13,010 research outputs found
Contextualizing concepts using a mathematical generalization of the quantum formalism
We outline the rationale and preliminary results of using the State Context
Property (SCOP) formalism, originally developed as
a generalization of quantum mechanics, to describe the contextual manner in
which concepts are evoked, used, and combined to
generate meaning. The quantum formalism was developed to cope with problems
arising in the description of (1) the measurement
process, and (2) the generation of new states with new properties when
particles become entangled. Similar problems arising
with concepts motivated the formal treatment introduced here. Concepts are
viewed not as fixed representations, but entities
existing in states of potentiality that require interaction with a
context---a stimulus or another concept---to `collapse' to
observable form as an exemplar, prototype, or other (possibly imaginary)
instance. The stimulus situation plays the role of
the measurement in physics, acting as context that induces a change of the
cognitive state from
superposition state to collapsed state. The collapsed state is
more likely to consist of a conjunction of
concepts for associative than analytic thought because more stimulus or
concept properties take part in the
collapse. We provide two contextual measures of conceptual distance---one
using collapse probabilities and the other weighted
properties---and show how they can be applied to conjunctions using the pet
fish problem
Toward a Taxonomy and Computational Models of Abnormalities in Images
The human visual system can spot an abnormal image, and reason about what
makes it strange. This task has not received enough attention in computer
vision. In this paper we study various types of atypicalities in images in a
more comprehensive way than has been done before. We propose a new dataset of
abnormal images showing a wide range of atypicalities. We design human subject
experiments to discover a coarse taxonomy of the reasons for abnormality. Our
experiments reveal three major categories of abnormality: object-centric,
scene-centric, and contextual. Based on this taxonomy, we propose a
comprehensive computational model that can predict all different types of
abnormality in images and outperform prior arts in abnormality recognition.Comment: To appear in the Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI 2016
Typicality, graded membership, and vagueness
This paper addresses theoretical problems arising from the vagueness of language terms, and intuitions of the vagueness of the concepts to which they refer. It is argued that the central intuitions of prototype theory are sufficient to account for both typicality phenomena and psychological intuitions about degrees of membership in vaguely defined classes. The first section explains the importance of the relation between degrees of membership and typicality (or goodness of example) in conceptual categorization. The second and third section address arguments advanced by Osherson and Smith (1997), and Kamp and Partee (1995), that the two notions of degree of membership and typicality must relate to fundamentally different aspects of conceptual representations. A version of prototype theoryâthe Threshold Modelâis proposed to counter these arguments and three possible solutions to the problems of logical selfcontradiction and tautology for vague categorizations are outlined. In the final section graded membership is related to the social construction of conceptual boundaries maintained through language use
KLM-Style Defeasible Reasoning for Datalog
In many problem domains, particularly those related to mathematics and philosophy, classical logic has enjoyed great success as a model of valid reasoning and discourse. For real-world reasoning tasks, however, an agent typically only has partial knowledge of its domain, and at most a statistical understanding of relationships between properties. In this context, classical inference is considered overly restrictive, and many systems for non-monotonic reasoning have been proposed in the literature to deal with these tasks. A notable example is the Klm framework, which describes an agent's defeasible knowledge qualitatively in terms of conditionals of the form âif A, then typically Bâ. The goal of this research project is to investigate Klm-style semantics for defeasible reasoning over Datalog knowledge bases. Datalog is a declarative logic programming language, designed for querying large deductive databases. Syntactically, it can be viewed as a computationally feasible fragment of firstorder logic, so this continues a recent line of work in which the Klm framework is lifted to more expressive languages
A probabilistic framework for analysing the compositionality of conceptual combinations
Conceptual combination performs a fundamental role in creating the broad
range of compound phrases utilised in everyday language. This article provides
a novel probabilistic framework for assessing whether the semantics of conceptual
combinations are compositional, and so can be considered as a function of
the semantics of the constituent concepts, or not. While the systematicity and
productivity of language provide a strong argument in favor of assuming compositionality,
this very assumption is still regularly questioned in both cognitive
science and philosophy. Additionally, the principle of semantic compositionality
is underspecified, which means that notions of both "strong" and "weak"
compositionality appear in the literature. Rather than adjudicating between
different grades of compositionality, the framework presented here contributes
formal methods for determining a clear dividing line between compositional and
non-compositional semantics. In addition, we suggest that the distinction between
these is contextually sensitive. Compositionality is equated with a joint probability distribution modeling how the constituent concepts in the combination
are interpreted. Marginal selectivity is introduced as a pivotal probabilistic
constraint for the application of the Bell/CH and CHSH systems of inequalities.
Non-compositionality is equated with a failure of marginal selectivity, or violation
of either system of inequalities in the presence of marginal selectivity. This
means that the conceptual combination cannot be modeled in a joint probability
distribution, the variables of which correspond to how the constituent concepts
are being interpreted. The formal analysis methods are demonstrated by applying
them to an empirical illustration of twenty-four non-lexicalised conceptual
combinations
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The physical mandate for belief-goal psychology
This article describes a heuristic argument for understanding certain physical systems in terms of properties that resemble the beliefs and goals of folk psychology. The argument rests on very simple assumptions. The core of the argument is that predictions about certain events can legitimately be based on assumptions about later events, resembling Aristotelian âfinal causationâ; however, more nuanced causal entities (resembling fallible beliefs) must be introduced into these types of explanation in order for them to remain consistent with a causally local Universe
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