3 Sep
2019
3 Sep
'19
11:28 a.m.
You are cordially invited to the public defense
<https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/events/2019-09-06/phd-defense-eszter-szabo-representation-absence-objects>
of the doctoral dissertation of
Eszter Szabó<https://cdc.ceu.edu/people/eszter-szabo-0>
Primary supervisor: Ágnes Melinda
Kovács<https://cdc.ceu.edu/people/agnes-melinda-kovacs>
Secondary supervisor: Gergely Csibra<https://cdc.ceu.edu/people/gergely-csibra>
Dissertation Committee:
György Gergely<https://cdc.ceu.edu/people/gyorgy-gergely> (Chair, CEU)
Luca Bonatti<https://www.icrea.cat/Web/ScientificStaff/luca-bonatti-498> (University
Pompeu Fabra, external examiner)
Véronique Izard<http://lpp.parisdescartes.cnrs.fr/people/veronique-izard/> (Paris
Descartes University, external examiner)
Time and date: 10am on September 6, 2019
Venue: Central European University, Room 809, Faculty Tower, Nádor utca 9, Budapest 1051
Title:
The representation of absence of objects
Abstract
While linguistic negation is a fascinating tool to capture the absence of objects, we know
little about how these thoughts emerge. In this work, first, we aimed to investigate the
linguistic negation acquisition and the nature of the first meanings of the negative
statements; second, we targeted language independent representations of presence/absence
available for young infants and non-human animals. In Study 1 and 2 we inspected the
development of negation comprehension between 15 and 24 month in human infants. In Study 1
we asked whether a domain general or alternatively, a limited conceptual understanding
supports the initial understanding of negation expressing absence. We found a parallel
development for understanding syntactically and functionally different negative
utterances, supporting a common conceptual basis for negation already at 18 months. While
in Study 1 infants were able to encode absence and use it to find the presence of an
object, in Study 2, we tested negation comprehension when it does not evoke the
implication of a positive alternative (i.e. the only implication is ‘nothing’). We found a
more prolonged pattern for negation understanding in Study 2 compared to Study 1. In
Chapter 3 we tested young domestic chicks’ encoding of the presence and the absence of an
object. We found sex-dependent evidence in their looking behavior, suggesting a capacity
for encoding absence. In Chapter 4 we measured the neural correlates of different types of
object disappearances in 6-month-old infants. Object maintenance (of presence) evoked
prefrontal and temporal activation when an object was occluded; in contrast no specific
activation was found for objects that vanished or mingled among other identical objects.
Our findings point to human infants’ readiness to understand negation expressing absence,
likely based on domain general cognitive and linguistic tools. However, encoding absence
is not language-dependent ability; such information is also available for pre- and
non-linguistic creatures, but unlike encoding presence, it is not an automatic process. We
propose that absence depends on categorical representations, and on possible mental
structures expressing contrary concepts.
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