Barsalou on Perceptual Symbol Systems: BBS Call for Commentary
Stevan Harnad
harnad at coglit.soton.ac.uk
Fri Aug 28 12:28:47 EDT 1998
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article on:
PERCEPTUAL SYMBOL SYSTEMS
by Lawrence W. Barsalou
This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.
Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To
be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other
appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS
Associate, please send EMAIL to:
bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk
or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Department of Psychology
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators
are eligible to become BBS Associates.
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________
PERCEPTUAL SYMBOL SYSTEMS
Lawrence W. Barsalou
Department of Psychology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~barsalou/
barsalou at emory.edu
KEYWORDS: analogue processing, categories, concepts, frames, imagery,
images, knowledge, perception, representation, sensory-motor
representations, simulation, symbol grounding, symbol systems
ABSTRACT: Prior to the twentieth century, theories of knowledge were
inherently perceptual. Since then, developments in logic, statistics,
and programming languages have inspired amodal theories that rest on
principles fundamentally different from those underlying perception. In
addition, perceptual approaches have become widely viewed as untenable,
because they are assumed to implement recording systems, not conceptual
systems. A perceptual theory of knowledge is developed here in the
contexts of current cognitive science and neuroscience. During
perceptual experience, association areas in the brain capture bottom-up
patterns of activation in sensory-motor areas. Later, in a top-down
manner, association areas partially reactivate sensory-motor areas to
implement perceptual symbols. The storage and reactivation of
perceptual symbols operates at the level of perceptual components--not
at the level of holistic perceptual experiences. Through the use of
selective attention, schematic representations of perceptual components
are extracted from experience and stored in memory (e.g., individual
memories of green, purr, hot). As memories of the same component become
organized around a common frame, they implement a simulator that
produces limitless simulations of the component (e.g., simulations of
purr). Not only do such simulators develop for aspects of sensory
experience, they also develop for aspects of proprioception (e.g.,
lift, run) and for introspection (e.g., compare, memory, happy,
hungry). Once established, these simulators implement a basic
conceptual system that represents types, supports categorization, and
produces categorical inferences. These simulators further support
productivity, propositions, and abstract concepts, thereby implementing
a fully functional conceptual system. Productivity results from
integrating simulators combinatorially and recursively to produce
complex simulations. Propositions result from binding simulators to
perceived individuals to represent type-token relations. Abstract
concepts are grounded in complex simulations of combined physical and
introspective events. Thus, a perceptual theory of knowledge can
implement a fully functional conceptual system while avoiding what it
is becoming increasingly apparent would be problems for amodal symbol
systems. Implications for cognition, neuroscience, evolution,
development, and artificial intelligence are explored.
--------------------------------------------------------------
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide
Web or by anonymous ftp or gopher from the US or UK BBS Archive.
Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on
this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant
expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the
article.
The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.barsalou.html
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.barsalou
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.barsalou
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either:
ftp ftp.princeton.edu
or
ftp 128.112.128.1
When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid:
yourlogin at yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@")
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
To show the available files, type:
ls
Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.barsalou
When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit
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