Mandler, Jean;
The foundations of mind: Origins of conceptual thought
Oxford University Press, USA, 2004 [gbook]
ISBN 0195172000, 9780195172003
topics: | psychology | cognitive | development | language-acquisition
[A concept by definition is declarative and conscious ; procedural schemas are perceptual abstractions that do not constitute concepts. ] Indeed it is possible that propositional representation does not exist in the human mind until language is learned. [Mandler 94] 119
As I use the term, a concept refers to declarative knowledge about
object kinds and events that is potentially accessible to conscious
thought.
The first time I said that there has been almost no research on the infant
conceptual system, I was told that this was an exaggeration, because of
research on the "object concept" and the "number concept". 4
Number concept: 5 month olds are sensitive to addition and
substraction of small nums [Wynn 92 - see also Bloom] - but this is
probably due to an implicit tracking mechanism rather than
conceptual knowledge of cardinality (Simon 1997]. A system of
object files governed by the perceptual system [Kahnemann and
Treisman 84] may deliver information in implicit form that enables
infants to keep track of small numbers of objects (Uller Carey
Huntley-Fenner Klatt 99]. Also, implicit
ability to estimate magnitudes that human infants share with many
species (Whalen, Gallistel and Gelman 99]. These abilities are
undoubtedly related to later mathematical achievements [Carey 01;
Gelman 91] but there doesn't appear to be strong evidence [that this
knowledge is conceptual]
<-- How can it not be conceptual if it is converted to concepts
Object concept: experiments mix implicit (unconscious) and explicit
(conscious) processes. For example, the sensorimotor system
delivers the implicit information that objects are 3D and solid and
do not implode as they move behind barriers. On the other ahnd,
some of the object permanence tests showing that 6 month olds
represent specific information about hidden objects, such as that an
object behind a screen is on top of the track rather than in front
of or behind it (Baillargeon 86] seem difficult to account for in
terms of implicit sensorimotor knowledge; the infants must remain
aware of the information no longer in view. (Interestingly however,
some of the demonstrations involving objects that disappear behind
screens and reappear again [Baillargeon and DeVos 91] may be
accomplished using the implicit object tracking mechanism.)
The first concepts about objects are not necessarily "basic level" - term
undefined - it is possible to know what a dog looks like and not have any
idea of what it is and also to have a concept of animal without a commitment
to any particular kind of shape or features. 5
[Challenges the view that] the foundation of the conceptual mind
consists of associations accruing to perceptual schemas - pervades our
thinking not only about infancy but also about the preschool years. 6
In my opinion the problem of relating perception and conception can be
resolved only using a dual representational system ... brings new
problems - e.g. how object files or implicit magnitude estimations are
related to the explicit number system...
ACCESSIBILITY, by a long standing definition [Tulving and Pearlstone 66]
means the ability to come to conscious thought. But usage such as
"accessible to consciousness" is necessary because the term is often used
otherwise, and also defined differently (e.g. [Spelke and Hespos 02]). 7
During the behaviorist period, ... a single representational system was
assumed. Of course, behaviorists would have rejected the notion of
representation, so they talked instead about a common set of mechanisms
that was assumed to apply to all processing. (We may be heading back to
this view today, as connectionism has gained sway in the field.) 6
[Piaget] Babies don't start to develop a conceptual system until the end of
the sensorimotor stage (at roughly a year and a half). How to study the
transition from a sensorimotor creature to a conceptual one? Use the first
words as the measure of the underlying conceptual system [p.8] ... Misuse
of words is seductively easy to equate with conceptual misunderstanding, but
it is just as likely to be due to trouble in mapping language onto existing
concepts.
TECHNIQUES
A. Nonverbal precursor to OBJECT SORTING: relies on young children's
spontaneous tendency, when given an array of objects, to touch
sequentially those that are alike [Henry Ricciuti 65, Nelson 73,
Sugarman 83].
B. FAMILARIAZATION / PREFERENTIAL-LOOKING: infants first shown stimuli
fron one category, and then an exemplar from another category. In
very small children, give them one object at a time and measure
inspection time. Works better than sequential touching - upto 7
months - infants (<15 mos) tend to get overwlemed with "such a
plethora of goodies" - tend to freeze up and interact with other
objects. [Chapt 7]
C. DEFERRED IMITATION - observed by [Piaget 52] Babies as young as 9
months can act out (after a delay) what they remember having seen -
events they have observed only a single occasion. [Chap 10]
D. INDUCTIVE GENERALIZATION: model an event for infants using
replicas; give a dog a drink from a cup. Substitute for the dog:
bird, and a car. See which objects they use to imitate drinking =
Q. "What sort of things drink?"
--> observing events and making inductive generalizations. 9-10
Infants have an idea of container but are hazy about diff between "pan" and
"cup"; know what an "animal" is but not diffs between animals. [NOT at the
BASIC LEVEL]. Right from the beginning, infants form concepts in a way that
looks remarkably like using defining FEATURES rather than overall physical
appearance. We do not know, for the most part, what those "defining"
features are, but we are beginning to discover them.
Babies can recall objects and events from cues - mean that they are
forming a declarative knowledge sysstem, they use this to give meaning
to what they see - differs from what was described by Piaget. [12]
Piaget's notions retained in Mandler thesis:
a. Concepts are not innate but are constructed.
b. Concepts based at least in part on perceptual knowledge - though he
relied more heavily on motor learning
c. Process for Conceptual schemas are similar to "perceptual meaning
analysis" (earlier called "perceptual analysis" in Mandler 88/92) -
e.g. Piaget's analysis of infant actions - e.g. blinking eyes or
sticking-out tongue - but Piaget thought these depended more on
action, so he thought it developed later than is being posited by
Mandler.
Piaget failed to relate (c) to the process of reflective abstraction
Reflective abstraction (if I understand it correctly) refers to the
workings of a thoughtful mind analyzing and systematizing aspects of
the knowledge it has gained to date. 13
Misuse of words is seductively easy to equate with conceptual
misunderstanding, but it is just as likely to be due to trouble in
mapping language onto existing concepts.
Infants are interpreters of the world around them from an early age.
We don't know how early, but Werner and Kaplan's (1963) estimate of 3
months as the onset of contemplation of the world cannot be much more
than 3 months off the mark! The very young infant who cannot act on
objects is nonetheless construing the actions of others.
Conceptualization is already on the march, perhaps even earlier than 3
months. [Chapts 3/4]
I propose an organism that is born with the capacity to form two very
different kinds of representation. One of these, largely sensorimotor
in character, uses perceptual and kinesthetic information to form
perceptual schemas of objects and motor schemas that control
actions. This kind of learning is procedural; that is, it operates
outside the bounds of consciousness, and the schemas it creates are
not accessible to conscious thought.
[IDEA: Declarative - list-like; can be added, Procedural: algorithmic
sequences- how did the former get the "conscious" and the latter the
"subconscious" interpretation?]
At the same time a mechanism of perceptual (meaning) analysis extracts
and summarizes a subset of incoming perceptual information from which
it creates a store of meanings or simple precepts ... arixe from
attentive, conscious, analysis and are markedly different from
perceptual and motor schemas. I have suggested that these meanings
are represented in the form of image schemas, although there are other
formats that could serve this purpose. 14
According to Piaget, the sensorimotor child ... does not have a capacity
for representation in the true sense, but only sensorimotor intelligence.
Knowledge about the world consists only of perceptions and actions;
objects are only understood through the child's own actions and
perceptual schemas. It is a most unProustian life, not thought, only
lived. Sensorimotor schemata... enable a child to walk a straight line
but not to think about a line in its absence, to recognize his or her
mother but not to think about her when she is gone. It is a world very
difficult for us to conceive, accustomed as we are to spend much of our
time ruminating about the past and anticipating the future. Nevertheless
this is the state that Piaget posits for the child before 1 1/2.
[Mandler 83, p. 424] 18
In Renee Baillargeon's experimentsl young infants must briefly remember that
an object that has disappeared behind a screen is still there:
4.5-6.5-mo: do better if a copy of the object remains in view at the side of
the screen.
[Baillargeon:1991]
[SIMILARITY is not enough] To do inductive generalization without a
conceptual system would mean that the infant would be dependent for such
generalizations solely on its perceptual system; it could generalize from one
stimulus to another only if they were perceptually similar. It would not be
able to do inductive generalization on the basis of concepts. So, for
example, it would not be able to generalize from a fish to a bird on the
basis of their both being animals. 20
[IDEA: BUT perceptual similarity also includes perception re: dynamics of
events]
[CONDITIONED expectations are not concepts] The infant might learn to
anticipate the end of mealtime by raising its chin to have its bib removed.
This does not mean the senorimotor baby could imagine the coming event,
however, because imagery is another capacity that is dependent on a
conceptual system.
I believe that Piaget was correct in his assumption that imagery requires a
conceptual system. We don't have a great deal of evidence, but what there is
indicates that one cannot form an image on the basis of perception alone.
e.g. Kosslyn[80] found it necessary to posit a propositional store of
conceptual information in addition to a visual buffer in order to explain
image creation. 21
[HOW WE CONCEIVE IMAGES influences what we see]
[Carmichael, Hogen, Walter 1932]
showed people (nonsense[??]) line drawings
that were given labels - e.g. a figure with two circles connected by a
horizontal line - labelled either eyeglass or dumbbell - when asked later to
draw from memory, it became obvious that the labels had influenced their
images. 21
[IDEA: Role of FREQUENCY data in conceptualization? ]
imagery comes from imitation -- or more precisely, from detailed analysis of
what one is observing. Piaget insisted that looking alone is insufficient to
form visual image. He thought that to form an image you have to engage in
some extra accommodatory effort ... 22bot
But much of Piaget's description of imitation suggests
that the very process of imitation requires a conceptual base. 22
PERCEPTUAL MEANING ANALYSIS : transduces perceptual information into
conceptual form by creating image schemas. 22
[G. Mandler and Kuhlman 61] Subjects had to learn a randomly generated
sequence of eight switches. Experiment was looking at "overlearning of motor
patterns" - but resulted in learning an imagery - without the real panel in
front, subjects could run through the pattern - had developed a body-feel -
later, when performance became asymptotically fast, subjects reported visual
imagery of the pattern - they could see the pattern as if it were lighted up,
even though they had never seen the whole patern displayed at once. 23
REPETITION ALONE IS INSUFFICIENT - Nickerson and Adams 79 - can't image a
penny very well, though handling it all the time. Mandler: Drawing of
Old-Fashioned telephone dial --> most don't know where the letters are with
the numbers, whether it says "operator" anywhere, etc.
My tentative conclusion is that Piaget was correct: no amount of looking
alone will result in imagery. One must analyze what one is looking at (or
touching), and analysis requires a conceptual system --> imagery itself
requires a conceptual base. 24
[SPEECH PATTERNS If actions are necessary, how do infants learn speech
patterns, the first speech babbles already reflect this - need to look up
these tests - around 9 months? [Calvin/Bickerton:00]:
at six months, a Japanese infant can still hear the difference
between the English /L/ and /R/ but, by age one, he or she no longer
hears the difference, with a nearby Japanese phoneme capturing all
nearby speech sounds as mere variants, standardizing them. "Rice" and
"lice" would sound the same.
]
PIAGET: SENSORIMOTOR INFANT: conceptless creature who can't think
independently of action, who cannot recall past or imagine the future, but
can recog familiar objects and act appropriately toward them.
SIX SUBSTAGES:
1-2: (1-4 mos) - SIGNALS - precursors to symbols - one perception indicates
that another is to follow. e.g. sight of breast indicates that milk
will enter the mouth, and baby salivates in response --> ASSOCIATIVE -->
Conditioned Stimulus (CS) --> strictly procedural, no awareness. Such
signals can't be reproduced by baby in their absence (how do we
know?). Signals are EXTERIOR to the mind rather than in it. 25-6
3-5: (~ 6 mos) SIGNIFIERS - motor recognition -
* Lucienne saw two parrots that used to be on her crib, now across the
room - she shook her legs at them, using the gesture she had used when
she played with them in her crib. Piaget suggested that the infant was
expressing her recognition of a familiar toy and "naming it", so to
speak, using an abbreviated version of her accustomed action on it.
--> motor recognition, but not a symbol since it was executed only on
seeing the object (but perhaps obsrvr wd not recog it if executed
without it). 26
upto stage 6, mind is action-based
6: (18-24 mos) - Children move beyond trial-and-error problem solving.
* Lucienne, tried to kneel on stool on casters - but it rolled away -
immediately took it and wedged it against sofa and then climbed up.
* Jaqueline arrived at a closed door with grass in each hand. She stretched
out her hand toward the door, realized, put the grass on the floor and
picked it up after opening door. 24
[Q. Can't these planning acts be done non-declaratively]
For conscious thought we must rely on IMAGES or WORDS [both are symbols] to
present to awareness what is being conceptualized. Unclear in Piaget:
whether first concepts are sensorimotor schemas made accessible as symbols,
or does symbolization create a separate, less action-oriented layer...
SIGN LEARNERS speak earlier (first signs earliest by 6mos, 8 mos on avg)
[Mandler:1988] [Folven./Bonvillian:1991] [Meier/Newport:1990]
[Goodwyn/Acredelo:1993]:
This happens because babies gain control over their fingers before their
vocal apparatuis, making gestural symbols easier. (see Lucienne parrot symbol
p.26]
Elissa Newport once gave me an evocative description of the contexts in which
early signs are used. Daughter Susanna grew up bilingual in English and
ASL. The first recognizable sign she produced was "finished", used by
parents at end of meals; by 5-6-mos, [STAGE 2]
she began using it herself at the end of a meal. Although clearly imitative
in origin, it might not have had any conceptual import at that point and may
have been no different from putting her face up to be wiped - like any other
motor anticipation. However, by 7-mos Susanna began using this gesture when
she didn't want any more to eat, turning her head away from the looming spoon
while she executed it. Because it occurred before the end of the meal, it
was unlikely to be merely anticipation; it seems to have become
decontextualized to some extent to communicate "No more". 27
[Q. WHY IS THIS NOT A CONCEPT? - need to discuss]
[IDEA:*** BLENDING? SHIFT IN CAUSALITY
SIGN: End of meal ==> food ends. Now, extended to signify "food ended" ]
Piaget called such abbreviated actions "indications" - a type of part-whole
relationship, where the part primes the larger meanings. Later, some special
aspects of imitation created images, which he considered to be the first
true symbols. The characteristic of imitation that interested Piaget most
was that it could not take place without active analysis of the model; that
is, he believed that imitation is not a passive process but requires the
imitator to analyze what the model is doing. 28-9
Piaget: Active analysis is required to imitate, at least to imitate anything
complex. When anal has taken place and imitation carried out, it eventually
becomes what he calls "interiorized" in the form of an image. The problem is
that infants imitate from an early age - does this imply analysis? Why then
does it take an year and a half to form "images"?
Piaget's reconciliation of this paradox is that imitation in the early stages
does not require active analysis as in more complex imitation. Nevertheless,
as early as stage 2 (around 4-mos) infants can imitate clapping hands. That
would seem to require analysis - must make the connection between its and the
adult's hands - but, acc ro Piaget, this comes for free: "When the
child... becomes capable of co-ordinating the movements of his hands with his
vision, he acquires simultaneously the power of imitating certain movements
of other hands, by assimilating them to his own." [Piaget 1951]
[IDEA:*** This seems amazingly precipient, given the modern motor neuron
theory]
When his 4-month old son waggled his thumb and Piaget imitated him, his son
laughed "and compared our two hands several times" (P 1952, p.24) The
comparisons made may be a more important measure of conceptual activity than
novelty of the gesture. 30
Piaget began to try to get Jacqueline to blink her eyes at around 9-mos. He
got nowhere, though the baby was interested and felt P's eyes with her
fingers. Shortly before 1 year, she opened and closed her mouth in response
to to his opening and closing his eyes. Shortly thereafter, when she was
rubbing her eyes one day, P imitated her. She watched him rub his eyes, and
then she rubbed her mouth. The next time she rubber her cheek and then her
ear. These responses continued for several days until finally she rubbed her
eyes in response to his doing so. That same day he blinked his eyes and she
rubbed hers. There appears to be learning here throu8gh successive
approximations ... similar observations with Lucienne. Around 11 months, she
opened and closed her hand in response to Piaget's blinking his eyes,
followed by opening and closing her mouth. At 1 year, she did both at the
same time and also covered and uncovered her face with a pillow. 31
P did not emphasize what seems to me as an expression of the concept of
"opening" and "closing". They had the right idea but could not locate the
right part. The concept was abstract - opening and closing per se (not of a
particular obj). P recognized that there was a kind of analogical
understanding going on, but I would add that analogical learning of this sort
implies the presence of a working conceptual system. 32
SIMILARITY vs ASSOCIATION 32
two types of symbol formation
similarity : symbol resembles referent (breast --> nourishment to follow)
association: symbol is associated with referent
piaget: relies on association
end of stage 1 - respond to signal of the breast
stage 3 - motor recognition - movement stands for the object
stage 4/5: anticipatory response to stimuli is more elaborate and less bound
to immediate stimuli
But none are true "symbols" for Piaget.
Traditional objection to imagistic representation such as that proposed by
Paivio (1978) - "conceptless" picture of a scene does not specify which
aspects are to be thought about. For example, in an image of pouring milk
from a pitcher into a mug, is the colour of the mug relevant to the meaning,
or the fact that the pitcher is 10 inches high, or that it is held in the
left hand and the mug in the right? 35
Baillargeon and Spelke's (1985) insight was that the technique (of
familiarization / preferential-looking) could be used to study conceptual
knowledge as well (orig designed for perceptual discriminations). This was
done using impossible test events - i.e. events that could not happen in the
real world - and the brilliant aspect of the idea was to make the impossible
test event identical to the habituation event. e.g. by requiring the infant
to remember something hidden behind a screen that made the habituation event
no longer possible - rule out perception as the cause of the novelty leaving
an explanation only in terms of conceptual knowledge.
DRAWBRIDGE EXPT (Baillargeon 85): drawbridge rotates 180 deg - then a box
placed behind it so it can't rotate more than 120 deg. In this condition
rotating the drawbr by 180 deg (impossible event, but id to habituation)
results in less preferential looking than 120 deg rotn
The assumption that infants live purely sensorimotor lives is deeply
ingrained in the developmental community. We know that babies are learning
to recog and manip objects but not rep them conc. [Meltzoff and Moore's 1977
claim for neonatal imitation] - "if their interpretn is true, we have to
abandon [Piaget]; that's major trouble" - Mandler 1992b
Levels of procedural knowledge - clenching ones fist, grasping a ball, tying
a shoelace, driving a car.
As we type a letter, the fingers that will type the subsequent letters are
already beginning to rixe
[Gentner 88]
Although can describe shoelace-tying, actually this is a superficial
construct. --> telephone example above 47
although one uses conceptual knowledge in learning how to tie shoelaces,
these are just guiding the compilation, 50
[This concept level is LOST after the procedure is learned, because it is
never repeated. We then "make up stories" to explain it declaratively]
face recog - cannot articulate - can't even describe what it looks like -
which side the hair is parted, whether the earlobes are droopy, and even
whethter the face wears glasses 48
there are aspects of faces in general that no one knows how to describe.
[Fagan and Singer 79]
showed that 6-month olds can categorize faces as male or female, and do so
before they are good at discriminating one male from another. Adults make
up stories abt the delicacy of the female face or the strong jaw of the male,
but the actual parameters are still unknown.
[Abdi Edelman etal 95] 48
[Quinn Eimas+ 93] 3 mos old can look at pics of dogs + cats, just beginning
to be able to maintain extended periods of alertness...
[Colombo 01]
but not able to conceptualize the classes in the few minutes of the expt.
Language even though it is conceptual in nature, can on occasion be processed
implicitly; it is registered but not attended to or elaborated.
[Graf and G.Mandler 1984]: adults were asked either to study a list of words
(semantic task) or to cross out the vowels in the words in the list
(nonsemantic task). Then they were given a recall and recognition tasks, and
a stem completion task, in which
three-letter stems and asked to complete them with the first words that come
to mind. The first words to come to mind are dependent to some extent on
recently they have been activated [and] subjects given both set of
instructions tended to produce the same number of stem completions from the
list, showing the same activation of the material. However, on recall and
recognition the vowel subjects were much poorer.
Graf, P and G. Mandler 84: Activation makes words more accessible. but not
necessarily more retrievable. J Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 23,
553-568.
People not paying much attention when listening to a lecture do process the
words they are reading or hearing and so show priming effect, but because of
the shallowness of the of such processing (lack of semantic elaboration; GM
02), they have trouble with recall. The implicit priming effects stem from
procedural info being used to perceive the visual or auditory structure of
the info in q, such as the phonological or visual shapes of words. This kind
of info is presemantic and preattentive and results in perceptual, not
conceptual priming. These two kinds of priming appear to be indep of each
other and to have diff neural underpinnings [Moscovitch, M. 00: Theories of
memory and consc in E.Tulving/Craik: the Oxford handbook of memory. OUP] 52
TODO: [Moscovitch, M. 95: Models of Consc and memory, MS Gazzaniga, Cog
NeuroSci 1995].
Thus, the procedural-declarative distinction - deals with representation, is
not the same as the implicit-explicit distinction - which is a process.
Procedural knowledge is always processed implicitly, we cannot process this
kind of information in such a way as to bring it to awareness. With decl
knowledge it is stored in a conceptual format and has the potential to be
brought to awareness - whether that happens on a given occasion depends on
the degree of attention (elaboration). 53
procedural knowledge is sensitive to frequency of occurrence - creates
expectations of what will happen next 55-6
[*** QUOTE in context of linguistic priming. That this also occurs for
language - is it indicative of the procedural nature of some aspects in
lg? ]
Once Mandler used he and she more or less equally in class - when she
mentioned this towards the end of the course, students said that she had
NEVER used "he". Then two students were asked to keep count - it turned out
she had been using "she" only 20% of the time. The students were not hearing
the "he"s which were processed (and produce by her) procedurally. 56
When distinctive or salient events (defined as statistically infrequent
events) co-occur they are more likely to be associated with each other.
being attended to are associated with socially unacceptable behaviours.
Hamilton and Gifford 1976 : Created two groups of people labelled X and Y ,
X considerably larger than Y. Made instances of positive behav ("contributed
to a fund for the blind") and negative ("was rude to a shopkeeper"). +ve and
-ve behavs were assigned equally to all indivs in X and Y. People shown the
lists of behav's consistently rated the minority group Y as engaging in more
unacceptable behaviour. In expt 2, the good behaviours were rarer and this
time Y were judged to be better behaved than X.
Conscious associations are built up more on the basis of what has been
noticed than what has actually happened. 58
how perceptual data is processed to form image schemas. Philosophers such as Locke and Hume assumed that we form images of perceptual displays and then associate them with one another... While accepting an associative account of meaning, psychologists want to know the exact mechanism, how exactly this transformn of percepts into concepts takes place. In my opinion Piaget came the closest, and in spite of my ultimate diwsappointment in his account of early conceptual development, I believe he was, in important ways, on the right track. He understood that we need something more than percepts and associations among them to create meanings. Some kind of analysis of perceptual sights and sounds must be carried out if meaning-bearing symbols are to be formed. 60 Lakoff 87: concept of containment is structured - there must be an inside and an outside and a boundary between. The components of inside and outside themselves have no meaning beyond the overall structure of the concept. [*** --> explain the SOM maps in terms of this division] 62 NATIVISM vs EMPIRICISM [Piaget position = CONSTRUCTIVISM ] Nativists like Elizabeth Spelke 94, Alan Leslie 94 have been concerned w how infants come to learn abt the Piagetian "object concept" - how do infants learn that objects are solid and cannot pass through each other or be in two places at once, and esp that objects retain their properties when they are out of sight? Learn abt physical causality, that one obj makes another move, or that objects fall when unsupported. These are not specific concepts but ontological commitments. One can be a nativist on these issues while remaining an empiricsist on other aspects, like the concept of a dog or a cat. 63 Infants interpreting the world are ascribing meaning to what they perceive, and those meanings form concepts. Infants' concepts refer to the world, even though they do so less completely than do those of adults. 67 [WHAT IS THIS WORD MEANING being used as?]
[IDEA: own model] AEARENESS CONTINUUM, MEMORY, and the CONCEPT-PRECEPT debate Perceptual trace, Short term memory and Long term memory constitutes a continuum. We are aware of many minute sense impressions - if queried immediately can produce them. Within milliseconds, many are gone, within seconds, most. Some last a little longer - sensory attention. Can also use mental attention (salience to goals) to retain concept longer. Only those that are attended to (either sensory or intentional) stay a little longer, but even then, they will soon die. If repeated, the awareness level increases. Repetitions may be in terms of percepts (which relate to the previous through a content-addressible index, Precept space - richly detailed, but much of it predictable or not relevant to the agent goals. Abstraction: obtain an overall pattern --> Schema Attention: focus on the less predictable parts, where the abstraction fails. Refine Schema - assign Content-based indexing mechanism Retention space If only perceived --> very short-lived, priming If repeated often enough --> abstraction is richer, and also more durable. --> concept Decay mechanism --> without repeated exposure, concept decays and fades away CHUNKING / CODING Internal structures abstract the input from many different actions and entities, resulting in considerable efficiency in use (WM = 4 bits). The coding works by taking more frequent occurrences and giving them a smaller (more abstract) representation compared to infrequent entities which are not represented as compactly. Each of these may be called a "chunk" - each chunk is a primordial concept INTERNAL REFERENCE Conscious reference to concept (usually when it is not present), (in general thought, or when prompted by reading, or talking) mental attention --> ANALYSIS Subconscious reference: in dreams at night --> constitute structure for long term memory. --> MEMORY FORMATION COGNITIVELY, the youngest babies can perceive spatio-temporal motion rather than appearance characteristics. Causality is understood in terms of contingent temporal sequencing, and the animate/inanimate distinction is based on contingent behaviour rather than shape / appearance. The visual acuity of the infant improves only after two months. Even as adults, we find animate properties in simple shapes if they are contingent; the shape etc are far less relevant...
Fodor 81: theory of concept formation - foundered on the rock of hypothesis testing -Infants analyzing perceptual displays do not do so with hypotheses in mind. They merely apply an analytic mechanism to what they are looking at. This mechanism asks: How shall I interpret that? and not Could that be a ...? Nevertheless, there must be a core of possible meanings that human creatures can extract by means of this mechanism. Why are some meanings extracted while some are not? Why do infants analyze some kinds of displays [partly due to innate biases] 67 It is the conscious use of perception that teaches a child that apples and tomatoes are both red. It is possible -- perhaps even the rule -- to encounter tomatoes and learn what they taste like, and also to encounter apples and learn what they taste like, without making the observation that they have the same colour. [IDEA: it is possible not to make the OBSERVATION. But if the perceptual space is indexed on context, it is unlikely that when asked about the colours, that one would not know. Some distributions of attributes of objects are stored along with the object model. ] When I first wrote about perceptual analysis I conceived of the mechanism as a comparator -- a device to compare one perceptual display with another, so that similarities and differences could be noted. [comparison seems too much a process like Vicarious Trial and Error, or VTEing (Muensinger 38) - in which an organism actually looks first at one thing then at another. Of course, VTEing does appear to be a kind of analysis - one has only to watch a rat hesitating in a choice point of a maze, its whiskers alert, looking back and forth between one arm of the maze and the other, to be convinced that the creature is comparing two alternatives. But comparison is only a part of PMA. For infants, comparison is not the most crucial aspect. For them the most crucial thing is that it is a concept-making engine, transforming perceptual info into another form. Unlike adult, the young baby doesn't have a concept of an apple in the first place [?? Or at best, if it has seen apples, its concept is very impoverished] They baby only has the ability to attend to and analyze perceptual displays. These analyses result in the meanings that are used to create concepts such as an apple. Development of concept of "animate": For the first month or so, visual acuity is not great, so infants are not getting high-quality foveal information about what the objects moving around them look like. But thhey can parse the world into objects because of their coherence against the background when objects move [Kellman/Spelke 83] and they get good info abt at least three aspects of the movement: - by 3 months they discriminate biol motion from nonbiol, for both people (Bertenthal 93] and other mammals (Arterberry and Bornstein 01) - by 2 months they treat objects that act contingently as animates, as shown by smiling at them (Frye, Rawling, Moore and Myers 83; Legerstee 92; Watson 72). - between 4-6 months, infants are responsive to the diff between an object beginning to move without anything else coming in contact with it, and an object moving when touched by another (Leslie 82,84). 71 (all these ages are the earliest studied) [Arterberry and Bornstein 01] [Kellman/Spelke 83] Perception of partly occluded objects in infancy. Cog Psych 15 483-524. [Frye, Rawling, Moore and Myers 83] [Legerstee 92]; [Watson 72]. [Leslie 82,84]. None of these alone constitutes the concept of an animal - they are pieces of perceptual data that needs to be redescribed via PMA Consider the baby who has not yet developed expectations about the world, whose foveal acuity is still poor, but whos eattention is attracted to moving objects (Arterberry/Craton/Yonas:93] [Kellman 93). What might this infant notice about events like the following: She sees an object nearby, she cries, the object begins to move, approaches, looms, and she is picked up. Leaving aside details such as whether she has a schema for "face" [Johnson/Morton 91] she might not be able to analyze much more than that an object began to move, along some irregular path, and did so contingently on her cries. 72 Even if the baby abstracts something abt the trajectory of the moving object, the way the trajectory begins and ends, and the contingency between the trajectory and her own behaviour, she will have gone a long way toward conceptualizing an object as animate. [Arterberry/Craton/Yonas:1993] [Kellman 93] in [Granrud 93] Kinematic foundations of infant visual perception, in CE Granrud ed. Visual perception and cognition in infancy, Hillsdale, NJ; Erlbaum. p. 483-524. [Book] [Johnson/Morton 91] The PMA theory is related to the representational redescription (RR) [Karmiloff Smith 92] Beyond Modularity suggests that initially in learning new domains procedures are implicit and encapsulated. This may remain procedural for long periods of time, but at some point info is transformed into new representations indep of the procedures themselves - (KS calls this explicit, but JM would call it implicit because not accessible; in KM explicit knowledge is divided into several levels ). After still further redescription, some accessible concepts (sim to image schemas) emerge. 74 [IDEA: This happens because of frequency redistributions and coding. That is also the basis for less conc distance within categories] e.g. French children use un for both "one" and "a" but are not aware of this difference until after several years of use. JM: can still remember the first time she learned that breakfast was break + fast. Piaget assumes that the first concepts, in his view transforamtions of sensorimotor schemas into a symbolic form, constitute the basis on which lg develops. Does not discuss the representation of these first concepts. 76 conseq, concepts in infants have often been studied through the words newly verbal children use. But to access concepts only through the linguistic system, esp one that is in the process of being formed, will surely distort our picture of what the earliest concepts are like. Even more seriously, the first concepts are formed well before lg begins, so their origins must be nonlinguistic. It is a coincidence of linnguistic form that has led many philosophers (and psychologists) to assume that conceptual representation is propositional in nature. We appear to think in sentences, whose components are concepts couched in propositional format. This phenomenal experience of thought as equiv to lg is at least somewhat illusory. 77 [Barsalou 99]: It is possible to repr a shape without an orientation, a path without a direction, or stripes without representing their number. Diff neural pathways are involved in handling each of these types of info. Both perception, as well as perceptual symbols (image schemas) are constructed out of bits and pieces which can be repr separately. ... For e.g. in Terry [Regier 1995] connectionist model, paths are repr in terms of starting and ending points, and a _nonsequential static repr of the interim points. 81 Larry Barsalou sometimes uses the term image-schemas to his perceptual symbols [fig. 1, p.578). Many of the ideas in PMA could fit easily into Barsalou's system. The main diff is that Barsalou doesn't make, or at least doesn't emphasize, a distinction in format between perception and perceptual symbols, and these are not as clearly differentiated. ... Also, I emphasize the developmental aspects of the processes Barsalou proposes. E.g. he does not specify why attn focuses on some features rather than others, or how the cog sys olearns to categorize the world or to form the abstractions that enable inductive inferences. Nevertheless, there is a close affinity between our approaches. 83 In Regier, a source buffer contains a repr of a starting config of the trajector and the last time step in the buffer has the ending config. set of motion buffers builds up the static repr of the path in between. These constraints reflect innate biases to emphasize beginnings and endings of paths. It seems clear that some such biases must be built into the human system as well. But I suspect that the set of such innate specifications is not large. 84 IMAGE SCHEMAS are not TOPOLOGICAL - e.g. image schemas may repr whether the contents of a container take its shape or not, something that may get eliminated in a topol model, which approach symbolic reprsntns likeor . [** There is no homog on what constitutes a topol model. Topol models can jolly well encode surface contiguities] Image schemas may also contain directional indicators, e.g. in t ABOVE or BELOW schemas 82 The earliest meanings shd be spatial descriptions rather than, say, a figural descr of what something looks like. Given the limited perc capacity of young babies, spatial relations and movements may be available to them earlier. Although color is registered, shape is apt to be blurry. Infants in the first month often do not even scan the interior of objects and so get few of the details that identify particular kinds for adults. [Salapatek and Kessen 66] Second (probably more important) meaning of objects for humans dep on what they do or what is done to them, as Katherine Nelson pointed out [Nelson 74] Perhaps the reason why the infant attends more to motion than to appearance is determined by the needs of the species. What things do is the core of their meaning. 86 What about time? Infants may have no concept of time. Even as adults, we seem to unable to think of time independently of space. [Guyau:1890/1988] describes: "We can easily imagine space: we have an inner eye for it, an intuition. Try, on the other hand, to represent time as such; you will only succeed by means of a represetnation of space. You will have to align successive events, placing one at some point along the line, the other at a second point. In other words, you must evoke a sequence of spatial images in order to represent time" p.99 [87] Guyau suggested that we conceive of time in terms of a path from then to now, from one location in the past to the present. But [Boroditsky 2000] sometimes we conceive of time as a path that flows past us (e.g. when waiting). 87
In response to my movement of opening and closing my eyes, J... opened and
closed her mouth..., L... opened and closed her hands. ... The child's
mistake must ... be due entirely to analogy. When the child sees other
people's eyes opening and closing, he assimilates what he sees, not to the
visual schema related to other people's mouths, but to a general schea,
partly visual but mainly tactilo-kinesthetic, of opening and closing
something. [Piaget 1951] 93 (see p.31 for details)
JM's model inspired by cog linguists - Johnson 87 Lakoff 87 WFDT
Fauconnier 94
ANIMACY
9-month olds were distressed when a machinelike robot (i.e. an object that
did not look like a person) began to move on its own. They were also
distressed when the robot moved contingently upon verbal commands given by
the mother, indicating they did not expect inanimate objects' movements to be
influenced from a distance
[Poulin-dubois, Lepage, Ferland 96]
the -ve effect shown by the infants is a stronger reaction, of the sort one
might expect if one's conceptual model of the world is being violated.
[*** IDEA: have learnt the class of objects that behave contingently - and
associated certain shape priors with this class]
[Bennett Bertenthal 93]
3-mo: can distinguish between correct and incorrect human motion - technique
orig invented by Gunnar Johansson with lights at joints. scenes shot in the
dark - eliminating all figural info; infants discriminate between lights
corresp to joints of a moving person vs others with equal displacement but
not human joints. 95
[Arterberry/Bornstein 01]
3mos: distinguish between mammals and vehicles based on moving light displays
alone - some parameters have been abstracted.
[*** ABSTRACTION involves points of inflection]
I originally thought that self-motion would be the aspect of animal motion
most crucial in defining animals or infants, but I have come to suspect that
contingency of motion between objects may be even more important.
Responsivity to the contingency of events is present at least from birth and
is one of the most powerful factors governing percptual learning and
controlling attention. One of the first kinds of contingency that neonates
learn is between two events in the environment, resulting in S-S conditioning
[Sameroff/Cavanaugh 79]
motor limitations of infants severely restrict their manipulation but they
observe contingent interactions in others. 96
[John watson 72] seminal experimental work - showed at 2 months of age
infants would learn to make a mobile hanging over their crib turn when the
movement was contingent on their pressing their heads on a pillow. When the
mobile did not turn or turned noncontingently, head presses did not
increase. An interesting response of infants trained contingently was that
after a few sessions of practice, they began to smile and coo at the mobile.
[*** CONTRAST with [Poulin 96] - 9 months old are upset --> particularly
telling evidence that shape class abstraction is a much later phenomenon]
Watson hypothesized that the contingencies made the mobile become a social
stimulus. I am not sure how to define the difference between a social
stimulus and an animate one (see the section titled conceptualizing agents
and goals), except that a social stimulus is one that reacts contingently to
one's own movements, as opposed to reacting contingently to the movement of
other objects.
Infants learn to expect contingent interaction from their mothers very
early.
[Murray/Trevarthen;1985]
see also [Muir and Nadel 98]
found that 6 to 12 week old infants became upset if their mothers, shown on
videotape, did not respond contingently to them.
[Tronick/Als_etal:78]
2-month olds become upset if the mother presents only a still face and do not
respond to them at all
[Frye/Rawling_etal:83]
3 mos reacted similarly to their mother and to a toy when either of these was
interacting contingently with the infant, and differently when either mother
or toy did not act contingently.
[Scaife/Bruner:75]
[Butterworth:91]
6 months: infants will follow an adult's gaze if it moves away from the
infant. Here of course, there are eyes to look at.
[Johnson/Slaughter/Carey:1998]
faceless animal-like object also elicits "gaze" following from 12-month
olds if interaction is contingent.
[Movellan/Watson:2002]
completely mechanical looking robot that interacted contingently with
10-month olds elicited "gaze" following - the infants would laugh and
converse with the robot if it acted contingently. 97
It is possible that infants analyze zelf-other interactions (e.g. give and
take of parent-infant turn taking) precedes their analyzing contingent
interactions that other objects do among themselves (dogs and cats or flocks
of birds) [Murray/Trevarthen:1985]
LINK schemas (1-way)--> associates e1 regularly followed by e2 - everytime
the infant drops something over the side of her high chair her mother
picks it up - conceptualizing an if-then relation - suggesting that this
is one of the image schemas on which intuitive understanding of logic
rests. 98
2-way: back and forth interaction - as in turn taking
Link paths - objects follow joint trajectories - e.g. what hands do with
objects --> may be vital to conceptualizing continuously contingent paths
as goal directed, as in chase, even when an end point is not reached
[*** --> CHASE writeup]
[Pauen 2000b] - 7-mo-olds showed animal-like creature and a ball - then the
two objects moved together in contingent fashion - then became motionless
again. The infants looked longer at the animal in this third display,
suggesting that the infants attributed the observed motion to the animal and
not to the ball - and that they expected the animal and not the ball to move
again. When animal and ball both moved together because of a hand, say, the
infants showed no differential expectation that the animal would move in the
3d scene.
difference between self-motion and caused motion is salient to infants at
least by 6-mo and likely earlier.
[Leslie 84] - data on 4-mo olds.
Leslie 82 - similar to
[Michotte 63]
studied causal perception in adults.
[Leslie 94]
speculates that infants come equipped with a domain-specific module that
computes mechanical props of objects (Theory of Body Mechanism, ToBY) - has
innate concept of force - used in analyzing motion and support. However,
while such a case can be made, it may not be required.
[ [Marsh:2002]: Leslie [Les88], confirming Michotte, showed that by 6 months
infants can perceive causal relationships such as launching, suggesting
that perception of causality is an innate perceptual ability.
[KH01] D. Kerzel and J. Hecht. Visual causality. In M. May and
U. Oestermeier, editors, Interdisciplinary perspectives on causality, pages
119-139. Books on Demand, 2001 ]
[White 1988]
Peter White suggested that because of the particulars of temporal integration
function of the eye, we perceive the transfer of motion from one object to
another.
Michotte: Timing is crucial. If delay in 2nd ball starting to move is > 150
ms, perception of a causal reln between the two events disappears. 2nd ball
also has to be present for at least 100 ms before being hit, else a single
object exhibiting continuous motion is seen.
- single object, pause less than 100 ms --> contiuty of motion
- two balls with pause less than 100 ms --> causality
White 88 --> spatial discontinuity tells us there are two objects -->
causal. However, the continuous motion suggests to us a single object. This
conflict is resolved by interpreting the event as involving two objects and
the xfr of motion from one to the other (what Michotte 63 called
ampliation). The impression of causality disappears if not within time frame
of temporal integrn. 100
BASIS FOR CONCEPT OF FORCE:
Important: because "Seeing causality" --> causal perception is an
observational property given by the way the eye integrates info over time.
Also, pushing and being pushed, as well as feeling and exerting pressure.
[Profitt/Bertenthal:1990]
no evidence that infrants are sensitive to dynamical, rather than kinematic
or geometrical, constraints.
even adults have dynamical (force) intuitions for only the simplest of object
motions so it would be surprising if infants have more sophisticated
notions. 101
No need to build innate knowledge for forces etc. [*** SISKIND discussion]
Leslie shows infant's discriminate launching events from those with a spatial
or temporal delay.
I have emphasized spatial analyses because I consider these likely to be
ontogenetically prior to analyses of experienced force, but the latter is
also important.
Johnson 87:
force image schemas: compulsion, blockage, restraint, and removal of
restraint
intuitive understanding of necessity, possibility, and moral obligation rest
on metaphorical extensions of the sensorimotor experience of force to
the social and metaphysical worlds (see Sweetser 90) 102-
[Leslie 84] : HANDS
4-mos: understand role of hands in making objects move - that hands pick up
objects whereas blocks of wood do not; if obj held by hand, it is supported,
whereas if the hand lets it go, it will fall. This also may be based on
sensorimotor experience, and not innate. 102^
AGENCY
From knowing what hands do to understanding agency seems like a small step
and is taken up quite early.
[Woodward:1998] Amanda Woodward
5-mo and 9-mo olds attended more to the goal of a reach than to its
spatiotemporal properties [*** contrast cricket batsman's gaze]: two toys
t1, t2 at A and B, reach shown for one or other. toys locations switched -
Infants more sensitive to change in toy (target) rather than position.
Did not work if the reaching hand was a mechanical arm and not a human
hand. 103
[Woodward/Somerville:2000]
11.5 mos: expts looking at transparent box w toy, when hand is reaching for
box. same toy in new transp box - no change, compared to new toy in old
box. when toy outside box, no effect. So looking at hand touching box
reflects idea that it may be going for toy, and thus new box is not imp,
new toy is. [GOAL PLANS]
INTENTIONALITY
[Woodward:1999]
perhaps as early as 5-mo, clearly by 9-mo: distinguish between someone
grasping an obj with a hand unintentionally dropping onto the object;
ie. between goal-directed activity vs similar but not purposeful motions
[Baldwin/Baird_etal:2001]
perceptual structures of intentional action - habituated infants to videos of
everyday actions, then showed test videos where the motion was either
suspended halfway or at the end - looked more when interrupted in the
middle. 103
Gy\"orgy Gergely, Gergely Csibra and colleagues
[Csibra/Gergely_etal:1990, Gergely/Nadasdy/Csibra/Biro:1995]
9-mo: Bar between two circles A and B. vid0 (habituation): A moves towards
B, jumps over bar, stops touching B.
vid1: bar is on other side of B. A's motion is identical, so the jump is
not meaningful.
vid2: A rolls in straight line, and ends up resting against B.
infants looked longer at vid1 (the same motion they had been habituated to,
than vid2 (novel motion).
[Csibra etal 99] - is true for 9-mo but not 6-mo olds.
GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOUR, not SHAPE:
Important in these experiments is the fact that the displays were circles w
no figural info. Hence infants were interpreting (i.e. conceptualizing)
goals purely only on interactive motion.
[inferrring a causal agency to circles moving purposefully].
[Johnson/Sockaci:2000]
14-mo: purple blobs treated as agents if they engaged in goal-directed
activity.
While [Gergely/Nadasdy/Csibra/Biro:1995] conained animacy cues - A pulsated
when it came next to B, and B pulsated in turn. In
[Csibra et al 99]
all indications of animacy were removed, including self-starting motion: A came
from offscreen, sailing over the bar, and came to rest next to B. height
of bar varied from trial to trial, each time A just clearing it. Same
result as before.
==> by end of 1st year, infants have learned something abstract about the
kind of route that an object traveling along a path to another object will
take. Consistent w Woodward expts. 104^
[Lakoff 87]
SOURCE-PATH-GOAL image schema -- closely related to AGENCY image schema
[Csibra/Biro/Koos/Gergely:2003]
large circle A "chasing" a smaller circle B. B went through a small hole
in a horiz bar in front of it, too small to let A through. At that point,
A veered around the end of the bar and continued after B until both went
off screen. i.e. no end of path seen, only the kind of continuous
interaction involved in a chase.
test vid: hole large enough for A to pass through; A may go through or may
go around bar.
12-mo, but not at 9-mo: infants dishabituated to the same motion when the
hole was big enough for A to go through.
Csibra claim: these dispalys more diff than Csibra etal 99 because end of
path not shown.
[IDEA: expt: is this conclusion foolproof? Possibly the concept of going
through a hole in the path may add complexity. Or the notion of chase -
but then, maybe it is the reason. Conduct expts with the end visible?
claim: SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema - goal need not be spatial; more like
PATH-PLAN(intention) schema]
PATHs and LINK schemas: glass falls off the table and breaks. Telephone
rings, and adult, wherever in the room they are, go to phone to pick it up.
Objects taking direct paths to a goal (i.e. where something happens) is a very
common occurrence. 106
[IDEA: expt: video of one day in baby's life: count how many path/goal
associations]
AGENCY = CONTINGENCY or GOAL-DIRECTED PATH?
these two are not coterminous (coextensive, coterminous, conterminous: being
of equal extent or scope or duration). Going from A to B repeatedly may be
goal-seeking but not contingent. Turn taking may be contingent but not
goal-seeking.
[Rochat/Morgan/Carpenter:1997]
3-mo olds distinguish one object chasing another in continuously varying
paths from objects that move indep of one another - but not known if this
is done if they did so on the basis of goal-directedness or
contingent interaction.
[IDEA ***: CHASE: EXPT - contact mothers, have team of two visit, set up
projector, take notes, and video of infant. ]
The mechanism of PMA which conceptually represents objects in terms of the
spatial paths they follow, including their beginnings, endings, and
interactions, may be sufficient to account for the notion of a "goal",
rather than having to build in this interpretation of the world as an innate
proclivity.
ANIMALS: NO evidence that infants' understanding of goal-based behaviour is
restricted to animals. : opposed by
[Carey/Spelke:1994]
knowledge about animals is due to domain-specific learning and innate biases
that apply solely to animals. 108
[Carey 2000],p.40 opposes view of early concept formation:
"Where do the categories represented in the image schematic meanings
themselves come from? If one cannot derive causality from spatiotemporal
descriptions, or agency from from spatiotemporal descriptions (even those
that provide the necessary input for attributions of each type of
causality), then the problem of how these concepts arise has not been
solved."
I am suggesting however, that "categories" (ie. concepts) of both causality
and agency _can be derived from the spatiotemporal descriptions that
perceptual meaning analysis produces.
Tim Rogers and Jay McClelland :
input layer --> representation layer that gradually becomes differentiated as
learning proceeds.
In addn to the representation layer, there is a relation layer that specifies
whether a property (g. color), part (e.g. legs) or activity (e.g. walk) is
being analyzed. This is a localist layer (something like PMA) in which one
relation per trial is encoded. These two layers feed into a standard layer
of hidden units. Finally there is an output layer that learns to reproduce
the properties of the input objects. 109
An intriguing aspect of the R&M model is that it effectively differentiates
visual input, which takes in a great deal of perceptual information in
parallel, from a relatively narrow subset of perceptual information that I
would call attended information. e.g. this input consists of what the object
input on a given occasion is doing, such as walking or singing (although it
also represents attributes such as legs or wings on other occasions). 110
[Landau/Jackendoff:1993]
There are infinite degrees of variation in spatial relations, but the mind
seems to mark out relatively few as important. Some of these are
- containment (related concepts: opening and closing and going in and going out),
- support (related - contact/attachment)
- verticality (above / below/ up/down)
- horizontality (left and right) [what of front and back]
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but these are some of the basic
spatial relations that we know infants are sensitive to, and many other
relations such as between appear to be derivatives of these. 111
CONTAINMENT
Baillargeon and colleagues: growth in understanding of containment between
2.5-12-mo:
[Hespos/Baillargeon:2001a]
2.5-mo: If something is to go into a container, there must be an opening, and
that something in a container will move when the container moves.
[Spelke/Baillargeon:2002]
5-mo: distinguishing loose-fitting and tight-fitting containment
[Aguiar/Baillargeon:1998]
6-mo: wide object will not go into a narrow container
[Hespos/Baillargeon:2001b]
4-mo: tall object cannot disapp behind shorter screen
[Casasola_etal:2003,not in Mandler:
6-mo: object-indep concept of containment, not dep on occlusion, ]
7.5-mo: taller object cannot disappear completely when lowered into a shorter
container. 112
9-14-mo: abstract notions of containment - [Casasola/Cohen:2002,McDonough/Choi/Mandler:2003] 115
18-mo: comprehension of various terms for containment
summary by Baillargeon: 2.5-mo - basically open/closed distinction, gradually
add quantitative variables to it, such as the size relationships between
container and contained. 112
[ IDEA:*** EMBARKATION - causal links? PATH-GOAL-PAUSE-PATH schema?
combine topdown (causality) /bottom-up (image)
causality - based on 150msec association - temporal integration in the eye -
part of hardwire so nativist
--> tempo: appears, stops, people "disappear inside" - tempo moves off and
disappears.
--> bus: appears, stops, people appear, others disapp, moves off.
Stop's are regular - functions of object.
"Bus stops to pick up people" --> causality in bus - how is it inferred?
Hypothesis: Based on a PATH-GOAL-PAUSE-PATH schema. Learned when mother
comes, stops, does things, and continues - and so on others as well.
IDEA: Two levels of causality -
a) SUBCONSCIOUS /unanalyzed - purely associative - multiple instances - lose
support, fall.
b) CONSCIOUS (theory/analyzed) - can provide theory + theoretical
explanation in terms of chain of temporal contiguity.
Subconscious/unanalyzed may arise from observation, and indeed provide the
nucleus for the later theory. Refer to experiments mentioned in BLINK -
[Antoine Bechara, Antonio Damasio et al 1997, Science: Deciding
advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy] - un-theorized
subconscious model - behaviour modificn by tenth iteration, hunch around 50,
but theory only by 80th iteration. ]
For infants, hand - open/closed - as a notion of container. However,
unlikely given motor skills around ages 0-6 months (grasping is reflexive,
but not analyzed). Similarly, taking in food as a metaphor for containment
(Johnson 87) - perceptual processes are more likely. 113
SUPPORT
[Baillargeon/Kotovsky/Needham:1995]
3-mo: expect objects to be supported if in contact with surface
5-mo: expect to be supported if a part rests on the surface
6.5-mo: begin to distinguish partial support between adequate support (70%),
and inadequate (15% overlap)
As with containment, first notion of support is overly simple, and new
considerations (gravity/weight distribn) added with experience over the first
year. 113
Baillargeon suggests "noticing" (analysis) may be part of this abstraction
process.
[Lakoff 87] containment - basis for understanding logic; not only "in" or
"not in" = P or not P, but also "if A in B and B in C then A in C". Combined
with Link (if S1 then S2, p.98) --> roots of intuitions that ground logic.
ABOVE/BELOW:
[Quinn:2003]
3-mo: same object presented above sev times, and then below --> dishabituates
above- PROPOSITION ("block-above-bar"=T/F; diff from "ball-above-bar")
6-mo: concept of "aboveness" - works for general objects - above (x,bar),
where x = ball, box, etc. 114
infants create mental work spaces in roughly the same fashion as do adults
[Fauconnier:1994, Fauconnier/Turner:2002] P expts in blinking --> elicits
opening / closing of mouth/fist --> abstract image-schematic repr of opening
and closing, though it does not tell us how the whole thought is assembled;
maybe using what F&T02 call conceptual blending, which has been extensively
documented in adults [Coulson 00]; 116
Janellen Huttenlocher 1974:
10-mo - has been playing peekaboo with diapers. One day, J removes
all diapers and said: "let's play peekaboo" - picks up bowl.
[? notion of covered-ness/hiding ? or purposefulness / affordance for
objects ? ]
[Veale/O'Donoghue:2000]
shows in considerable detail how Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual blending
can be implemented. For computational work on infant thought using a diff
approach, see
[Kuehne, Gentner and Forbus 2000]
even in infancy concepts are represented in such a way that they are
accessible for analogical reasoning, problem solving, and recall. 117
Imagery != images. Imagery formed by people depend not only on sensory data
but construal see [Carmichael 32 above]
If one is imaging a bottle on a table being picked up and milk being poured
from it into a cup, various aspects of the conceptual understanding such as
containment, above/below, and paths going out and in are already in
image-schematic form.
[Zwaan 2001][Zwaan/Stanfield/Yaxley:2000]:
sentence mentioning a pencil in a cup speeded recognition of a picture of a
vertical pencil, whereas a sentence mentioning a pencil in a drawer speeded
recog of a picture of horiz pencil
RELATIONAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE : How these are learned - particularly
prepositions/modal verbs - may also be in terms of repre by image-schemas.
[Brugman:1988][Sweetser:1990]
Need interface from sensorimotor schema --> image schemas to which relational
morphemes can be mapped.
One way to do this is to "transform perceptual information into a still
analog but more discrete form".
Many people assume that this criteria refers to the Propositional lg of
thought
[Fodor:1975], but a
propositional preverbal system is not necessary for
- concept formation
- image formation
- preverbal recall
- simple analogical reasoning
- learning a natural language.
Indeed it is possible that propositional repr does not exist in the human
mind until lg is learned. [Mandler 94]
[CHUNKING: In cognitive psychology and mnemonics, chunking refers to a
strategy for making more efficient use of short-term memory by recoding
information. - Magic Number Seven -
Miller noted that according to this theory, it should be possible to
effectively increase short-term memory for low-information-content items by
mentally recoding them into a smaller number of high-information-content
items. "A man just beginning to learn radio-telegraphic code hears each dit
and dah as a separate chunk. Soon he is able to organize these sounds into
letters and then he can deal with the letters as chunks. Then the letters
organize themselves as words, which are still larger chunks, and he begins
to hear whole phrases." Thus, a telegrapher can effectively "remember"
several dozen dits and dahs as a single phrase.
Naive subjects can only remember about nine binary items, but Miller
reports a 1954 experiment in which people were trained to listen to a
string of binary digits and (in one case) mentally group them into groups
of five, recode each group into a name (e.g "twenty-one" for 10101), and
remember the names. With sufficient drill, people found it possible to
remember as many as forty binary digits. Miller wrote:
"It is a little dramatic to watch a person get 40 binary digits in a row
and then repeat them back without error. However, if you think of this
merely as a mnemonic trick for extending the memory span, you will miss
the more important point that is implicit in nearly all such mnemonic
devices. The point is that recoding is an extremely powerful weapon for
increasing the amount of information that we can deal with".
Miller, G. A. (1956), The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review,
63, 81-97.
]
IMAGE SCHEMAS: repr events in a simple, abstract, spatial form
ANALOGICAL REASONING: open/closed - as in hand --> apply to eyes - starts in
infancy --> leads to metaphor [conceptual blending]
[Rosch:1973]
work on categories as prototypes, based on Wittgenstein's famous notion of
family resemblance, was an important corrective to the prevailing rigic views
of categorization based on logical classes...
One of the ideas though had a somewhat pernicious influence. --> notion that
a particular level of categorization is primary or fundamental - a level that
came to be known as the basic level.
By the 1980s : ingrained that first concepts to be learned - basic level.
...not only do we not know what the term means but also, given any more or
less understandable definition, the basic level is not the way to
characterize the first concepts. 122
Wings, feathers, and beaks are not distributed randomly but instead form a
cluster correlated with birds. Basic-level concptual cuts were assumed to be
created at these discontinuities in the world, forming a unique level of
abstraction. This level was said to carry the most information and to
possess the highest "cue validity" - defined as the extent to which an
attribute predicts a particular category - e.g. wings --> birds but not
butterflies. 122
Failure of cue validity: if a cue predicts class X (dog), it also predicts the more
inclusive (superordinate) class (mammal). Thus more inclusive categories
always have a cue validity as great or greater than their subordinates.
Rosch, 76 footnote notes this difficulty and says that concept cue validity
refers to a psychological factor.
[Murphy 82]: same problem if you use avg of features instead of sum
[Medin 83]: instead of cue validity (cue => concept), use concept validity
(concept => cue), but here too as many probs - lowest level
subordinates are most predictive.
[Tanaka/Taylor:1991][Mandler:1997] this level has never been unambiguously
defined. 124-5
[Wendell Garner 1974]
showed that verbal descriptions are highly dependent on the context of the
surrounding items. E.g. a square drawn on paper with black ink is simply a
"square". But in the context of red ink squares, it is apt to be described
as a "black square", etc. 126
[Rosch etal 76] picture recognition is primed by words at the basic or
subordinate level but not at the superordinate level. 127
concluded that the basic level is the highest level at which an image of
an object can be formed - but not based on what details people may have
imaged. For myself, when asked to image a achair, I image a straight backed
chair with no arms - i.e. a subordinate category. Unless probed, I wouldn't
say I was imaging an "armless dining chair".
It is certainly true that terms like dog and chair are more frequent in
early vocabularies than animal or furniture, which are often rather late.
The q is how one should interpret this fact.
Roger Brown 1958: How shall a Thing be Called?
We use _dime for a particular coin, rather than "coin" or "1958 dime". 130
children's first words are taken from the vocab they hear - if these match
their level of thought, so much the better - but we cannot use their first
words to tell us about their concepts ...
OVEREXTENSION [Clark 83, Rescorla 80]
upto 40% of first 100 words are overextended - often "dog" refers to other
animals - meaning more like "land animal" than "dog".
Underextensions occur too, but they appear to be rarer [but may be
because] it is easier to measure overextension than underextension in
production.
[AM: Child sees a new type of dog, never labels it - can't measure]
If basic level terms match to their concepts, then one would not
expect overextensions. [But] Children's early vocab much smaller than their
comm needs - so one might well expect overextensions - this would tell little
about their underlying concepts. 131
[McDonough 2002a]
compared both comprehension and production and found that even at 2 years,
29% of both production and comprehension was overextended in the domains of
animals, food, clothes, and vehicles. [See chap 11]
Young children appear to be unclear about the boundaries of many basic-level
terms - have no detailed specifications. So they have a double problems -
must figure out the extension of the word being used in the framework of not
being sure what the differenes are that make parents and others use different
words -- not an easy task! 131
Rosch expts on child learning - that basic levels are learned first -
confounds best prototypes of the superodinate class - mixing the prototype
with levels - when separated [Bauer/Mandler] these expts don't hold up. 133
Rosch tended to emphasize phys similarity, particularly shape - so perhaps
what was being measured was some level of perceptual categorization. 135
Following [Miller/Johnson-Laird 1981], [Smith/Medin:1981] proposed that
concepts have a core meaning w nec and sufficient features. 135
In large part because of the work of Quinn/Eimas+ we have begun to learn a
good eal about just how early young infants begin to form real-world
perceptual categories.
[Quinn/Eimas/Rosenkrantz:1993] 3-month olds learned to categorize real
pictures of dogs and cats in as few as six 20-second trials. 136
Asymmetry: Infants categorized better when familiarized (first) with cats
than with dogs. [Quinn:93+] speculated that this was because dogs are more
variable in appearance - but not so cats. A dog makes a bad cat. Confirmed
further in work of [Mareschal/French/Quinn:2000]
[Eimas/Quinn:1994] 3-mo olds distinguish horses as diff from zebra or
giraffe, and cats as diff from tigers, though not lions (until 6 mos).
[Behl-Chadha:1995] also show them being able to dist tables, chairs and beds.
[Eimas/Quinn:1994] Eimas, P.D., and Quinn, P.C., Studies on the formation of
perceptually based basic-level categories in young infants. Child
Development, 65, 903-917.
[Behl-Chadha:1996] Behl-Chadha, G. (1996). Basic-level and superordinate-like
categorical representations in infancy. Cognition, 60, 105-141.
The view of Ed Wasserman, who claims that pigeons can form abstract
concepts, epitomizes the problem of not distinguishing perceptual and
conceptual accomplishments. It has been known for some time that pigeons,
which have a highly developed visual system, are capable of forming abstract
categories such as trees.
[Herrnstein:1979]
[Wasserman:1995]
Perceptual categorization, which pulls out the principal factors in patterns,
is often abstract. 3-month old infants categorize biological motion, which
is abstract, to say tht least.
Wasserman: pigeons can differentiate displays with 16 pictures. A glance at
the two kinds of array shows a striking perceptual difference. I'm not sure
exactly how to describe it (because it is not well conceptualized!). 138
[IDEA:*** That we are not capable of describing it only says it is not
linguistically conventionalized; but more likely what Mandler means is
that the distinction is not conscious. This may then be a diff aspect
from being conceptualized. We may also be able to describe
distinctions linguistically - e.g. a man's walk vs a woman's, which we
are not consciously able to analyze. So inability to describe is perhaps
not a relevant criteria. ]
[Smith/Carey/Wiser:1985] C. Smith, S. Carey, and M. Wiser
On differentiation: A case study of the development of the concepts of size,
weight, and density. Cognition. 21:177-137
--> scientists of the 18th c did not distinguish heat and temperature 142
To build a baby, we need more than one kind of categorization.
Categorization is not governed by perceptual factors alone:
7-11-mo infants do not distinguish plastic models of dogs from fish, which,
perceptually appear quite different. Figs. 7-2 154
later: Begin to dist by 1.5 years - possibly because fish were
unknown - but birds and fish they distinguish.
But 9-11-mos do distinguish birds and airplanes, which are perceptually
rather similar Fig 7-3 155
So - although within category similarity (dogs, rabbits) is high, and so is
between category dissimilarity, it is not enough.
Sabina Pauen: 10-11-mo: systematically varied between-category similarity of
little models of animals and furniture. In low-sim conditions, the items
were realistic and varied greatly in shape, colour and texture. In
high-similarity conditions, each had legs, curved as well as rectilinear
parts, and b/w dots that could be interpreted as eyes on animals and knobs or
decoration on furnitutre. Also furniture items were designed to resemble the
overall shape of one of the animals, same colours as another animal, same
texture as some other, etc. Even when there was high between-categ
similarity, 10- and 11-mos distinguished the items as much as when
between-categ sim was less. 155-56
[***CITE: FUNCTION: driving force for similarity / dissimilarity - add SABINA
citation to AAAI PAPER]
[Pauen:2002] Sabina Pauen. Evidence for knowledge based categrory
discrimination in infancy. Child Dev. 73, 1016-1033.
CLAIM: first learn "broad, global" domains (similar to superordinate), before
learning more detailed ones. 156
to some degree, "basic-level" distinctions are more likely to be
discriminated on picture-looking tests than on object-examination tests,
because, among other things, they grab the attention of the infant more
actively, thus firing the attentional system, which need not be the case for
learning purely perceptual schema or category (chapt 3 [53]). 162
[In this, it is quite likely that a greater degree of attention inheres to
processes that are declaratively learned - but still not quite a complete
description... ]
Adults can attend to a location without looking [Posner:1988]... attentive
looking is only a portion of looking time. 163
--> I guess what is meant is "consciously looking"
I used to assume that learning names for objects might be possible on the basis of associative learning without having to call on the meaning of the objects in question. The assumption was that it is relatively easy to learn names for things because one can point to them, and so there is the opportunity for ostensive learning of a kind that does not exist for relations. One can point to a dog but can't point unambiguously to containment and can't point at all to the past. For nouns, the story goes, all one needs is something like [Markman:1991]'s whole object assumption, and the child should be in business. I have gradually come to understand that this enticingly simple procedure is insufficient. Words do double duty, having both sense and reference [Frege:1952] child words overextended, but do not cross global domain boundaries [Gelman, Croft, Fu etal 98] OVEREXTENSION: Studies on Comprehension [Mcdonough:2002b] Comprehension tests with detractor items drawn from the same superordinate class - shows that even at age 2 years, boundaries of animal, vehicle, food and clothing categs unclear. Overextensions upto 29% within domain, but rare across domain bdries, in both comprehension and production tests. E.g. asked to point to dog, first point to dog, then also include fox. Same error when asked to point to fox. It seems that 2-year-olds know what a typical dog and a typical fox looks like - and tend to pick a prototypical example first. Similarly planes and rockets; cakes and pies. [FN: little compunction abt using more than one basic-level label for an item. 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