Interactions between knowledge representations: affordances, numbers, and words

Chapman, Ashley James (2019) Interactions between knowledge representations: affordances, numbers, and words. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

Understanding the world involves complex cognitive processes occurring and interacting within the mind. Traditionally, this has been thought of as analogous to computational processes, with strict rules that encapsulate obligatory and domain specific modules. Current theories of cognition suggest a radically different approach in that sensorimotor simulation forms a necessary basis of abstract and concrete knowledge. These theories suggest that the ability to represent knowledge relies not only on brain-based processing, but also on the embodied experiences of the cognizer in the environment. However, there remains little agreement as to the nature of such embodied representations, particularly at the level of what constrains their properties and their ability to interact with one another. This thesis focuses on how cross-representational interplay is made possible. Through an empirical dataset, a case for a conceptual interface is made, suggesting co-activated distinct representations may interact by means of a third-party mediating mechanism (e.g. a joint attentional bias). This is demonstrated across a range of experiments using concepts representing several conceptual knowledge domains from more abstract to more concrete, including concepts denoting numerical magnitude, spatial semantics, emotional valency, and manual affordances.

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