The development of the meaning of non-ostensive words in a group of primary school children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate word meaning and its development in primary school children (6-12 years) . It was argued that the learning and development of the meanings of words such as pain cannot be primarily explained by means of ostensive definition. Furthermore, existing theories of word meaning which deal predominantly with substantive words fail to account for the learning of non-ostensive words. The pertinent psychological, linguistic and developmental psycholinguistic approaches to word meaning are reviewed briefly. The prototype approaches to word meaning are modified to apply to non-ostensive words . The focus is on conceptual meaning, that is, the way in which the senses of a word alter in different contexts. It is argued that the meaning of the word is its use in a diversity of linguistic contexts. The term "grammar" is applied in a unique way to encompass the meaning of the word (which stems in part from the words with which it co-occurs) as well as its selective use with other words in the language. Ninety-five metalinguistically-phrased tasks comprising short questions and picture-story sequences were analyzed in depth. The tasks were administered individually. A flexible interview afforded additional probing for each question. The analysis comprised percentage scores of responses at different age levels together with verbatim transcripts and qualitative descriptions: Uniformity, variation and developmental trends were found on different tasks for any particular word. Developmental trends were noted in children's understanding of particular words (for example, same), thereby extending the findings of previous researchers. There was evidence for a progression in children's ability to take into consideration that a word alters its sense according to the linguistic context in which it occurs (for example, same as it relates to chair versus dress versus pain). A comprehensive account of the words meaning could be established when a diversity of tasks was applied for each word. Children of different age levels employed different strategies in answering the questions posed. A model is proposed to describe the development of the meaning of non-ostensive words during the primary school years. It is suggested that psycholinguistic studies on word meaning be re-evaluated and that language and reading programmes incorporate the notion of "grammar". Application of this approach to the study of substantive word meaning in preschool children has important implications for theories of word meaning and for therapeutic intervention

Conceptual and cognitive problems in cybernetics

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Controversies have existed for some time about cybernetics as a subject and difficulties have existed for students in obtaining an overview despite the fact that at some level several cybernetics concepts can be grasped by twelve year olds. An attempt is made to unpack the notion of a subject entity and to indicate how far elements in cybernetics conform to such a concept within a generally acceptable philosophy of science. Ambiguities and controversies among key themes of cybernetics are examined and resolutions offered. How far the nature of cybernetics is likely to create problems of understanding is discussed, along with approaches towards the empirical examination of how cybernetic ideas are understood. An approach to better understanding is formulated and used in an investigation of how and how effectively the concept of feedback is grasped by various groups. Suggestions are offered from the foregoing analysis as to the balance of problems within cybernetics and effective strategies for the future

Universals in the context of Juri Lotman's semiotics. Appendix: three lectures by Juri Lotman = Universaalidest Juri Lotmani semiootika kontekstis = Об универсалиях в контексте семиотики Юрия Лотмана

http://www.ester.ee/record=b2357514*es

The cybernetics of concepts: An integrated system of postulates to explain their nature, origins, use, malfunction and maintenance within a natural neural-molecular medium in the brain. [Original title]

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Behaviourists and Logical Positivists commendably set out to purge prejudiced arguments from science, but where it is obvious that there remains some sort of "ghost" in their rational "machine", it is self-defeating simply to ignore its existence. Freaud, Piaget, and the ethologists have made some progress in grasping this nettle -- moving towards a material explanation of the "other-worldly" properties of the individual -- but their models of the individual remain nebulously structured in their basic elements. Consequently such theories remain disturbingly controversial, and circumscribed in their applicability. [#] The present work accordingly sets out to bridge this gap by postulating plausible functions for existing micro-structure which could account both for observed behavioural phenomena, and for many of the existing vaguer theoretical constructs. Part A develops such an explanation for Piagetian constructs, while Part B fills in some of the technical details concerning quantitative problems of signal generation, transmission, and selective reception. [#] Part C applies these notions to other non-Piagetian descriptions and interpretations of psychological phenomena, thereby offering an integration and reconciliation of various schools of theory. (Major areas considered include Ashby's "homeostat" approach, biological self-organization, sleep-modes and dreaming, Freudian theories of neuroses, and various theories concerning psychosis). The basic theory itself is meanwhile developed in much greater detail. [#] A recurring theme throughout the work is the notion that knowledge-acquisition by any independent system depends not only on "external" interaction with the "real" world, but also on an active seeking for internal consistency within the resulting "internal" model. This concept is crucial to the study in two ways:- (i) The operation of the brain-systems being considered, and (ii) As a guuide to the methodology of the present study itself -- in an area where experimental data is uncomfortably sparse, and likely to remain so

Communication and the Origins of Personhood

This thesis presents a communicative account of personhood that argues for the inseparability of the metaphysical and the practical concepts of a person. It connects these two concepts by coupling the question “what is a person” (concerning the necessary conditions of personhood) with the question "how does one become a person"(concerning its genetic conditions). It argues that participation in social interactions that are characterized by mutual recognition and giving-and-taking reasons implied by the practical concept of a person is in fact an ecological and developmental condition for an entity to possess the kind of characteristics and capacities such as reflexive self-consciousness addressed by the metaphysical concept. The chief theoretical contribution of the dissertation research lies, accordingly, in demonstrating that an adequate metaphysical concept of a person has to make reference to the kind of social processes that are necessary for the emergence and development of the distinguishing attributes of persons among other moving, perceiving, desiring and cognizing agents. Methodologically, it undertakes an original philosophical analysis that is enriched by an interdisciplinary investigation of several notions and insights from semiotics, comparative and developmental psychology, cognitive science and anthropology. The main argument of the thesis is that one becomes a person through internally recreating a social, communicative process; namely, that of dialogical transformation of habits. We find the paradigmatic case of this social process in mutual persuasion. The internalization of this process in the form of an inner dialogue cultivates a social self that is in ongoing communication with the embodied, organismic self of uncritically habituated attitudes, convictions and desires. This inner dialogue can be conceived as a temporally extended process of self-persuasion, which is characterized by an ongoing strive for attaining higher degrees of self-control; that is, for achieving a more coherent alignment between our habits and the kind of person we would like to be. It starts with self-interpretation and self-evaluation, and culminates in the formation of higher-order desires that facilitate habit-change and novel habit formation in accordance with certain social, moral, aesthetical or intellectual categories and norms one comes to endorse. For this reason, self-induced, deliberate habit-change is also a process of appropriation or self-appropriation, through which we strive to cultivate habits of feeling, thinking, acting that we can deem more truly ours. The thesis demonstrates that the capacity for engaging in this kind of self-persuasion consists chiefly in the capacities for metasemiosis, perspective-taking, and for cultivating habits of reflexivity. It explicates how all these capacities have a social origin and ultimately a social function by showing that they all presuppose certain higher-order communicative patterns that arose through an evolutionary and cultural history, and develop through the internal reconstruction of these patterns as cognitive-semiotic processes. The thesis concludes that becoming a kind of being who can engage in self-persuasion, thus a person, consists ultimately in internalizing the patterns of communicative social interactions in the form of an ongoing auto-communication.  Väitöskirjassa käsitellään persoonuuden kommunikatiivista prosessia ja osoitetaan, että persoonan metafyysiset ja käytännölliset käsitteet ovat erottamattomat. Nämä kaksi käsitettä yhdistetään tarkastelemalla kysymyksiä ”mikä on persoona” ja ”miten tullaan persoonaksi”. Väitöskirjassa osoitetaan, että osallistuminen sosiaaliseen kanssakäymiseen, johon kuuluu persoonan käytännön käsitteeseen kuuluva vastavuoroinen tunnustaminen sekä kompromissi, on itse asiassa entiteetin ekologinen ja kehityksellinen olotila, jossa se saavuttaa piirteitä ja taitoja, kuten persoonan metafyysisen käsitteen mukainen refleksiivinen itsetietoisuus. Väitöskirjan keskeinen teoreettinen tavoite on osoittaa, että persoonan onnistuneessa metafyysisessä käsitteessä on otettava huomioon sosiaaliset prosessit, jotka ovat välttämättömiä persoonan erityisten attribuuttien kehittymiselle, kuten liikkuminen, havaitseminen, haluaminen sekä kognitiiviset agentit. Väitöskirjan metodologia koostuu filosofisesta analyysista, jota monitieteisesti rikastutetaan semiotiikan, vertailevan ja kehityspsykologian, kognitiivisten tieteiden ja antropologian lähestymistavoilla. Väitöskirjan keskeinen teesi on, että agentista tulee persoona, kun se luo uudestaan sisäisesti sosiaalisen, kommunikatiivisen prosessin, toisin sanoen tapojen dialogisen transformaation kautta. Tämän sosiaalisen prosessin paradigmaattinen esimerkki on molemminpuolinen vakuuttaminen. Sen sisäistäminen sisäisen dialogin muotoon kehittää sosiaalista minuutta, joka on jatkuvassa kommunikaatiossa epäkriittisten asenteiden, vakaumusten ja halujen elimellisesti ruumiillistuneen minän kanssa. Tämä sisäinen dialogi voidaan mieltää itsensä suostuttelun prosessiksi. Itsensä suostuttelu on jatkuva pyrkimys saavuttaa itsehillinnän korkeampia tasoja, toisin sanoen saattaa yhteen tapamme ja se persoona, joka haluaisimme olla. Se alkaa itsearviolla ja huipentuu niiden ylevämpien halujen muodostumiseen, jotka edistävät persoonan tapojen muutosta niiden tiettyjen sosiaalisten, moraalisten, esteettisten ja intellektuaalisten normien mukaisesti, joita yksilö alkaa noudattamaan. Tästä syystä itse toteutettu tapojen muutos on myös itsensä hallitsemisen prosessi, jonka kautta me voimme kehittää tapoja, joita pidämme aidommin ominamme. Väitöskirja osoittaa, että taito ryhtyä itsensä suostutteluun muodostuu pääsääntöisesti kyvystä metasemioosiin, perspektiivin ottamisesta sekä refleksiivisyyden kehittämisestä. Se esittää, että kaikilla näillä taidoilla on sosiaalinen alkuperä ja viime kädessä sosiaalinen merkitys, osoittamalla, että ne kaikki edellyttävät tiettyjä ylevämpiä kommunikatiivisia malleja, jotka nousevat kehitys- ja kulttuurihistoriasta ja kehittyvät näiden mallien sisäisen rekonstruktion kautta kognitiivis-semioottisina prosesseina. Lopuksi väitöskirja osoittaa, että tuleminen sellaiseksi olevaksi, joka voi toteuttaa itsensä suostuttelun, toisin sanoen persoonaksi, muodostuu viime kädessä sosiaalisen kanssakäymisen kommunikatiivisten mallien sisäistämisestä jatkuvan autokommunikaation muodossa.

Similarity space theories and the problem of concept acquisition.

232 p.Uno de los principales problemas a los que se enfrenta el empirismo es el de explicar cómo se adquieren los elementos más básicos de los conceptos, sin recurrir para ello a elementos innatos preexistentes. El propósito de esta tesis es mostrar que los mejores argumentos nativistas en contra de la posibilidad de aprender conceptos (primitivos) dependen de la asunción de que los constituyentes de los conceptos deben estar disponibles de antemano, como entrada de los procesos de adquisición. No obstante, mostraré que nada obliga a aceptar esa asunción (de precedencia). De hecho, presentaré un modelo en donde los elementos constitutivos de un concepto resultan del mismo proceso de aprendizaje en virtud del cual ese concepto se adquiere. Mi propuesta está basada en una teoría de espacios de similaridad articulada mediante prototipos. Además pruebo: (A) que dos nociones distintas de concepto deben distinguirse en este tipo de aproximación, a saber, conceptos como almacenamiento y conceptos como instanciación; y (B) que una propuesta como ésta reúne virtudes tanto del ámbito invariantista como del contextualista. Argumento también que, si los conceptos son dependientes del contexto ¿según sostiene el contextualismo¿, entonces los conceptos instanciados carecen de persistencia mínima y, por ello, no pueden ser una representación de sus categorías asociadas

Collected Papers (on Neutrosophic Theory and Applications), Volume VIII

This eighth volume of Collected Papers includes 75 papers comprising 973 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2010-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 102 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 24 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abduallah Gamal, Firoz Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Akbar Rezaei, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, Azeddine Elhassouny, Durga Banerjee, Romualdas Bausys, Mircea Boșcoianu, Traian Alexandru Buda, Bui Cong Cuong, Emilia Calefariu, Ahmet Çevik, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Dae Wan Kim, Daud Ahmad, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Mamouni Dhar, H. A. Elagamy, Ahmed K. Essa, Sudipta Gayen, Bibhas C. Giri, Daniela Gîfu, Noel Batista Hernández, Hojjatollah Farahani, Huda E. Khalid, Irfan Deli, Saeid Jafari, Tèmítópé Gbóláhàn Jaíyéolá, Sripati Jha, Sudan Jha, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, M. Karthika, Kawther F. Alhasan, Giruta Kazakeviciute-Januskeviciene, Qaisar Khan, Kishore Kumar P K, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Maikel Leyva-Vázquez, Mahmoud Ismail, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa Masood Malik, Mohammad Abobala, Mai Mohamed, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Seema Mehra, Kalyan Mondal, Mohamed Talea, Mullai Murugappan, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Aslam Malik, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Nivetha Martin, Durga Nagarajan, Nguyen Van Dinh, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Lewis Nkenyereya, Jagan M. Obbineni, M. Parimala, S. K. Patro, Peide Liu, Pham Hong Phong, Surapati Pramanik, Gyanendra Prasad Joshi, Quek Shio Gai, R. Radha, A.A. Salama, S. Satham Hussain, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Selvaraj Ganesan, Shahbaz Ali, Shouzhen Zeng, Manjeet Singh, A. Stanis Arul Mary, Dragiša Stanujkić, Yusuf Șubaș, Rui-Pu Tan, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Zenonas Turskis, Vakkas Uluçay, Norberto Valcárcel Izquierdo, V. Venkateswara Rao, Volkan Duran, Ying Li, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Jian-qiang Wang, Lihshing Leigh Wang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas