What is Cognition?

Question 1

what did Turing focus on when aiming to determine if machines have minds?

Answer 1

their linguistic competence. If machines could satisfy humans of their linguistic competence, he proposed that this would indicate that the machine had a mind

Question 2

what are the two usages of the term cognition?

Answer 2

cognition as a process and a product

Question 3

how would one define cognition as a process?

Answer 3

something that humans (and animals) do

Question 4

how would one define cognition as a product?

Answer 4

mental representations of what we perceive, know, reason… our mental images.

Question 5

what is the overarching definition of cognition?

Answer 5

the activity of acquiring, organising and using information to enable adaptive and intelligent behaviour.

Question 6

what 5 criterion need to be present to deem something a cogniser?
in summary, what do they do?

Answer 6

• sense and act on environment
• construct mental models to represent the structure of their environment
• ability to adapt mental models in response to feedback
• uses mental models to guide future behaviour
• ability to form inferences to make sense of experiences
• mentally represent their world

Question 7

what 3 elements make up mental representations?

Answer 7

• sensorimotor representations
• mental images
• symbolic representations

Question 8

sensorimotor representations include…

Answer 8

sense of embodiment, movement, sensory experiences

Question 9

mental images (in mental representations) include…

Answer 9

visuo-spatial representations, auditory memories, olfactory

Question 10

symbolic representations include.. .

Answer 10

logical, linguistic, semantic, narrative, schemas, frames

Question 11

what do mental representations actually refer to? Why are they so central to the cog. psych?

Answer 11

it is so vital because it refers to the format in which information is encoded, stored and reconstructed in our minds.

Question 12

what characterises explicit knowledge?

Answer 12

having the knowledge that we know something

Question 13

what characterises implicit knowledge?

Answer 13

things we just know… we may not know how or why we know it. In some cases, we may not even be aware that we do know it at all

Question 14

Ulrie Nesser’s diagram explains

Answer 14

how cognitive agents operate.. how their schemas are developed

Question 15

what is a schema?

Answer 15

an abstract frame for representing a concept or idea

Question 16

How would a schema be used to allow someone to understand what a lecture is?

Answer 16

you conjure up a schema of how you think a lecture is run based on your perceptual exploration. one then engages with it in the actual world, modifying their schema of a lecture which modifies their understanding or conceptual map of a lecture

Question 17

what are the steps of Nesser’s diagram and the formulation of a schema?

Answer 17

Locomotion and action (perceptual exploration)
Samples the
Actual world (actual present environment)
Modifies the
Cognitive map of the world and its possibilities (schema of present environment)
Directs the…

Question 18

what is mentalese?

Answer 18

the language of thought

Question 19

according to the classical computation theory of cognition, natural languages do what ?

Answer 19

translate inner mental language to a publicly expressible format

Question 20

according to the classical computation theory of cognition, what do mental tokens do?

Answer 20

they “stand in” (represent) the things and events that are not immediately available as environmental inputs

Question 21

how is the language of thought (mentalese) proposed to work?

Answer 21

symbols (which represent our knowledge of things and events) are manipulated according to syntactic rules, which allows cognisers to understand how symbols and concepts relate to one another

Question 22

what are examples of symbols in the classical approach to cognition?
give examples and what type of symbol they are

Answer 22

words and numerals
Dog (concept)
“in”, “has”, “not”… (properties and relationships)

Question 23

what is a propositional representation?

Answer 23

a symbolic code which expresses the meanings of concepts and the relationships between concepts

Question 24

what is the basic propositional representation of the sentence “the cat is under the table”?

Answer 24

Under (Cat, Table)

Question 25

what is the basic structure of a propositional representation ?

Answer 25

[Relationship between elements] ([subject elements], [object element])

Question 26

what is the main benefit of the propositional representations approach?

Answer 26

it represents the relationship between semantic elements, independently of specificities (written sentence, utterance
or perceptual details) around the event

Question 27

what is the propositional representation approach meant to provide an approximation to ?

Answer 27

the language of thought itself

Question 28

what is a predicate? what does it express?

Answer 28

it is a component of a propositional representation. it expresses the relationship between the elements or the property of the elements

Question 29

what are the three names of the alternatives to the classical approach to cognition?

Answer 29

dynamic, embodied and situated

Question 30

what is an analogue representation?

Answer 30

the representations is analogous (similar) to the physical manipulation of objects in space (Shepard Metzler rotation)

Question 31

what are the two main types of representations?

Answer 31

symbolic (digital clock) and analogous (analogue clock)

Question 32

what is the dynamic approach to cognition?

Answer 32

spivey and dale mouse tracking, that cognition should be studied as continuous, dynamic bio process not a staccato series of abstract computer like symbols

Question 33

what is the embodied and situated approach to cognition?

Answer 33

that symbols and abstract knowledge must be grounded in sensory perceptual and emotional representations