Symbolic representations of biological oscillations

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Bianco ◽  
V. Manca ◽  
S. Zorzan
Keyword(s):  
Symbolic Representations

Quantum Theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank S. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Uncertainty Principle ◽  
Quantum Spin ◽  
Quantum States ◽  
Wave Functions ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Quantum Numbers ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

The subject of Chapter 8 is the fundamental principles of quantum theory, the abstract extension of quantum mechanics. Two of the entities explored are kets and operators, with kets being representations of quantum states as well as a source of wave functions. The quantum box and quantum spin kets are specified, as are the quantum numbers that identify them. Operators are introduced and defined in part as the symbolic representations of observable quantities such as position, momentum and quantum spin. Eigenvalues and eigenkets are defined and discussed, with the former identified as the possible outcomes of a measurement. Bras, the counterpart to kets, are introduced as the means of forming probability amplitudes from kets. Products of operators are examined, as is their role underpinning Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. A variety of symbol manipulations are presented. How measurements are believed to collapse linear superpositions to one term of the sum is explored.

scholarly journals Teacher Orchestration of Language and Gesture in Explaining Science Concepts in Images

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thu Ngo ◽  
Len Unsworth ◽  
Michele Herrington
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Senior High School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Cell Components ◽  
Diagram Comprehension ◽  
Senior High School Students

AbstractStudents’ difficulties interpreting diagrams remain a concern in science education. Research about improving diagram comprehension has included few studies of teachers’ orchestration of language and gesture in explaining diagrams—and very few in senior high schools. Research with younger students and studies of research scientists’ practice indicate the significance of the interaction of teachers’ gesture and language in explaining visualisations. The strategic deployment of such teacher-focussed authoritative explanations has been observed in facilitating progression to more complex and symbolic representations in classroom work. However, the paucity of such research in senior high school leaves open the question of how these teachers use gesture and language in managing the challenges of explaining the intricate sub-microscopic and abstract visualisations senior high school students need to negotiate. In this paper, we outline existing studies of teachers’ use of gesture and language to explain complex images in senior high school and investigate how it is managed by two biology teachers with images of different types and complexity representing the activity of certain cell components in the early phase of cell duplication. Implications are drawn for foci of further research including the role of a metalanguage describing different types of visualisations and their affordances.

scholarly journals Notes on narrative, cognition, and cultural evolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-561
Author(s):  
Marina Grishakova ◽  
Siim Sorokin
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Symbolic Representation ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Ubiquity Hypothesis ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

Drawing on non-Darwinian cultural-evolutionary approaches, the paper develops a broad, non-representational perspective on narrative, necessary to account for the narrative “ubiquity” hypothesis. It considers narrativity as a feature of intelligent behaviour and as a formative principle of symbolic representation (“narrative proclivity”). The narrative representation retains a relationship with the “primary” pre-symbolic narrativity of the basic orientational-interpretive (semiotic) behaviour affected by perceptually salient objects and “fits” in natural environments. The paper distinguishes between implicit narrativity (as the basic form of perceptual-cognitive mapping) of intelligent behaviour or non-narrative media, and the “narrative” as a symbolic representation. Human perceptual-attentional routines are enhanced by symbolic representations: due to its attention-monitoring and information-gathering function, narrative serves as a cognitive-exploratory tool facilitating cultural dynamics. The rise of new media and mass communication on the Web has thrown the ability of narrative to shape the public sphere through the ongoing process of negotiated sensemaking and interpretation in a particularly sharp relief.

scholarly journals The role of cultural practices in the emergence of modern human intelligence

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1499) ◽  
pp. 2011-2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
High Level ◽  
Human Brains

Innate cognitive capacities are orchestrated by cultural practices to produce high-level cognitive processes. In human activities, examples of this phenomenon range from everyday inferences about space and time to the most sophisticated reasoning in scientific laboratories. A case is examined in which chimpanzees enter into cultural practices with humans (in experiments) in ways that appear to enable them to engage in symbol-mediated thought. Combining the cultural practices perspective with the theories of embodied cognition and enactment suggests that the chimpanzees' behaviour is actually mediated by non-symbolic representations. The possibility that non-human primates can engage in cultural practices that give them the appearance of symbol-mediated thought opens new avenues for thinking about the coevolution of human culture and human brains.

Computation and cognition: issues in the foundations of cognitive science

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zenon W. Pylyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Natural Domain ◽  
Human Functioning ◽  
Biological Laws ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Level Of Analysis

AbstractThe computational view of mind rests on certain intuitions regarding the fundamental similarity between computation and cognition. We examine some of these intuitions and suggest that they derive from the fact that computers and human organisms are both physical systems whose behavior is correctly described as being governed by rules acting on symbolic representations. Some of the implications of this view are discussed. It is suggested that a fundamental hypothesis of this approach (the “proprietary vocabulary hypothesis”) is that there is a natural domain of human functioning (roughly what we intuitively associate with perceiving, reasoning, and acting) that can be addressed exclusively in terms of a formal symbolic or algorithmic vocabulary or level of analysis.Much of the paper elaborates various conditions that need to be met if a literal view of mental activity as computation is to serve as the basis for explanatory theories. The coherence of such a view depends on there being a principled distinction between functions whose explanation requires that we posit internal representations and those that we can appropriately describe as merely instantiating causal physical or biological laws. In this paper the distinction is empirically grounded in a methodological criterion called the “cognitive impenetrability condition.” Functions are said to be cognitively impenetrable if they cannot be influenced by such purely cognitive factors as goals, beliefs, inferences, tacit knowledge, and so on. Such a criterion makes it possible to empirically separate the fixed capacities of mind (called its “functional architecture”) from the particular representations and algorithms used on specific occasions. In order for computational theories to avoid being ad hoc, they must deal effectively with the “degrees of freedom” problem by constraining the extent to which they can be arbitrarily adjusted post hoc to fit some particular set of observations. This in turn requires that the fixed architectural function and the algorithms be independently validated. It is argued that the architectural assumptions implicit in many contemporary models run afoul of the cognitive impenetrability condition, since the required fixed functions are demonstrably sensitive to tacit knowledge and goals. The paper concludes with some tactical suggestions for the development of computational cognitive theories.

Joanna I of Anjou (1343–1382)

Encyclopedia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 1303-1311
Author(s):  
Paola Vitolo
Keyword(s):  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Symbolic Image ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Church

Joanna I of Anjou (1325–1382), countess of Provence and the fourth sovereign of the Angevin dynasty in south Italy (since 1343), became the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Sicily, succeeding her grandfather King Robert “the Wise” (1277–1343). The public and official images of the queen and the “symbolic” representations of her power, commissioned by her or by her entourage, contributed to create a new standard in the cultural references of the Angevin iconographic tradition aiming to assimilate models shared by the European ruling class. In particular, the following works of art and architecture will be analyzed: the queen’s portraits carved on the front slabs of royal sepulchers (namely those of her mother Mary of Valois and of Robert of Anjou) and on the liturgical furnishings in the church of Santa Chiara in Naples; the images painted in numerous illuminated manuscripts, in the chapter house of the friars in the Franciscan convent of Santa Chiara in Naples, in the lunette of the church in the Charterhouse of Capri. The church of the Incoronata in Naples does not show, at the present time, any portrait of the queen or explicit reference to Joanna as a patron. However, it is considered the highest symbolic image of her queenship.

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