Williams (WS) and Down (DS) syndromes are neurodevelopmental disorders with distinct genetic origins and different spatial memory profiles. In real-world spatial memory tasks, where spatial information derived from all sensory modalities is available, individuals with DS demonstrate low-resolution spatial learning capacities consistent with their mental age, whereas individuals with WS are severely impaired. However, because WS is associated with severe visuo-constructive processing deficits, it is unclear whether their impairment is due to abnormal visual processing or whether it reflects an inability (...) to build a cognitive map. Here, we tested whether blindfolded individuals with WS or DS, and typically developing (TD) children with similar mental ages, could use path integration to perform an egocentric homing task and return to a starting point. We then evaluated whether they could take shortcuts and navigate along never-traveled trajectories between four objects while blindfolded, thus demonstrating the ability to build a cognitive map. In the homing task, 96% of TD children, 84% of participants with DS and 44% of participants with WS were able to use path integration to return to their starting point consistently. In the cognitive mapping task, 64% of TD children and 74% of participants with DS were able to take shortcuts and use never-traveled trajectories, the hallmark of cognitive mapping ability. In contrast, only one of eighteen participants with WS demonstrated the ability to build a cognitive map. These findings are consistent with the view that hippocampus-dependent spatial learning is severely impacted in WS, whereas it is relatively preserved in DS. (shrink)

Down syndrome (DS), the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, results from the partial or complete triplication of chromosome 21. Individuals with DS are impaired at using a high-resolution, allocentric spatial representation to learn and remember discrete locations in a controlled environment. Here, we assessed the capacity of individuals with DS to perform low-resolution spatial learning, depending on two competing memory systems: (1) the place learning system, which depends on the hippocampus and creates flexible relational representations of the environment; (...) and (2) the response learning system, which depends on the striatum and creates fixed stimulus-response representations of behavioral actions. Individuals with DS exhibited a preservation of the low-resolution spatial learning capacities subserved by these two systems. In place learning, although the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of typically-developing (TD) mental age-matched children and TD young adults, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD children. In response learning, the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of TD adults, but it did not differ from that of TD children. Moreover, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD adults, and was higher than that of TD children. In sum, whereas low-resolution place learning appears relatively preserved in individuals with DS, response learning appears facilitated. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the neural pathways supporting low-resolution place learning and response learning are relatively preserved in DS. (shrink)

Purpose:Human navigation skills are essential for everyday life and rely on several cognitive abilities, among which visual-spatial competences that are impaired in subjects with cerebral palsy. In this work, we proposed navigation tasks in immersive virtual reality to 15 children with CP and 13 typically developing peers in order to assess the individual navigation strategies and their modifiability in a situation resembling real life.Methods:We developed and adapted to IVR an application based on a 5-way maze in a playground that was (...) to be navigated to find a reward. The learning process, navigation strategies, and adaptation to changes were compared between participants with CP and their TD peers and correlated with visual-spatial abilities and cognitive competences.Results:Most participants with CP needed more attempts than TD participants to become proficient in navigation. Furthermore, the learning phase was correlated to visual-spatial memory but not with cognitive competences. Interestingly, navigation skills were comparable between groups after stabilization. While TD participants mainly relied on allocentric strategies based on environmental cues, egocentric strategies based on body motion prevailed in participants with CP. Furthermore, participants with CP had more difficulties in modifying their navigation strategies, caused by difficulties in executive processes beyond the visual-perceptual impairment, with an inefficient shift between implicit and explicit competences.Conclusions:The navigation abilities in participants with CP seem to be different from their TD peers in terms of learning and adaptation to new conditions; this could deeply affect their everyday life and ultimately participation and inclusion. A regular assessing and focused rehabilitative plans could help to better navigate the environment and affect self-perception. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to illustrate how the adoption of new enterprise resource planning systems affects sensemaking in the process of Organizational Identity integration after a Merger and Acquisition.Design/methodology/approachWithin a wider case study about an acquisition in chemical/pharmaceutical industry, the paper describes the effects of SAP adoption and implementation on the organizational identity. This methodology, based on semi‐structured interviews to project leaders and to team members, has allowed a deep comprehension of the context, even if results cannot provide (...) statistical evidence of relationships.FindingsUsing the Swanson and Ramiller's approach to innovation, the paper argues that ERP adoption and implementation support sensemaking process if innovation takes place with mindfulness and because, in that case, people interact on symbolic meanings sharing retrospective knowledge and cognitive causal maps. After an M&A there are conditions for a mindful innovation with IT and therefore innovating with IT can be an effective way to enforce sensemaking process and, as a consequence, to influence the Organizational Identity evolution. In a constructionist approach, the evolution of organizational identity requires a social negotiation among members where sensemaking has a primary role. So, the integration process following acquisitions can be facilitated by adopting, implementing and assimilating common IT solutions with mindfulness.Research limitations/implicationsThe first limitation of this study is referred to timing. The author entered into the company within a year after the acquisition and went out at the beginning of SAP assimilation phase. Therefore, some perceptions could still evolve in different ways. The second limitation depends on the fact that the author analyzed a single case. By focusing on one case of acquisition – an acquisition that gives value to acquired company – the author might be limiting the transferability of the findings.Practical implicationsThese results can be useful for both scholars and practitioners. Managers who face organizational change can consider the adoption and implementation of ERP as an opportunity to influence the evolution of Organizational Identity according to strategic priorities.Originality/valueThe value of this study is in its approach that links a strategic level with a social level. This link is realized not using the ERP as an artefact but using the process of its adoption and implementation. (shrink)

Despite the fact that animal behavior involves a particularly powerful form of niche construction, few researchers have considered how the environmental impact of behavior may feed back to influence the evolution of the cognitive underpinnings of behavior. I explore a model that explicitly incorporates niche construction while tracking cognitive evolution. Agents and their stimuli are modeled as coevolving populations. The agents are born with “weights” attached to behaviors in a repertoire. Further, these agents are able to change these weights based (...) on previous success and an inherited learning parameter. Both the agent and the stimulus receive payoffs through a behavioral interaction . The behaving agent exhibits niche construction through its effects on stimuli , which can feed back to influence the value of different cognitive strategies. Here I focus on two forms of niche construction: the stimulus and responding agent have common interests and the stimulus and agent have dissimilar interests . The form of niche construction qualitatively affects cognitive evolution . Given a mutualism between the stimulus and responding agent, rapid learning and “fixed” behavioral distributions evolve. Given an antagonism between the stimulus and agent, slower learning and “flexible” behavioral distributions evolve. I discuss these results in light of findings from the fields of ethology, psychology, and evolutionary ecology. (shrink)

La plupart des projets d’architectures cognitives dans les sciences cognitives et des explications des processus cérébraux dans les neurosciences interprètent l’esprit/cerveau comme réactif : le processus est déclenché par un stimulus et se termine par une réponse. Mais il y a de plus en plus de données laissant penser que le cerveau est endogéniquement actif : des oscillations de l’activité électrochimique à de multiples fréquences ont lieu dans le cerveau même en l’absence de stimuli et ceux-ci servent plutôt à moduler (...) ces oscillations qu’à déclencher l’activité. De plus, des données montrent que cette activité endogène est utilisée dans diverses activités de traitement de l’information. Je m’appuie sur les données issues des enregistrements cellulaires unitaires, de l’EEG et de l’IRMf en situation passive, afin de soutenir la thèse d’un comportement oscillatoire continu dans le cerveau et d’identifier plusieurs manières dont ce comportement peut contribuer à la cognition. Si les sciences cognitives ont pour but de comprendre comment nous effectuons des tâches cognitives, elles ont besoin de développer des architectures cognitives qui intègrent le type d’activité endogène dynamique présentée par le cerveau. (shrink)

La plupart des projets d’architectures cognitives dans les sciences cognitives et des explications des processus cérébraux dans les neurosciences interprètent l’esprit/cerveau comme réactif : le processus est déclenché par un stimulus et se termine par une réponse. Mais il y a de plus en plus de données laissant penser que le cerveau est endogéniquement actif : des oscillations de l’activité électrochimique à de multiples fréquences ont lieu dans le cerveau même en l’absence de stimuli et ceux-ci servent plutôt à moduler (...) ces oscillations qu’à déclencher l’activité. De plus, des données montrent que cette activité endogène est utilisée dans diverses activités de traitement de l’information. Je m’appuie sur les données issues des enregistrements cellulaires unitaires, de l’EEG et de l’IRMf en situation passive, afin de soutenir la thèse d’un comportement oscillatoire continu dans le cerveau et d’identifier plusieurs manières dont ce comportement peut contribuer à la cognition. Si les sciences cognitives ont pour but de comprendre comment nous effectuons des tâches cognitives, elles ont besoin de développer des architectures cognitives qui intègrent le type d’activité endogène dynamique présentée par le cerveau. (shrink)

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary research endeavor focusing on human cognitive phenomena such as memory, language use, and reasoning. It emerged in the second half of the 20th century and is charting new directions at the beginning of the 21st century. This chapter begins by identifying the disciplines that contribute to cognitive science and reviewing the history of the interdisciplinary engagements that characterize it. The second section examines the role that mechanistic explanation plays in cognitive science, while the third focuses (...) on the importance of mental representations in specifically cognitive explanations. The fourth section considers the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science and explores how multiple disciplines can contribute to explanations that exceed what any single discipline might accomplish. The conclusion sketches some recent developments in cognitive science and their implications for philosophers. (shrink)

While neuroscientists often characterize brain activity as representational, many philosophers have construed these accounts as just theorists’ glosses on the mechanism. Moreover, philosophical discussions commonly focus on finished accounts of explanation, not research in progress. I adopt a different perspective, considering how characterizations of neural activity as representational contributes to the development of mechanistic accounts, guiding the investigations neuroscientists pursue as they work from an initial proposal to a more detailed understanding of a mechanism. I develop one illustrative example involving (...) research on the information-processing mechanisms mammals employ in navigating their environments. This research was galvanized by the discovery in the 1970s of place cells in the hippocampus. This discovery prompted research in what the activity of these cells represents and how place representations figure in navigation. It also led to the discovery of a host of other types of neurons—grid cells, head-direction cells, boundary cells—that carry other types of spatial information and interact with place cells in the mechanism underlying spatial navigation. As I will try to make clear, the research is explicitly devoted to identifying representations and determining how they are constructed and used in an information processing mechanism. Construals of neural activity as representations are not mere glosses but are characterizations to which neuroscientists are committed in the development of their explanatory accounts. (shrink)

Mitchell et al.'s claim, that their propositional theory is a single-process theory, is illusory because they relegate some learning to a secondary memory process. This renders the single-process theory untestable. The propositional account is not a process theory of learning, but rather, a heuristic that has led to interesting research.

The new science of Complexity explains that limited knowledge prevents societies from predicting and controlling their developments. But Complexity further suggests that nature uses the limits of knowledge to evolve, which turns an apparent obstacle into an opportunity to reevaluate governmental institutions. As in nature, the limits of knowledge lead social systems to evolve by individuating, liberating, and empowering their members. Societies individuate and liberate their members to probe environments and exploit opportunities. Societies empower individuals to globalize their findings which (...) requires constitutionally constraining governmental powers. Societies that respect human rights thus gain selective advantage. Showing that what nature is models what societies ought to be, Complexity may finesse the "naturalistic fallacy" of Hume and Moore. (shrink)

The appropriate methodology for psychological research depends on whether one is studying mental algorithms or their implementation. Mental algorithms are abstract specifications of the steps taken by procedures that run in the mind. Implementational issues concern the speed and reliability of these procedures. The algorithmic level can be explored only by studying across-task variation. This contrasts with psychology's dominant methodology of looking for within-task generalities, which is appropriate only for studying implementational issues.The implementation-algorithm distinction is related to a number of (...) other “levels” considered in cognitive science. Its realization in Anderson's ACT theory of cognition is discussed. Research at the algorithmic level is more promising because it is hard to make further fundamental scientific progress at the implementational level with the methodologies available. Protocol data, which are appropriate only for algorithm-level theories, provide a richer source than data at the implementational level. Research at the algorithmic level will also yield more insight into fundamental properties of human knowledge because it is the level at which significant learning transitions are defined.The best way to study the algorithmic level is to look for differential learning outcomes in pedagogical experiments that manipulate instructional experience. This provides control and prediction in realistically complex learning situations. The intelligent tutoring paradigm provides a particularly fruitful way to implement such experiments.The implications of this analysis for the issue of modularity of mind, the status of language, research on human/computer interaction, and connectionist models are also examined. (shrink)

The Hard Question of memory is the following: how are memory representations stored and organized so as to be made available for retrieval in the appropriate circumstances and format? In this essay, I argue that philosophical theories of memory should engage with the Hard Question directly and seriously. I propose that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially (...) selected and stabilized, but also systematically modified and integrated into generalized, model-like representational structures. Further, I propose a hybrid theory of remembering, which takes into account both the nature of the cognitive processes underlying remembering and the norms that govern representational success in relevant cognitive/epistemic contexts. (shrink)

This paper offers a modeling account of episodic representation. I argue that the episodic system constructsmental models: representations that preserve the spatiotemporal structure of represented domains. In prototypical cases, these domains are events: occurrences taken by subjects to have characteristic structures, dynamics and relatively determinate beginnings and ends. Due to their simplicity and manipulability, mental event models can be used in a variety of cognitive contexts: in remembering the personal past, but also in future-oriented and counterfactual imagination. As structural representations, (...) they allow surrogative reasoning, supporting inferences about their constituents which can be used in reasoning about the represented events. (shrink)

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the (...) Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research. (shrink)

It is frequently claimed that the human mind is organized in a modular fashion, a hypothesis linked historically, though not inevitably, to the claim that many aspects of the human mind are innately specified. A specific instance of this line of thought is the proposal of an innately specified geometric module for human reorientation. From a massive modularity position, the reorientation module would be one of a large number that organized the mind. From the core knowledge position, the reorientation module (...) is one of five innate and encapsulated modules that can later be supplemented by use of human language. In this paper, we marshall five lines of evidence that cast doubt on the geometric module hypothesis, unfolded in a series of reasons: (1) Language does not play a necessary role in the integration of feature and geometric cues, although it can be helpful. (2) A model of reorientation requires flexibility to explain variable phenomena. (3) Experience matters over short and long periods. (4) Features are used for true reorientation. (5) The nature of geometric information is not as yet clearly specified. In the final section, we review recent theoretical approaches to the known reorientation phenomena. (shrink)

A great number of investigations suggest that cognition involves both linguistic and cartographic representations. These researches have motivated a pluralist conception of cognition; also, they have been used to clarify how maps differ from linguistic representations. However, the computational processes underlying the interphase between both kinds of representations deserve further attention. In this paper, I argue that, despite their differences, cartographic representations coexist and interact with linguistic representations in interesting ways.

Since Tolman’s paper in 1948, psychologists and neuroscientists have argued that cartographic representations play an important role in cognition. These empirical findings align with some theoretical works developed by philosophers who promote a pluralist view of representational vehicles, stating that cognitive processes involve representations with different formats. However, the inferential relations between maps and representations with different formats have not been sufficiently explored. Thus, this paper is focused on the inferential relations between cartographic and linguistic representations. To that effect, we (...) appeal to heterogeneous inference with ordinary maps and sentences. In doing so, we aim to build a model to bridge the gap between cartographic and linguistic thought. (shrink)

Mental time travel is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: acts on the same (...) information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two ; and is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this domain-general simulation system enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present. (shrink)

This paper is a conceptual analysis of the theory debate in psychology, as carried out by cognitivists and radical behaviorists. The debate has focused on the necessity of theories in psychology. However, the logically primary issue is the nature of theories, or what theories are. This claim stems from the fact that cognitivists and radical behaviorists adopt disparate accounts of the nature of theories. The cognitivists' account is closely akin to the received view from logical positivism, where theories are collections (...) of statements and theoretical terms are restricted to designate unobservable entities. Radical behaviorists also conceive theories as collections of statements, but restrict theoretical terms in psychology to designate observable entities. If each side approaches the necessity issue with its preferred account, both agree that theories are necessary in psychology. Hence, there is no disagreement over the necessity of theories in psychology per se, only over the nature of theories. The received view, however, has been shown to suffer from irreparable difficulties that have led to its total rejection in post-positivistic philosophy of science. Alternative accounts, like the structuralist and semantic views, do not raise the issue of whether theories are necessary in psychology. (shrink)

A common way to understand memory structures in the cognitive sciences is as a cognitive map​. Cognitive maps are representational systems organized by dimensions shared with physical space. The appeal to these maps begins literally: as an account of how spatial information is represented and used to inform spatial navigation. Invocations of cognitive maps, however, are often more ambitious; cognitive maps are meant to scale up and provide the basis for our more sophisticated memory capacities. The extension is not meant (...) to be metaphorical, but the way in which these richer mental structures are supposed to remain map-like is rarely made explicit. Here we investigate this missing link, asking: how do cognitive maps represent non-spatial information?​ We begin with a survey of foundational work on spatial cognitive maps and then provide a comparative review of alternative, non-spatial representational structures. We then turn to several cutting-edge projects that are engaged in the task of scaling up cognitive maps so as to accommodate non-spatial information: first, on the spatial-isometric approach​ , encoding content that is non-spatial but in some sense isomorphic to spatial content; second, on the ​ abstraction approach​ , encoding content that is an abstraction over first-order spatial information; and third, on the ​ embedding approach​ , embedding non-spatial information within a spatial context, a prominent example being the Method-of-Loci. Putting these cases alongside one another reveals the variety of options available for building cognitive maps, and the distinctive limitations of each. We conclude by reflecting on where these results take us in terms of understanding the place of cognitive maps in memory. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of some of the most important philosophical papers by Peter Gärdenfors. Spanning a period of more than 20 years of his research, they cover a wide ground of topics, from early works on decision theory, belief revision and nonmonotonic logic to more recent work on conceptual spaces, inductive reasoning, semantics and the evolutions of thinking. Many of the papers have only been published in places that are difficult to access. The common theme of all the (...) papers is the dynamics of thought. Several of the papers have become minor classics and the volume bears witness of the wide scope of Gärdenfors’ research and of his crisp and often witty style of writing. The volume will be of interest to researchers in philosophy and other cognitive sciences. (shrink)