Psych202 - Foundation of Cognitive Neuroscience
Lecture 14 - The Conceptual System
Terminology
● Conceptual system = Semantic Memory system
● Language comprehension requires the conceptual system to make sense, but the latter is not
restricted to language comprehension
What is meaning? How is it represented in the Brain?
● Meaning = conceptual knowledge/understanding of the world
● In the last computer science boom in the 80s, people thought:
○ Computer is intelligent, It tells us how the brain works
○ Language is coded in abstract symbols
A cat can be coded as CAT in a computer, It must be how the brain represents a cat too!
● The brain’s conceptual system = Amodal Symbolic system - consisting of randomly chosen abstract
symbols independent of perceptual modalities
● Amodal = independent of perceptual realities
● Symbols = random
The symbolic system meets the Chinese Room Problem
● The Chinese Room conundrum argues that a computer cannot have a mind of its own and attaining
consciousness is an impossible task for these machines.
● They can be programmed to mimic the activities of a conscious human being but they can't have an
understanding of what they are simulating on their own.
Symbolic instructions don’t generate understanding
● Please translate: 我喜欢蛋糕
● Defining words with words is circular and does not provide meaning
● e.g., explaining ‘Eccles cakes’ as in ‘cakes made in Eccles’
What information can provide ‘True’ meaning?
● Defining words with the perceptual experiences they refer to provides meaning
“I like cakes” – change in dictionary and we can now
understand the words
Grounded cognition theories break the circularity of Amodel symbolic system
● Language is coded in symbols, BUT-
○ These symbols only make sense when they are grounded (constrained) by the sensory and
motor experiences they refer to.
● A ‘flying hippo’ are two symbols that can be put together in an arbitrary symbolic system, BUT-
○ It doesn’t make sense because you’ve never seen a hippo flying outside Disney films.
● Symbols to represent symbols - if they don’t make sense in the first place then they won't make
sense
, Amodel and Grounded Information Is Represented Differently
Tactile sensations - sensory experience
Amodal and Grounded Representations Reference Meanings Differently
Amodal and Grounded Representations Predict Different Relations between Language and Sensorimotor
Systems
Object Orientation Is A Perceptual
Feature Not Coded in Amodel Symbols
● Two reading conditions
○ John put the pencil in the cup - implies a vertical orientation
○ John put the pencil in the drawer - implies a horizontal orientation
● Object matching
●
● No response time difference in object matching
○ Is this object mentioned in the sentence?
○ YES / NO
● Amodal representation of ‘pencil’
Lecture 14 - The Conceptual System
Terminology
● Conceptual system = Semantic Memory system
● Language comprehension requires the conceptual system to make sense, but the latter is not
restricted to language comprehension
What is meaning? How is it represented in the Brain?
● Meaning = conceptual knowledge/understanding of the world
● In the last computer science boom in the 80s, people thought:
○ Computer is intelligent, It tells us how the brain works
○ Language is coded in abstract symbols
A cat can be coded as CAT in a computer, It must be how the brain represents a cat too!
● The brain’s conceptual system = Amodal Symbolic system - consisting of randomly chosen abstract
symbols independent of perceptual modalities
● Amodal = independent of perceptual realities
● Symbols = random
The symbolic system meets the Chinese Room Problem
● The Chinese Room conundrum argues that a computer cannot have a mind of its own and attaining
consciousness is an impossible task for these machines.
● They can be programmed to mimic the activities of a conscious human being but they can't have an
understanding of what they are simulating on their own.
Symbolic instructions don’t generate understanding
● Please translate: 我喜欢蛋糕
● Defining words with words is circular and does not provide meaning
● e.g., explaining ‘Eccles cakes’ as in ‘cakes made in Eccles’
What information can provide ‘True’ meaning?
● Defining words with the perceptual experiences they refer to provides meaning
“I like cakes” – change in dictionary and we can now
understand the words
Grounded cognition theories break the circularity of Amodel symbolic system
● Language is coded in symbols, BUT-
○ These symbols only make sense when they are grounded (constrained) by the sensory and
motor experiences they refer to.
● A ‘flying hippo’ are two symbols that can be put together in an arbitrary symbolic system, BUT-
○ It doesn’t make sense because you’ve never seen a hippo flying outside Disney films.
● Symbols to represent symbols - if they don’t make sense in the first place then they won't make
sense
, Amodel and Grounded Information Is Represented Differently
Tactile sensations - sensory experience
Amodal and Grounded Representations Reference Meanings Differently
Amodal and Grounded Representations Predict Different Relations between Language and Sensorimotor
Systems
Object Orientation Is A Perceptual
Feature Not Coded in Amodel Symbols
● Two reading conditions
○ John put the pencil in the cup - implies a vertical orientation
○ John put the pencil in the drawer - implies a horizontal orientation
● Object matching
●
● No response time difference in object matching
○ Is this object mentioned in the sentence?
○ YES / NO
● Amodal representation of ‘pencil’
