COGS 2160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Mental Representation, Information Processing, Isomorphism

• School: York University
• Department: Cognitive Science
• Course: COGS 2160
• Professor: Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Document Summary

Various types of evidence indicate that human and non-human animals process information. Beha(cid:448)ior (cid:272)a(cid:374)(cid:859)t just (cid:271)e e(cid:454)plai(cid:374)ed i(cid:374) ter(cid:373)s of sti(cid:373)ulus-response: see, e. g. , cognitive maps, attention, meaning, structure-dependent rules (syntax), etc. What is info processing: roughly: the manipulation of metal representations according to rules, to generate new representations. Words, signs, symbols represent (partly) because of conventions or agreements: red means: stop, green means: go (cid:858)so(cid:374)(cid:859) (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s male offspring in english, sound in french. Philosophers and cognitive scientists contrast different representational formats: pictorial vs. verbal. These are not identical contrasts, but related. Some ways in which imagistic representation differ from symbolic: resemblance b/w representation and object, not an arbitrary relationship. Isomorphism or one-to-one correspondence b/w representation and object: continuous variation in images (not discrete, no capacity to convey abstractions, modality. Try in to recreate as many aspects as possible. I(cid:374)stead of (cid:373)e(cid:374)tal i(cid:373)ager(cid:455), (cid:373)a(cid:455)(cid:271)e it(cid:859)s a si(cid:373)ulatio(cid:374) (cid:271)ased o(cid:374) ta(cid:272)it k(cid:374)o(cid:449)ledge.