Kedves Érdeklődők!
Kovács Ilona (BME Kognitív Tudományi Központ) "Perceptuális tanulás és agyi
plaszticitás" című két részben tömbösített kurzusának első alkalma MÁRCIUS
18-án pénteken lesz 9.30-tól.
Az előadások anyaga itt elérhető: http://cogsci.bme.hu/~ikovacs/latas2005/
Bánréti Zoltán (MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet) "A nyelvtan alapelveinek
sérülése agrammatikus afáziában" című két részben tömbösített kurzus első
alkalma ÁPRILIS 15. péntek 12 órától lesz.
Sok szeretettel várunk minden érdeklődőt!
----------------------------------------------------------
NEMETH Dezso
University of Szeged, Department of Psychology
Email: nemethd(a)edpsy.u-szeged.hu
Web: www.staff.u-szeged.hu/~nemethd
Cognitive Sciences in Szeged: http://kognit.edpsy.u-szeged.hu/
Minden érdeklődőnek,
2004 decemberében megjelent, és minimum a Krasznár és Fiai könyvesboltban (VII. Damjanich u. 39.) kapható
A. W. Ellis klasszikus Reading, Writing and Dyslexia c. könyve magyarul, a Tas-11 Kiadó termékeként. A könyv tartalmazza többek közt az olvasás-írás Ellis-féle, moduláris modelljét, ill. annak alkalmazását az olvasás-írás zavaraira.
Fogyasztása javasolt.
Üdv,
Kas Bence
[ Apologies for multiple postings ]
SPECIAL SESSIONS PROPOSALS DEADLINE: April 1, 2005
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Conference on Machine Intelligence
Tozeur, Tunisia, November 5-7, 2005
http://www.acidca-icmi2005.org
Interested attendees are encouraged to propose special sessions, which consist of 5 papers that provide a focused discussion on a wide variety of new, innovative, and emerging topics of interest to the Machine Intelligence community including (see the website for a detailed list):
* CI : Computational Intelligence
* IC : Intelligent Control
* IDA : Intelligent Data Analysis
* IPA : Intelligent Pattern Analysis
* ISA : Intelligent Systems Architectures
Each special session proposal must include the session title, description, and organizers.
Special session proposals should be e-mailed to chairs(a)acidca-icmi2005.org by April 1, 2005.
Proposals should be no longer than 3 pages and should include: (a) the title of the proposed special session, (b) the name of the organizer(s) (including contact information), (c) a 1-2 paragraph description of the relevant background/expertise of the organizer(s).
The acceptance of special session proposals will be based on: their relevance to the conference, their relevance to related topics of interest, and/or the expertise and background of the organizers.
The special sessions chairs will be responsible for coordinating reviews for each submitted paper by assigning them reviewers selected from the reviewer list supplied by the session organizer.
Session organizers are also encouraged to issue a call for papers for their special sessions.
After the review process, the program chairs will work with each session organizer to determine the final composition of their special session.
By June 30, 2005, the special session chairs will send acceptance/rejection notices to the authors of papers submitted to the special sessions.
Special session organizers are expected to ensure that all camera-ready versions are submitted by July 31, 2005 and that each accepted paper is presented at the conference.
Special Sessions Important Dates:
April 1, 2005 Deadline for submission of special session proposals.
April 11, 2005 Preliminary notification of the acceptance or rejection of special session proposals
May 31, 2005 Deadline for submission of special session papers (full papers only).
June 30, 2005 Paper acceptance/rejection notification
July 31, 2005 Camera ready papers due (electronically)
Best regards.
Adel M. Alimi
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IEEE Senior Member
HDR, PhD, Eng., Associate Professor
REGIM: REsearch Group on Intelligent Machines
http://www.REGIM.net
University of Sfax, National School of Engineers
Department of Electrical Engineering
BP W, Sfax, 3038, Tunisia
Address: Centre Postal Maghreb Arabe, B.P. 120, Sfax, 3049, Tunisia
Tel.: +216-74-274-088 GSM: +216-98-66-76-82 Fax.: +216-74-275-595 email: Adel.Alimi(a)ieee.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Online Commentary Proposal System is currently unavailable due to
technical difficulties. Until the Online Commentary Proposal System is
reactivated, please send all commentary proposals (with relevant
expertise) and commentator suggestions to calls(a)bbsonline.org.
=======================================================================
BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW - CALL FOR COMMENTATORS
=======================================================================
Below is a link to the forthcoming precis of a book accepted for Multiple
Book Review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS).
PRECIS OF: Principles of Brain Evolution
AUTHOR: Georg F. Striedter
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), is an international,
interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and
controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive
sciences.
Please note that it is the *BOOK*, not the precis, that is to be reviewed.
Reviewers must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be
considered as a reviewer for this book, to suggest other appropriate
reviewers, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please
send an EMAIL to calls(a)bbsonline.org by March 25, 2005.
The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no expectation
(indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient should comment on
every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply except if you wish to
comment, or to nominate someone to comment.
If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS Associate
(there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work
to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are
eligible to become BBS Associates. A full electronic list of current BBS
Associates is available at this location to help you select a name:
http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html
If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your
Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates to
ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the meantime, your
name, address and email address will be entered into our database as an
unaffiliated investigator.)
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate reviewer for this
book, an electronic draft of the precis (only) is retrievable at the URL
that follows the abstract below.
=======================================================================
COMMENTARY PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS
=======================================================================
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, it would be most
helpful if you would send us an indication of the relevant expertise you
would bring to bear on the paper, and what aspect of the paper you would
anticipate commenting upon.
Please DO NOT prepare a commentary until you receive a formal invitation,
indicating that it was possible to include your name on the final list,
which is constructed so as to balance areas of expertise and frequency of
prior commentaries in BBS.
Please reply by EMAIL to calls(a)bbsonline.org by March 25, 2005
=======================================================================
*** BOOK PRECIS INFORMATION ***
=======================================================================
PRECIS OF: Principles of Brain Evolution
Author: Georg F. Striedter
ABSTRACT: Brain evolution is a complex weave of species similarities and
differences, bound by diverse rules and principles. This book is a
detailed examination of these principles, using data from a wide array of
vertebrates but minimizing technical details and terminology. It is
written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and more senior
scientists who already know something about the brain, but want a
deeper understanding of how diverse brains evolved. The books central
theme is that evolutionary changes in absolute brain size tend to
correlate with many other aspects of brain structure and function,
including the proportional size of individual brain regions, their
complexity, and their neuronal connections. To explain these
correlations, the book delves into rules of brain development and asks
how changes in brain structure impact function and behavior. Two chapters
focus specifically on how mammal brains diverged from other brains and
how Homo sapiens evolved a very large and special brain.
KEYWORDS: Neocortex, Development, Homology, Parcellation, Mammal,
Primate, Lamination, Cladistics, Hippocampus, Basal Ganglia, Neuromere
PRECIS TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Striedter-01132005/Referees
=======================================================================
SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
=======================================================================
(1) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review
In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able
to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our
limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make
it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per
year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and
biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you
would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review.
(Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the
basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you
indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you
nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of
potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential
impact!).
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for
Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. If you do not
wish to receive further Calls, please feel free to change your mailshot
status through your User Login link on the BBSPrints homepage, using your
username and password. Or, email a response with the word "remove" in the
subject line.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Ralph
BBS
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph DeMarco
Editorial Coordinator
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Journals Department
Cambridge University Press
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011-4211
UNITED STATES
bbs(a)bbsonline.org
http://www.bbsonline.org
Tel: +001 212 924 3900 ext.374
Fax: +001 212 645 5960
-------------------------------------------------------------------
P h i l o s o p h y o f S c i e n c e C o l l o q u i u m
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest
Room 6.54 (6th floor) Monday 4:00 PM
Pazmany P. setany 1/A Budapest, Hungary
Phone/Fax: (36-1) 372 2924
http://philosophy.elte.hu/colloquium
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1) There will be no seminar session on 14 March (it is a non-working day)!
2) Attention: There will be, however, a lecture on 21 March (the first day of
Spring Holidays)!
_________________________
21 March 4:00 PM 6th floor 6.54
Language: Hungarian
T a m a s D e m e t e r
Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Budapest
Mi a nepi pszichologia?
(What is folk psychology?)
Abstract: http://philosophy.elte.hu/colloquium/2005/March/#3
___________________________________
The colloquium is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments!
The 60-minute lecture is followed by a 10-minute break. Then we hold a
30-60-minute discussion. The participants may comment on the talks and are
encouraged to initiate discussion through the Internet. The comments should
be written in the language of the presentation.
The organizer of the colloquium: Laszlo E. Szabo (email: leszabo(a)hps.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Theoretical Physics Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Eotvos University, Budapest
http://hps.elte.hu/leszabo
Dear Dr. Qwerty,
The Online Commentary Proposal System is currently unavailable due to
technical difficulties. Until the Online Commentary Proposal System is
reactivated, please send all commentary proposals (with relevant
expertise) and commentator suggestions to calls(a)bbsonline.org.
=======================================================================
BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW - CALL FOR COMMENTATORS
=======================================================================
Below is a link to the forthcoming precis of a book accepted for Multiple
Book Review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS).
PRECIS OF: Principles of Brain Evolution
AUTHOR: Georg F. Striedter
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), is an international,
interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and
controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive
sciences.
Please note that it is the *BOOK*, not the precis, that is to be reviewed.
Reviewers must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be
considered as a reviewer for this book, to suggest other appropriate
reviewers, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please
send an EMAIL to calls(a)bbsonline.org by March 25, 2005.
The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no expectation
(indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient should comment on
every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply except if you wish to
comment, or to nominate someone to comment.
If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS Associate
(there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work
to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are
eligible to become BBS Associates. A full electronic list of current BBS
Associates is available at this location to help you select a name:
http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html
If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your
Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates to
ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the meantime, your
name, address and email address will be entered into our database as an
unaffiliated investigator.)
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate reviewer for this
book, an electronic draft of the precis (only) is retrievable at the URL
that follows the abstract below.
=======================================================================
COMMENTARY PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS
=======================================================================
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, it would be most
helpful if you would send us an indication of the relevant expertise you
would bring to bear on the paper, and what aspect of the paper you would
anticipate commenting upon.
Please DO NOT prepare a commentary until you receive a formal invitation,
indicating that it was possible to include your name on the final list,
which is constructed so as to balance areas of expertise and frequency of
prior commentaries in BBS.
Please send EMAIL reply to calls(a)bbsonline.org by March 25, 2005
=======================================================================
*** BOOK PRECIS INFORMATION ***
=======================================================================
PRECIS OF: Principles of Brain Evolution
Author: Georg F. Striedter
ABSTRACT: Brain evolution is a complex weave of species similarities and
differences, bound by diverse rules and principles. This book is a
detailed examination of these principles, using data from a wide array of
vertebrates but minimizing technical details and terminology. It is
written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and more senior
scientists who already know something about the brain, but want a
deeper understanding of how diverse brains evolved. The books central
theme is that evolutionary changes in absolute brain size tend to
correlate with many other aspects of brain structure and function,
including the proportional size of individual brain regions, their
complexity, and their neuronal connections. To explain these
correlations, the book delves into rules of brain development and asks
how changes in brain structure impact function and behavior. Two chapters
focus specifically on how mammal brains diverged from other brains and
how Homo sapiens evolved a very large and special brain.
KEYWORDS: Neocortex, Development, Homology, Parcellation, Mammal,
Primate, Lamination, Cladistics, Hippocampus, Basal Ganglia, Neuromere
PRECIS TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Striedter-01132005/Referees
=======================================================================
SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
=======================================================================
(1) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review
In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able
to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our
limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make
it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per
year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and
biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you
would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review.
(Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the
basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you
indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you
nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of
potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential
impact!).
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for
Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. If you do not
wish to receive further Calls, please feel free to change your mailshot
status through your User Login link on the BBSPrints homepage, using your
username and password. Or, email a response with the word "remove" in the
subject line.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Ralph
BBS
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph DeMarco
Editorial Coordinator
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Journals Department
Cambridge University Press
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011-4211
UNITED STATES
bbs(a)bbsonline.org
http://www.bbsonline.org
Tel: +001 212 924 3900 ext.374
Fax: +001 212 645 5960
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Online Commentary Proposal System is currently unavailable due to
technical difficulties. Until the Online Commentary Proposal System is
reactivated, please send all commentary proposals (with relevant expertise)
and commentator suggestions to calls(a)bbsonline.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below the proposal instructions please find the abstract, keywords, and a link
to the full text of the forthcoming BBS target article:
"Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition"
Frank van der Velde and Marc de Kamps
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/VanderVelde-11132003/Referees/
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 suggested 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 reply by EMAIL by March 24, 2005.
calls(a)bbsonline.org
The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no
expectation (indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient
should comment on every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply
except if you wish to comment, or to suggest someone to comment.
If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS
Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar
with your work to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and
commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. An electronic
list of current BBS Associates is available at this location to help
you select a name:
http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html
If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your
Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates
to ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the
meantime, your name, address and email address will be entered into
our database as an unaffiliated investigator.)
=======================================================================
COMMENTARY PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS
=======================================================================
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, it would be most
helpful if you would send us an indication of the relevant expertise you
would bring to bear on the paper, and what aspect of the paper you would
anticipate commenting upon.
Please DO NOT prepare a commentary until you receive a formal invitation,
indicating that it was possible to include your name on the final list,
which is constructed so as to balance areas of expertise and frequency of
prior commentaries in BBS.
Please reply by EMAIL to <calls(a)bbsonline.org> by March 24, 2005
=======================================================================
*** TARGET ARTICLE INFORMATION ***
=======================================================================
TITLE: Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition
AUTHORS: Frank van der Velde and Marc de Kamps
ABSTRACT: Human cognition is unique in the way in which it relies on
combinatorial (or compositional) structures. Language provides ample evidence
for the existence of combinatorial structures, but they can also be found in
visual cognition. To understand the neural basis of human cognition, it is
therefore essential to understand how combinatorial structures can be
instantiated in neural terms. In his recent book on the foundations of
language, Jackendoff described four fundamental problems for a neural
instantiation of combinatorial structures: the massiveness of the binding
problem, the problem of 2, the problem of variables and the transformation of
combinatorial structures from working memory to long-term memory. This paper
aims to show that these problems can be solved by means of neural 'blackboard'
architectures. For this purpose, a neural blackboard architecture for sentence
structure is presented. In this architecture, neural structures that encode
for words are temporarily bound in a manner that preserves the structure of
the sentence. It is shown that the architecture solves the four problems
presented by Jackendoff. The ability of the architecture to instantiate
sentence structures is illustrated with examples of sentence complexity
observed in human language performance. Similarities exist between the
architecture for sentence structure and blackboard architectures for
combinatorial structures in visual cognition, derived from the structure of
the visual cortex. These architectures are briefly discussed, together with an
example of a combinatorial structure in which the blackboard architectures for
language and vision are combined. In this way, the architecture for language
is grounded in perception. Perspectives and potential developments of the
architectures are discussed.
KEYWORDS: Binding, blackboard architectures, combinatorial structure,
compositionality, language, dynamic system, neurocognition, sentence complexity,
sentence structure, working memory, variables, vision
FULL TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/VanderVelde-11132003/Referees/
=======================================================================
SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
=======================================================================
(1) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review
In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able
to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our
limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make
it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per
year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and
biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you
would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review.
(Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the
basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you
indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you
nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of
potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential
impact!).
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for
Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. If you do not
wish to receive further Calls, please feel free to change your mailshot
status through your User Login link on the BBSPrints homepage, using your
username and password. Or, email a response with the word "remove" in the
subject line.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Barbara Finlay - Editor
Paul Bloom - Editor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
bbs(a)bbsonline.org
http://www.bbsonline.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dr. Qwerty,
The Online Commentary Proposal System is currently unavailable due to
technical difficulties. Until the Online Commentary Proposal System is
reactivated, please send all commentary proposals (with relevant expertise)
and commentator suggestions to calls(a)bbsonline.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below the proposal instructions please find the abstract, keywords, and a link
to the full text of the forthcoming BBS target article:
"Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition"
Frank van der Velde and Marc de Kamp
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/VanderVelde-11132003/Referees/
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 suggested 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 reply by EMAIL by March 24, 2005.
calls(a)bbsonline.org
The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no
expectation (indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient
should comment on every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply
except if you wish to comment, or to suggest someone to comment.
If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS
Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar
with your work to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and
commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. An electronic
list of current BBS Associates is available at this location to help
you select a name:
http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html
If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your
Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates
to ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the
meantime, your name, address and email address will be entered into
our database as an unaffiliated investigator.)
=======================================================================
COMMENTARY PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS
=======================================================================
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, it would be most
helpful if you would send us an indication of the relevant expertise you
would bring to bear on the paper, and what aspect of the paper you would
anticipate commenting upon.
Please DO NOT prepare a commentary until you receive a formal invitation,
indicating that it was possible to include your name on the final list,
which is constructed so as to balance areas of expertise and frequency of
prior commentaries in BBS.
Please reply by EMAIL to <calls(a)bbsonline.org> by March 24, 2005
=======================================================================
*** TARGET ARTICLE INFORMATION ***
=======================================================================
TITLE: Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition
AUTHORS: Frank van der Velde and Marc de Kamp
ABSTRACT: Human cognition is unique in the way in which it relies on
combinatorial (or compositional) structures. Language provides ample evidence
for the existence of combinatorial structures, but they can also be found in
visual cognition. To understand the neural basis of human cognition, it is
therefore essential to understand how combinatorial structures can be
instantiated in neural terms. In his recent book on the foundations of
language, Jackendoff described four fundamental problems for a neural
instantiation of combinatorial structures: the massiveness of the binding
problem, the problem of 2, the problem of variables and the transformation of
combinatorial structures from working memory to long-term memory. This paper
aims to show that these problems can be solved by means of neural 'blackboard'
architectures. For this purpose, a neural blackboard architecture for sentence
structure is presented. In this architecture, neural structures that encode
for words are temporarily bound in a manner that preserves the structure of
the sentence. It is shown that the architecture solves the four problems
presented by Jackendoff. The ability of the architecture to instantiate
sentence structures is illustrated with examples of sentence complexity
observed in human language performance. Similarities exist between the
architecture for sentence structure and blackboard architectures for
combinatorial structures in visual cognition, derived from the structure of
the visual cortex. These architectures are briefly discussed, together with an
example of a combinatorial structure in which the blackboard architectures for
language and vision are combined. In this way, the architecture for language
is grounded in perception. Perspectives and potential developments of the
architectures are discussed.
KEYWORDS: Binding, blackboard architectures, combinatorial structure,
compositionality, language, dynamic system, neurocognition, sentence complexity,
sentence structure, working memory, variables, vision
FULL TEXT: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/VanderVelde-11132003/Referees/
=======================================================================
SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
=======================================================================
(1) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review
In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able
to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our
limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make
it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per
year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and
biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you
would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review.
(Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the
basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you
indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you
nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of
potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential
impact!).
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for
Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. If you do not
wish to receive further Calls, please feel free to change your mailshot
status through your User Login link on the BBSPrints homepage, using your
username and password. Or, email a response with the word "remove" in the
subject line.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Barbara Finlay - Editor
Paul Bloom - Editor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
bbs(a)bbsonline.org
http://www.bbsonline.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
T. Erdeklodok,
a korabban beharangozott kurzusleiras.
udvozlettel,
gym
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GYORI, Miklos Ph.D.
lecturer / assistant professor
Institute of Psychology, ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary
H-1064 Budapest, Izabella street 46; www.ppk.elte.hu
phone: (0036) 1 4612600;
research psychologist
Autism Foundation, Budapest, Hungary
H-1089 Budapest, Delej street 21; www.autizmus.hu
phone: (0036) 1 3341123; fax: (0036) 1 3142859
regular guest lecturer
Institute of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Berggasse 11, A-1090 Wien; www.univie.ac.at/linguistics
phone: +43-1-4277-41717; fax: +43-1-4277-9417
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Andrew Brook (Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada) alábbi két előadására minden érdeklődőt szeretettel
várunk:**
*1.* 2005. május 2, 16:00:
* *
*Zombies and Imprisoned Minds*
*Andrew Brook and Paul Raymont *
*Abstract*
Thought experiments (TEs) about zombies are one standard way to argue
for anti-cognitivism about consciousness, the view that consciousness is
not a cognitive (information processing) property of minds. Another
class of TEs are actually more interesting in this regard, TEs about
what we call imprisoned minds. Imprisoned minds are minds that have no
way of expressing themselves behaviourally. Unlike zombies, they
actually exist, which adds to their interest - administration of curare
and certain massive strokes in the brain stem can both produce
imprisoned minds, curare temporally, strokes permanently.
In both cases, one has to add an exotic premise to get an
anti-cognitivist argument going. For zombie TEs, the exotic premise is
that an utterly nonconscious zombie could be behaviourally, cognitively,
or even molecule-for-molecule identical to us conscious beings. The
exotic premise in the case of imprisoned mind TEs is that in addition to
no behavioural expression, the activities of an imprisoned mind could
also make no neural difference. (We call such minds Radically Imprisoned
Minds [RIMs].)
As has often been noted, part of what makes zombie TEs difficult to
assess is their close kinship to the traditional problem of knowledge of
other minds. In particular, we do not know by what criterion or criteria
we could settle whether another being is conscious. The same is true of
imprisoned minds. It turns out, interestingly enough, that it is easier
to resolve the knowledge problem that arises in connection with each TE
than it is to settle whether they have any potential as arguments for
anti-cognitivism. The reason is the same in both cases: the exotic
premise required for the TEs to work as arguments for anti-cognitivism,
premises that are very difficult to assess, do not affect the knowledge
problem.
As arguments for anti-cognitivism, the two TEs are different. As we will
show, zombie TEs do not work as arguments for anti-cognitivism. By
contrast, we know of no definitive cognitivist response to imprisoned
minds TEs.
<>
<>*Biographical Notes*
Andrew Brook (D.Phil., Oxon.) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of
the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada. He is the author of /Kant and the Mind/ (Cambridge 1994) and,
with Paul Raymont, /A Unified Theory of Consciousness/ (MIT Press
forthcoming) and has written or edited five other books and about 80
papers, chapters, etc. He was recently President of the Canadian
Philosophical Association.
Paul Raymont (Ph.D., Toronto) was recently a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council post-doctoral fellow at Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada. He is currently at the University of Toronto. He has
numerous journal publications and co-authored /A Unified Theory of
Consciousness/ with Andrew Brook.
* *
*Helyszín: *Tudományfilozófiai szeminárium*, * ELTE Tudománytörténet és Tudományfilozófia Tanszék, Pázmány P. sétány 1/A, 6. emelet, 654, terem
*2.* 2005. május 3, 17:00:
*The Representational Base of Consciousness *
* *
*Andrew Brook and Paul Raymont*
* *
*Abstract*
Everyone agrees, no matter what else they think about consciousness,
that it has a representational base. However, there have been relatively
few worked-out attempts to say what this base might be like. The two
best developed are perhaps the higher-order thought (HOT) model of David
Rosenthal and the transparency approach of Fred Dretske and others. As
we will show, both face serious problems.
Our alternative to these models starts from the notion of a
self-presenting representation, a representation that presents not only
what it is about (if it is about anything; not all representations have
an object) but also itself to the representing subject. Thus, seeing
text on the computer display tells one not only about the text but also
about this representations of it, that, for example, one is seeing it,
not touching it. Indeed, in our view, representations, being
self-presenting, are the representational base for not just for
consciousness of their objects (when they have one) and of themselves.
They are also the representational base for consciousness of oneself as
subject.
Though we take mainly a philosophical approach, we hope that
the unified picture of consciousness that flows from our picture of the
representational base will assist research on consciousness no matter
what the approach.
<>
*Biographical Notes*
Andrew Brook (D.Phil., Oxon.) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of
the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada. He is the author of /Kant and the Mind/ (Cambridge 1994) and,
with Paul Raymont, /A Unified Theory of Consciousness/ (MIT Press
forthcoming) and has written or edited five other books and about 80
papers, chapters, etc. He was recently President of the Canadian
Philosophical Association.
Paul Raymont (Ph.D., Toronto) was recently a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council post-doctoral fellow at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
He is currently at the University of Toronto. He has numerous journal publications and co-authored /A Unified Theory of Consciousness/ with Andrew Brook.
*Helyszín:* Közép-Európai Egyetem, Filozófia Tanszék, Zrínyi u. 14, 412 terem