Designing a training tool for imaging mental models

The training process can be conceptualized as the student acquiring an evolutionary sequence of classification-problem solving mental models. For example a physician learns (1) classification systems for patient symptoms, diagnostic procedures, diseases, and therapeutic interventions and (2) interrelationships among these classifications (e.g., how to use diagnostic procedures to collect data about a patient's symptoms in order to identify the disease so that therapeutic measures can be taken. This project developed functional specifications for a computer-based tool, Mental Link, that allows the evaluative imaging of such mental models. The fundamental design approach underlying this representational medium is traversal of virtual cognition space. Typically intangible cognitive entities and links among them are visible as a three-dimensional web that represents a knowledge structure. The tool has a high degree of flexibility and customizability to allow extension to other types of uses, such a front-end to an intelligent tutoring system, knowledge base, hypermedia system, or semantic network

Modeling Routines and Organizational Learning. A Discussion of the State-of-the-Art

This paper presents a critical overview of some recent attempts at building formal models of organizations as information-processing and problem-solving entities. We distinguish between two classes of models according to the different objects of analysis. The first class includes models mainly addressing information processing and learning and analyzes the relations between the structure of information flows, learning patterns, and organizational performances. The second class focuses on the relationship between the division of cognitive labor and search processes in some problem-solving space, addressing more directly the notion of organizations as repositories of problem-solving knowledge. Here the objects of analysis are the problem-solving procedures which the organization embodies. The results begin to highlight important comparative properties regarding the impact on problem-solving efficiency and learning of different forms of hierarchical governance, the dangers of lock-in associated with specific forms of adaptive learning, the relative role of “online” vs. “offline” learning, the impact of the “cognitive maps” which organizations embody, the possible trade-offs between accuracy and speed of convergence associated with different “decomposition schemes”. We argue that these are important formal tools towards the development of a comparative institutional analysis addressing the distinct properties of different forms of organization and accumulation of knowledge.Division of labor, Mental models, Problem-solving, Problem decomposition.

Mental Spaces: Processes for Establishing and Linking Spaces

This paper reviews the theory of mental spaces as expounded by Fauconnier (1994). In this work he posits a theory in which reference has a structural dimension. Within the theory, this structure is represented using spaces, connectors across the spaces and some general principles that are found to apply. The complexity lies in the interaction between the principles and in the contextual structures that feed into the principles for interpretation. Brugman, in her 1996 paper, makes use of insights from mental spaces theory to conduct an analysis of HAVE-constructions. She notes that Fauconnier has “elaborated a theory of partial possible worlds which speakers construct when talking/hearing about the entities and relations of perceived or imagined worlds. These partial models, called Mental Spaces, are not specifically linguistic in nature. Rather they are a manifestation of general cognitive abilities. Mental spaces may be representations of the speaker’s reality, or may be fictional or intensional, or may reflect past or future states of the ‘real’ world.

A semantic and language-based representation of an environmental scene

The modeling of a landscape environment is a cognitive activity that requires appropriate spatial representations. The research presented in this paper introduces a structural and semantic categorization of a landscape view based on panoramic photographs that act as a substitute of a given natural environment. Verbal descriptions of a landscape scene provide themodeling input of our approach. This structure-based model identifies the spatial, relational, and semantic constructs that emerge from these descriptions. Concepts in the environment are qualified according to a semantic classification, their proximity and direction to the observer, and the spatial relations that qualify them. The resulting model is represented in a way that constitutes a modeling support for the study of environmental scenes, and a contribution for further research oriented to the mapping of a verbal description onto a geographical information system-based representation

Hungarian Gyerekestül versus Gyerekkel (‘with [the] kid’)

The paper analyzes the various uses of the Hungarian -stUl (‘together with’, ‘along with’) sociative (associative) suffix (later in the paper referred to simply as “sociative”), as in the example gyerekestül. As opposed to its comitative-instrumental suffix -vAl (‘with’), the - stUl suffix cannot express instrumentality. The paper aims to demonstrate the difference in use between the comitative-instrumental -vAl and the -stUl suffix in contemporary Hungarian, and to illuminate the historical emergence of the suffix as well as its grammatical status. It is argued on the basis of Antal (1960) and Kiefer (2003) that -stUl cannot be analyzed as an inflectional case suffix (such as the -vAl suffix, or -ed, -ing, or the plural in English), but should rather be categorized as a derivational suffix (such as English dis-, re-, in-, -ance, - able, -ish, -like, etc.). The paper also tries to shed light on the hypothetical cognitive psychological distinction between the comitative and the sociative. It is suggested that the sociative is based on the amalgam image schema which is derived from the LINK schema of the comitative. The ironical reading of the sociative is an implicature in the sense of Grice (1989) and Sperber and Wilson (1987). Psycholinguistic experimentation is proposed to follow up on the mental representation of the sociative

Challenges of evaluating the information visualization experience

Information Visualisation (InfoVis) is defined as an interactive visual representation of abstract data. We view the user’s interaction with InfoVis tools as an experience which is made up of a set of highly demanding cognitive activities. These activities assist users in making sense and gaining knowledge of the represented domain. Usability studies that involve a task-based analysis and usability questionnaires are not enough to capture such an experience. This paper discusses the challenges involved when it comes to evaluating InfoVis tools by giving an overview of the activities involved in an InfoVis experience and demonstrating how they affect the visualisation process. The argument in this paper is based on our experiences in designing, building and evaluating an academic literature visualisation tool

The Fallacy of the Homuncular Fallacy

A leading theoretical framework for naturalistic explanation of mind holds that we explain the mind by positing progressively "stupider" capacities ("homunculi") until the mind is "discharged" by means of capacities that are not intelligent at all. The so-called homuncular fallacy involves violating this procedure by positing the same capacities at subpersonal levels. I argue that the homuncular fallacy is not a fallacy, and that modern-day homunculi are idle posits. I propose an alternative view of what naturalism requires that reflects how the cognitive sciences are actually integrating mind and matter