Fujimura is Professor
Emeritus, Ohio State University. He established and directed the
Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics at the University
of Tokyo. In 1965, he led the speech section of the Acoustical Society
of Japan, receiving its Award for Distinguished Service in 1999.
He collaborated for four years with the research laboratory in electronics
at MIT and for two years with the Royal Institute of Technology
in Stockholm. For was a director at Bell Laboratories (AT&T)
for fifteen years, serving in the Departments of of Linguistics
and Speech Analysis and Artificial Intelligence Research. He was
professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio
State University for fifteen years. He is currently preparing a
new introductory book on speech science.
Extended Abstract
- Robert Morrison. Tuesday, 16 January 2007. 4:15-5:15pm,
618 Crawford Hall. Title: "Analogy in Working Memory: Developmental,
Neurocognitive and Computational Evidence." Robert
Morrison is Executive Director of Xunesis, Chicago and Ph.D., Cognitive
Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, 2004. Website:
http://www.xunesis.org/people_morrison_right.html.
- Abstract: Analogical reasoning is ubiquitous in accounts of human
learning and discovery. While cognitive scientists have studied
analogy for nearly one hundred years, efforts to understand how
the brain performs and constrains analogy are relatively recent.
In this presentation, I will outline a program of research using
developmental, neurocognitive, and computational methods to explore
the importance of the human working memory system as managed by
inhibitory control for performing analogical reasoning.
- Rajeev Raizada. Thursday, 11 January 2007. 4-5pm, 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Towards Applying Cognitive Neuroscience
to Education." Rajeev Raizada is Postdoctoral Fellow,
Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington
and Ph.D. Boston University, Cognitive & Neural Systems, 2000.
Website:
http://ilabs.washington.edu/scientists/raizada/raizada.html.
- Abstract: Can insights from cognitive neuroscience be used to
improve children’s education in our schools? The gulf between
what we understand about the brain and what might be relevant to
schooling can seem too wide to bridge. I will argue that in order
to start to build such a bridge, we need not just to observe brain
activity, but instead to look for brain activity that is involved
in specific cognitively interpretable neural representations. I
will present examples from my fMRI studies that try to achieve this,
including work looking at the structure of phonetic representations
in the brain, experiments distinguishing between neural processing
and behavioural performance in children, and ongoing work on the
role of neural representations of reward during trial-and-error
learning. Finally, I will discuss future directions in which such
research could be extended.
-
- Suzy Scherf. Wednesday, 10 January 2007. 4-5pm, 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: "The Development of Face and Object Representations:
Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms." Suzy Scherf is Post-Doctoral
Fellow in the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development, Department
of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh and Ph.D., Developmental
Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, 2003. Website: http://www.pitt.edu/~scherf/.
- Abstract: Human adults can accurately distinguish between thousands
of different faces and can recognize an individual face across many
transformations, including changes in lighting, hairstyle, expressions,
angle of view, and jewelry. Despite the social significance of this
ability, it is unclear when, in the course of development, face
recognition skills become adult-like. At issue is when configural
processing strategies, which involve recognizing objects on the
basis of subtle metric variations between constituent features,
are available to and can be used efficiently by children. The acquisition
of face expertise over many years of experience has been suggested
as one of the reasons for late-developing configural processing
strategies in children. I will present evidence that 1) experience
and configural processing abilities can be dissociated in children
and 2) limited experience is not the only constraint on developing
object recognition skills. I will also show that, relative to the
development of place- and object-selective ventral visual cortex,
which is adult-like even in late childhood, there is a delay that
extends into early adolescence in the development of face-selective
cortex. The conclusion is that by age 12 there is a convergence
in the maturation of configural processing abilities and functional
organization in the ventral temporal lobe for face recognition.
Finally, I will show how this convergence fails to occur in children
with autism. This research reveals important mechanisms supporting
the formation of stable visual representations and may help identify
vulnerable developmental periods in which targeted intervention
programs could have more success for individuals with developmental
disorders.
- Christopher Chabris. Monday, 8 January 2007. 4-5pm, 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Individual Differences in Cognition:
General Intelligence and Beyond." Christopher Chabris
is Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Harvard University,
and Ph.D., Psychology, Harvard University, 1999. Website: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/.
- Abstract: Cognitive scientists typically study the species-universal
architecture of the human mind. In any given study, however, a large
fraction of the total measured variance is accounted for by differences
among the participants, rather than among the experimental conditions.
For over a century, research has consistently shown that individuals
who perform well on one cognitive task tend to perform well on other
tasks. Positive correlation among cognitive test scores is observed
so ubiquitously that it can be regarded as a behavioral law—the
"Law of General Intelligence." In the first part of this
talk, I will present evidence that general intelligence is found
in animal species as well as in humans, and that it is a biological
trait grounded in neural mechanisms of information processing efficiency
and cognitive control. In the second part, I will argue that a full
understanding of individual differences in human cognition must
go beyond general intelligence to incorporate both special cognitive
abilities and "cognitive traits," or characteristics of
cognition that do not reflect "ability" per se. I will
present data suggesting that (1) the ability to recognize faces
may be a special ability, relatively unconnected to general intelligence;
and (2) individuals’ preferences for spatial- and object-based
visualization strategies are separate dimensions of cognitive style
that predict the performance of collaborative teams. The talk will
conclude with a brief discussion of how cognitive neuroscience approaches
can further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying individual
differences.
- Anthony Jack. Wednesday, 20 December 2006. 4-5pm, 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Can fMRI Shed Light on Cognitive Control?"
Anthony Jack is Post-doctoral Research Associate in the
Department of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine
and Ph.D. in Psychology, University College London, 1998. Website:
http://tony.jack.googlepages.com/home .
- Abstract: Humans have a remarkable ability to flexibly adapt to
changing circumstances and novel situations. We reconfigure our
cognitive processes on the fly, allowing us to process information
in a way that serves our current goals. Can fMRI shed light on how
we accomplish this remarkable feat? This talk will consist of two
parts. In the first part, I will outline two series of experiments
which demonstrate how state-of-the-art fMRI research can shed light
on the mechanisms underlying one specific type of cognitive control:
spatial attention. The second part will involve a much broader discussion
of issues involved in cognitive control. I will point to some links
between consciousness and cognitive control, and suggest that we
can learn more by investigating the relationship between brain areas
involved in "visual" and "social" processes.
-
- Vera Tobin. Wednesday, 29 November 2006. 4-5pm. 618 Crawford
Hall. Title: "Literary Joint Attention." Website:
http://stuttercut.org/
Abstract: Language has a variety of resources for assigning different
degrees of salience to different aspects of an utterance, its expressed
content, and the context in which the utterance appears. These resources
serve as tools for language users to direct one another's attention
with respect to these domains and to coordinate understanding in
discourse. Furthermore, in natural language, sentences and conversational
turns are constructed not in isolation, but as the products of an
interactive process between speaker and hearer, in which elements
such as pauses, repairs, restarts, and linguistic and non-linguistic
displays of agreement, confusion, interest, or disinterest all contribute
to the construction of coherent streams of talk (see, for example,
Charles Goodwin, Sociological Inquiry, 1980).
Joint attention is a fundamental aspect of interpersonal coordination
in which, in its most basic form, two people are both focused on
an external object and mutually aware of this shared focus. In person,
people coordinate their communicative activities in real time and
get immediate feedback about whether they have succeeded or failed
in their communicative intentions. A host of visual cues helps us
to keep track of the immediate attentions of our interlocutors,
and this knowledge provides important information about what we
can consider part of the common ground underlying a conversation.
Other settings of language use, such as those associated with the
production, dissemination, and reception of literary texts, can
lack many of these mechanisms for immediate coordination. How, then,
and to what extent, do participants in these discourses take one
another into account? In this talk, I present the phenomenon of
literary joint attention as a subset of joint attention in general,
and give a detailed analysis of its mechanisms as they play out
over the textual history of one of the most famously revised poems
in modern English, Marianne Moore's "Poetry".
This analysis demonstrates the radically material and collaborative
process of meaning construction involved in literature, and the
grounding of that collaborative process in the joint attention of
its participants. It also makes the connections between these literary
acts and their counterparts in natural discourse newly clear, pointing
the way to an interactionalist and cognitive stylistics of attention.
- Nurit Ben-Zvi. Wednesday, 15 November 2006. 4-5pm. 618
Crawford Hall. Title: "Timing and Creativity in Orally Transmitted
Biblical Cantillation." Ben-Zvi holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology
from the Hebrew University and spent a postdoctoral year in the
Cognitive Ethnomusicology Lab in OSU, during 2002-2003. Her research
focuses on oral transmission of music and speech traditions. She
is interested in the human creativity intrinsic to oral cultures
and explores the cognitive processes underlying the performance
practice of chanting. Interested faculty may join Ben-Zvi for coffee
3-4pm in SAGES café.
Abstract: Cognitive Ethnomusicology is a very young area of research.
It aims to integrate culture, music and human cognition to better
understand how the brain responds to music and how music making
by humans influence brain activity. Because its main key concepts
and thoughts – such as: orality, in/out context performance
practice, literacy/illiteracy, cultural values, expertise and symbolic
communication – are almost parallel with central themes of
research in Cognitive Sciences (such as: learning/memory, perception/action,
writing/reading, emotions, expertise/creativity, music/language
production), music is considered at present time by neuroscientists
as the “food of neuroscience” (e.g., Robert Zatore,
Nature, 2005) and by psychologists arguing that “this
discipline could provide us with a list of musical traits that are
common to all known musical cultures and traits that are culture-specific”
(e.g., Isabelle Peretz, Cognition, 2006). Im this talk,
I will present some main aspects that relate to rhythm perception
and production in orally transmitted Biblical Cantillation by old-aged
cantors. I will describe the riddle intrinsic to this religious
ancient musical practice (Hebrew script is consonantal, i.e., deep
orthography, and melody exhibits no periodicity) as well as some
methodological aspects. By arguing that Time is not only a crucial
factor in ear communication (basing on behavioral studies), but
also is related to temporal memory processes (by basing on imaging
studies), I would suggest that the temporality of human cognition
interpolated with retrieved musical knowledge and on line creativity,
give rise to cultural oral pattern to spontaneously emerge. One
intriguing open question that arises from the study of rhythm production
in Cantillation is whether temporal information presented independently
from spatial action (i.e., as an abstract program), as some theories
of timing claim, or timing is intimately correlated with spatial
events, thus an emergent property of concrete events themselves?
It seems that the issue of 'internal clock' will still remain a
debatable issue.
- Jesper Sørensen. Wednesday, 8
November 2006, 4-5pm, 618 Crawford Hall. Title: "The Construction
of Agency in Ritual Action." Jesper Sørensen
is Associate Professor in Comparative Religion, Institute of Philosophy,
Education and the Study of Religion, University of Southern Denmark.
He is currently International Scholar, Memory and Development Lab,
Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis.
Abstract: It is a common understanding that the performance of ritual
actions is motivated by beliefs in superhuman agents (gods, spirits,
ancestors) and that the only thing distinguishing rituals from ordinary
actions is the role played by these agents. In short, people perform
ritual actions because they believe in superhuman agents, and ritual
actions are special because of the special features of the beings
believed in. In this paper, I will argue that it might be the other
way around: that it is the performance of ritual actions that makes
representations of superhuman agents relevant in the first place.
Based on recent cognitive studies of human action representations,
I will argue that humans represent the actions of other people by
means of two relatively independent neuro-cognitive systems. One
is based on representations of specific action gestalts and relates
these to proximate intentions of the observed agent. The other,
in turn, combines series of such action gestalt into a causally
related sequence specified by an ultimate intention. These two systems
are thus hierarchically related and in unison they give rise to
representations of other peoples’ actions as both meaningful
and goal directed. In ritual actions, however, these two systems
are disconnected. The actions performed are represented as having
proximate intentions, but for a number of reasons they are not automatically
combined into causal sequences specified by an ultimate intention.
This has a number of cognitive effects, and prominent among these
is that it makes representation of unobservable superhuman agents
highly relevant. Gods, spirits and ancestor are able to re-establish
the connection between proximate and ultimate levels of the action
representation thus making the action both meaningful and goal directed.
This role of superhuman agents in ritual action will, in turn, make
these agents more relevant when understanding or explaining non-ritual
events as both meaningful and goal directed.
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