Apperceptive patterning: Artefaction, extensional beliefs and cognitive scaffolding

In “Psychopower and Ordinary Madness” my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stiegler’s recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stiegler’s work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanism—or, more specifically, nonhumanism—to problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Bailly’s conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandom’s conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestani’s deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog)

Using sensory cues to curate, study and support autobiographical remembering across the lifespan

Autobiographical memory is integral to who we are and how we connect with the world around us. One intriguing feature of personal memories is that people typically find it easier to access memories from late adolescence and early adulthood. This phenomenon, the reminiscence bump, has been riddled with inconsistencies in the methodology. This has implications for understanding the underlying mechanisms, which in turn impacts on both the theoretical models of memory and the clinical practices that rely on personal narrative. This programme of research specifically addresses key confounds within the literature by systematically exploring the effect of different task instructions on the temporal location of memories. Study 1 explored secondary data of 55 interview guests from a popular radio programme, in which they chose eight songs to take to a desert island in a free recall setting. Despite no explicit instruction to describe a specific memory, self-selected songs produced a reminiscence bump and particularly included memories of people. Study 2 developed this methodology for an experimental setting and also compared music with tangible stimuli, which produced distinctive retrieval curves. These distinctions may have been due to the wording and order of instructions therefore this was addressed in Study 3. The refined procedure was carried out with an older group, which also directly compared self-selected with experimenter-provided stimuli as memory cues. Self-selected stimuli produced more specific memories overall and once again, the different stimuli evoked memories that reflected distinctive lifespan retrieval curves. Given that the musical reminiscence bump remained reliable in all studies, Study 4 examined this across different choice conditions and cue modalities. Freely chosen music evoked higher nostalgia and a greater number of specific and self-defining memories than music selected from a fixed list. Lastly, Study 5 explored this methodology in an applied setting for an individual with mild cognitive impairment. The findings revealed the positive but unexpected impact of collaborative remembering with a cognitively healthy partner, who facilitated memory retrieval. While the reminiscence bump has been considered a robust finding, these experiments have shown that it is significantly influenced by the nature of retrieval, in particular the degree of choice and cue type. Personally curated cues evoke important memories including those that are self and relationship-defining. This has significant implications for clinical interventions and social policy

Neural processes underpinning episodic memory

Episodic memory is the memory for our personal past experiences. Although numerous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating its neural basis have revealed a consistent and distributed network of associated brain regions, surprisingly little is known about the contributions individual brain areas make to the recollective experience. In this thesis I address this fundamental issue by employing a range of different experimental techniques including neuropsychological testing, virtual reality environments, whole brain and high spatial resolution fMRI, and multivariate pattern analysis. Episodic memory recall is widely agreed to be a reconstructive process, one that is known to be critically reliant on the hippocampus. I therefore hypothesised that the same neural machinery responsible for reconstruction might also support ‘constructive’ cognitive functions such as imagination. To test this proposal, patients with focal damage to the hippocampus bilaterally were asked to imagine new experiences and were found to be impaired relative to matched control participants. Moreover, driving this deficit was a lack of spatial coherence in their imagined experiences, pointing to a role for the hippocampus in binding together the disparate elements of a scene. A subsequent fMRI study involving healthy participants compared the recall of real memories with the construction of imaginary memories. This revealed a fronto-temporo-parietal network in common to both tasks that included the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal, retrosplenial and parietal cortices. Based on these results I advanced the notion that this network might support the process of ‘scene construction’, defined as the generation and maintenance of a complex and coherent spatial context. Furthermore, I argued that this scene construction network might underpin other important cognitive functions besides episodic memory and imagination, such as navigation and thinking about the future. It is has been proposed that spatial context may act as the scaffold around which episodic memories are built. Given the hippocampus appears to play a critical role in imagination by supporting the creation of a rich coherent spatial scene, I sought to explore the nature of this hippocampal spatial code in a novel way. By combining high spatial resolution fMRI with multivariate pattern analysis techniques it proved possible to accurately determine where a subject was located in a virtual reality environment based solely on the pattern of activity across hippocampal voxels. For this to have been possible, the hippocampal population code must be large and non-uniform. I then extended these techniques to the domain of episodic memory by showing that individual memories could be accurately decoded from the pattern of activity across hippocampal voxels, thus identifying individual memory traces. I consider these findings together with other recent advances in the episodic memory field, and present a new perspective on the role of the hippocampus in episodic recollection. I discuss how this new (and preliminary) framework compares with current prevailing theories of hippocampal function, and suggest how it might account for some previously contradictory data

There is more to memory than recollection and familiarity.

Theoretical models of memory retrieval have focused on processes of recollection and familiarity. Research suggests that there are still other processes involved in memory reconstruction, leading to experiences of knowing and inferring the past. Understanding these experiences, and the cognitive processes that give rise to them, seems likely to further expand our understanding of the neural substrates of memory

Emotional processing and episodic memory.

The research reported within this dissertation investigates how individuals’ capacity to assimilate emotionally disruptive events is associated with particular features of episodic and autobiographical memory formation. It is inspired by Rachman’s (1980, 2001) formulation of emotional processing, and his subsequent proposals to explore the general mechanisms by which emotional disruptions are overcome. The specific rationale is informed by multilevel emotion theories, theories of post-traumatic stress disorder, and models of emotional processing. The research considered whether individuals who exhibit signs of a poor emotional processing style tend to encode events generally in a sensory-perceptual manner, with comparative deficits in their capacity to conceptually process data. Methodologically, the studies identify poor and effective emotional processors by using Baker et al.’s (2009) emotional processing scale as a grouping measure. The studies explore differences between groups of poor and effective emotional processors’ performance over a range of memory tasks drawn from episodic and autobiographical memory studies to detect evidence for a sensory- perceptual style of event and stimulus processing which is presumed to be indicated by a surfeit of perceptual details, heightened reported vividness, and a relative lack in conceptual ordering, narrative coherence and verbal indexing. Three general categories of memory are explored: memory for experimentally presented item lists, memory for extended narrative presentations and memory for naturally occurring events retained in long-term autobiographical memory representations. The evidence suggests a tendency to process in a sensory-perceptual manner amongst poor emotional processors for both experimental item lists, as well as in long term autobiographical memory investigations, whereas few differences between groups emerged for the study of narrative recollection. There was little evidence, by contrast, that effective emotional processors were superior at the conceptual processing of events or data. These results are discussed in terms of providing confirmation for information processing accounts of emotional disruptions and disorders which stress the aetiological significance in psychopathological conditions of how events are encoded, rendering such events accessible to broader autobiographical memory bases and conceptual elaboration. Furthermore, the importance of establishing more robust and testable definitions of conceptual processing is stressed

A sociocultural approach to memory development: private speech and culture as determinants of early remembering

The main purpose of the studies reported in this thesis was to investigate young children’s memory development within a Vygotskian (1934/1986) theoretical framework in an attempt to understand the mechanisms via which socio-cultural factors impact on children's remembering. The central hypothesis of the studies undertaken for this thesis was that children's use of language to regulate their own behaviour involved the mechanism via which individual differences in social and cultural background impact on children's memory development. In particular, children's use of private speech as a means of using language strategically to regulate their behaviour was examined in its relations to their remembering performance on the assumption that effects of social and cultural factors on memory development will be reflected through the extent to which children in both the British and the Saudi societies tended to use this verbal behaviour. The phenomenon of private speech represents the developmental and functional relationship between social processes and the child's mental functioning in the sense that this verbal behaviour is assumed to underlie the developmental course of the child's intemalisation of social processes. Therefore, establishing links between private speech and children's memory development signifies the notion concerning the inseparability of the individual and the act of remembering from their social and cultural contexts (Mistry, 1997).Chapter 1 is dedicated to discuss the development of working memory processes and their determinants aiming to highlight the fact that several authors have argued for the importance of investigating effects of children's social and cultural contexts on their remembering behaviour in order to identify those mechanisms that are assumed to underlie developmental changes in children's memory performance. Chapter 2 reviews theories on the cultural processes influencing memory, and previous research on cross-cultural differences in memory development. Chapter 2 also outlines the theoretical framework of the studies reported in this thesis. Study 1 reported in Chapter 3 examined the incidence and function of private speech as well as its developmental and social aspects within and between the two cultural groups of children: the British and the Saudi Arabian. The findings indicated that private speech is a universal stage in children's cognitive development and its developmental and functional aspects are considered to be a function of cultural variations in children's socialisation between the two cultures. Study 2 reported in Chapter 4 was designed to address the possibility that private speech as a self-regulatory verbal behaviour may explain children's individual differences within and across the two cultures in terms of use of the subvocal rehearsal within the model of working memory. This issue was examined by linking private speech to the phenomenon of phonological similarity effect that is assumed to signify children's tendency to employ the subvocal rehearsal (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993). The findings showed that in both cultures, children who relied more on private speech to regulate their behaviour were more susceptible to the phonological similarity effect and their overall remembering performance was better than children who were less dependent on private speech. These results suggest that the regulating capacity inherent in private speech enhances strategic remembering in verbal working memory. The relationship between private speech and remembering was further examined in Study 3 reported in Chapter 5. Study 3 aimed to investigate how children's individual differences within and across the two cultures in terms of using private speech would relate to their autobiographical narratives. Based on the dominant cultural norms, early socialisation of autobiographical memory involves teaching children the appropriate cultural way of reporting past personal memories in an organised narrative style when participating in memory talks with others, particularly parents. In this regard, children use language to achieve two main goals, the first is to share memories with others and the second is to use language internally in order to develop a self-reminding capacity (Nelson, 1993c; Nelson & Fivush, 2000). By representing the genetic link between social processes and mental processes, private speech may underlie the developmental shift from using language externally as in parent-child memory conversations towards applying it internally in order to enhance the development of self-reminding talk. Therefore, within Study 3, it was hypothesised that children's use of self-regulatory private speech might be the mechanism via which social interactions and cultural practices affect children's autobiographical memory. The findings of Study 3 provided support for a strategic use of language via private speech in the development of children's personal memories. In both cultures, children who were dependent more on private speech were better able in reporting more autobiographical narrative in a more organised way than children who relied less on this verbal behaviour. There was also a cultural effect on children's personal memories in the sense that the British than the Saudi children have reported more autobiographical memories in a more detailed way. The final chapter summarises the main findings of the three studies and indicates issues arising from these findings

The Spark of the Text: Toward an Ethical Reading Theory for Traumatic Literature

This study examines the discursive act found in the writing and reading of trauma literature and argues for a theory of empathetic reading based on an ethical-aesthetic approach. An ethical-aesthetic approach offers an interpretive theory that examines how writers and readers may construe textual depictions of trauma that generate emotional response. I apply Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogic theories to demonstrate how readers and writers, alike, make meaning through a self-conscious awareness of their relationships toward the text. Empathetic readers come to the act of reading from an ethical stance that respects both the sites of the writer and of the text. This process yields a critical aesthetic interpretation through cognitive (identification) and ethical value judgments that illuminate a reader's reaction with the work. This study analyzes various genres of trauma literature that represent varying perspectives of truth: life narratives represented in testimony, autobiographical fiction with its blurred boundaries, and fictional novels depicting historical traumas. Each genre's features define the means of textual representation, thus readers make cultural assumptions about representations of truth represented in the genre. They expect testimonials to deliver words-equal-truth as in Elie Wiesel's Night or the narrative embellishments of memoir found in Ishmael Beah's use of pathetic fallacy in A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier. When addressing each genre, I consider how the writer employs literary narrative devices that evoke a cognitive-emotional response in the reader. Moreover, I examine the ethical implications found in fictionalized representations of real atrocities in the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Toni Morrison, as these authors of fiction respect the sites of trauma while not trivializing nor dishonoring its victims. Both Foer and Morrison use concepts of co-creating, by inviting the reader to fill in the gaps or participate in the formation of the text, as a means to amplify a moral awareness of handling difficult representations. My analysis of these works illustrates Bakhtin's discursive theory of co-experiencing an utterance, or "utterance-as-text," that demonstrates the personal chaos brought about through the lived experience of writing and reading trauma literature. This co-experience, whether through writing or reading, leads one to a self-reflective positioning of an ethical secondary witness via the text

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo