A Review of Human Spatial Representations Computational, Neuroscience, Mathematical, Developmental, and Cognitive Psychology Considerations

THE PHASE TRANSITION IN HUMAN COGNITION

New Mathematics and Natural Computation ◽

10.1142/s1793005709001234 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 05 (01) ◽

pp. 197-220 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

MICHAEL J. SPIVEY ◽

SARAH E. ANDERSON ◽

RICK DALE

Keyword(s):

Neural Network ◽

Dynamical System ◽

Phase Transition ◽

Cognitive Psychology ◽

Computational Neuroscience ◽

Response Selection ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Natural Explanation ◽

Linear Filters ◽

Traditional Approaches

This article attempts to build a bridge between cognitive psychology and computational neuroscience, perhaps allowing each group to understand the other's theoretical insights and sympathize with the other's methodological challenges. In briefly discussing a collection of conceptual demonstrations, neural network and dynamical system simulations, and human experimental results, we highlight the importance of the concept of phase transition to understand cognitive function. Our goal is to show that viewing cognition as a self-organizing process (involving phase transitions, criticality, and autocatalysis) affords a more natural explanation of these data over traditional approaches inspired by a sequence of linear filters (involving detection, recognition, and then response selection).

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Learning to Appreciate the Gray Areas: A Critical Notice of Anil Gupta’s “Conscious Experience”

Canadian Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.1017/can.2020.32 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 (6) ◽

pp. 801-813

Author(s):

Eric Hochstein

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Psychology ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Computational Neuroscience ◽

Conscious Experience ◽

Rational Justification ◽

Gray Areas ◽

Critical Notice

AbstractAnil Gupta’s Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry provides an impressive and novel account of rational justification based on conscious experience which is used as a foundation for a new theory of empiricism. In this critical notice, I argue that Gupta’s project is fascinating, but is often hampered by a lack of sufficient philosophical justification and clarity regarding some essential features of his project, as well as a lack of engagement with relevant scientific domains that would directly bear on it, such as computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. This limits the sort of logical inquiry available to him in problematic ways.

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“The Unconscious” in Current Psychology

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040/a000017 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 193-201 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Elisabeth Norman

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Psychology ◽

Verbal Report ◽

Psychological Research ◽

Operational Definition ◽

The Unconscious ◽

Apparent Lack ◽

Unconscious Processing ◽

Unconscious Processes ◽

Intermediate States ◽

Definition Of

A series of vignette examples taken from psychological research on motivation, emotion, decision making, and attitudes illustrates how the influence of unconscious processes is often measured in a range of different behaviors. However, the selected studies share an apparent lack of explicit operational definition of what is meant by consciousness, and there seems to be substantial disagreement about the properties of conscious versus unconscious processing: Consciousness is sometimes equated with attention, sometimes with verbal report ability, and sometimes operationalized in terms of behavioral dissociations between different performance measures. Moreover, the examples all seem to share a dichotomous view of conscious and unconscious processes as being qualitatively different. It is suggested that cognitive research on consciousness can help resolve the apparent disagreement about how to define and measure unconscious processing, as is illustrated by a selection of operational definitions and empirical findings from modern cognitive psychology. These empirical findings also point to the existence of intermediate states of conscious awareness, not easily classifiable as either purely conscious or purely unconscious. Recent hypotheses from cognitive psychology, supplemented with models from social, developmental, and clinical psychology, are then presented all of which are compatible with the view of consciousness as a graded rather than an all-or-none phenomenon. Such a view of consciousness would open up for explorations of intermediate states of awareness in addition to more purely conscious or purely unconscious states and thereby increase our understanding of the seemingly “unconscious” aspects of mental life.

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Enhancing Spatial Ability Through Sport Practice

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000075 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 83-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

David Moreau ◽

Jérome Clerc ◽

Annie Mansy-Dannay ◽

Alain Guerrien

Keyword(s):

Mental Rotation ◽

Spatial Representations ◽

Mental Rotation Test ◽

Sport Training ◽

Sport Practice ◽

Undergraduate University Students ◽

Before And After ◽

Cognitive Plasticity ◽

Reported Data ◽

The Relationship

This experiment investigated the relationship between mental rotation and sport training. Undergraduate university students (n = 62) completed the Mental Rotation Test ( Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978 ), before and after a 10-month training in two different sports, which either involved extensive mental rotation ability (wrestling group) or did not (running group). Both groups showed comparable results in the pretest, but the wrestling group outperformed the running group in the posttest. As expected from previous studies, males outperformed women in the pretest and the posttest. Besides, self-reported data gathered after both sessions indicated an increase in adaptive strategies following training in wrestling, but not subsequent to training in running. These findings demonstrate the significant effect of training in particular sports on mental rotation performance, thus showing consistency with the notion of cognitive plasticity induced from motor training involving manipulation of spatial representations. They are discussed within an embodied cognition framework.

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