Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning

Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning PDF Author: G. Rickheit
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080536220
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
In this interdisciplinary discussion on mental models, researchers from various areas in cognitive science tackle the following questions: What is a mental model? What are the prospects and limitations in applying the mental model notion in cognitive science? How can the ideas on the nature of mental models and their mode of operation be empirically substantiated? The primary goal of the research group was to work out a definition of mental models that embraces the overall use of this construct in cognitive science as well as the more specific conceptions used in particular research domains such as cognitive linguistics. Theoretical claims about the properties of mental models were discussed and their tenability evaluated against the empirical evidence.The volume is divided into three parts. Fundamental aspects of mental models are presented in the first section, the following part contains contributions to the function of mental models in discourse processing, and finally problems of mental models in reasoning and problem solving are outlined.

Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning

Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning PDF Author: G. Rickheit
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080536220
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this interdisciplinary discussion on mental models, researchers from various areas in cognitive science tackle the following questions: What is a mental model? What are the prospects and limitations in applying the mental model notion in cognitive science? How can the ideas on the nature of mental models and their mode of operation be empirically substantiated? The primary goal of the research group was to work out a definition of mental models that embraces the overall use of this construct in cognitive science as well as the more specific conceptions used in particular research domains such as cognitive linguistics. Theoretical claims about the properties of mental models were discussed and their tenability evaluated against the empirical evidence.The volume is divided into three parts. Fundamental aspects of mental models are presented in the first section, the following part contains contributions to the function of mental models in discourse processing, and finally problems of mental models in reasoning and problem solving are outlined.

Mental Models

Mental Models PDF Author: Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674568822
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
This book offers a unified theory of the major propertries of mind, including comprehension, inference, and consciousness. The author argues that we apprehend the world by building inner mental replicas of the relationships among objects and events that concern us. The mind is essentially a model-building device that can itself be modeled on a computer. The book provides a blueprint for building such a model and numberous important illustrations of how to do it.

Curriculum, Plans, and Processes in Instructional Design

Curriculum, Plans, and Processes in Instructional Design PDF Author: Norbert M. Seel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135627010
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This title presents perspectives on the relationship between curriculum research and instructional design, as well as new developments in the use of information and communication technology.

Space to Reason

Space to Reason PDF Author: Markus Knauff
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262018659
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
An argument against the role of visual imagination in reasoning that proposes a spatial theory of human thought, supported by empirical and computational evidence. Many scholars believe that visual mental imagery plays a key role in reasoning. In Space to Reason, Markus Knauff argues against this view, proposing that visual images are not relevant for reasoning and can even impede the process. He also argues against the claim that human thinking is solely based on abstract symbols and is completely embedded in language. Knauff proposes a third way to think about human reasoning that relies on supramodal spatial layout models, which are more abstract than pictorial images and more concrete than linguistic representations. He argues that these spatial layout models are at the heart of human thought, even thought about nonspatial relations in the world. For Knauff the visual images that we so often associate with reasoning are only in the foreground of conscious experience. Behind the images, the actual logical work is carried out by reasoning-specific operations on these spatial layout models. Knauff also offers a solution to the problem of indeterminacy in human reasoning, introducing the notion of a preferred layout model, which is one layout model among others that has the best chance of being mentally constructed and thus guides the further process of thought. Knauff's "space to reason" theory covers the functional, the algorithmic, and the implementational level of analysis and is corroborated by psychological experiments, functional brain imaging, and computational modeling.

The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China

The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China PDF Author: Morris L. Bian
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674262034
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
When, how, and why did the state enterprise system of modern China take shape? The conventional argument is that China borrowed its economic system and development strategy wholesale from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In an important new interpretation, Morris Bian shows instead that the basic institutional arrangement of state-owned enterprise—bureaucratic governance, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare—developed in China during the war years 1937–1945. Bian offers a new theory of institutional change that explains the formation of China’s state enterprise system as the outcome of the sustained systemic crisis triggered by the Sino–Japanese war. This groundbreaking work combines critical analysis of government policies with case studies of little-studied enterprises in heavy industries and the ordnance industry. Drawing on extensive research in previously unavailable archives, Bian adds a valuable historical perspective to the current debate on how to reform China’s sluggish and unprofitable state-owned firms.

How We Reason

How We Reason PDF Author: Philip Johnson-Laird
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191564214
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Good reasoning can lead to success; bad reasoning can lead to catastrophe. Yet, it's not obvious how we reason, and why we make mistakes - so much of our mental life goes on outside our awareness. In recent years huge strides have been made into developing a scientific understanding of reasoning. This new book by one of the pioneers of the field, Philip Johnson-Laird, looks at the mental processes that underlie our reasoning. It provides the most accessible account yet of the science of reasoning. We can all reason from our childhood onwards - but how? 'How we reason' outlines a bold approach to understanding reasoning. According to this approach, we don't rely on the laws of logic or probability - we reason by thinking about what's possible, we reason by seeing what is common to the possibilities. As the book shows, this approach can answer many of the questions about how we reason, and what causes mistakes in our reasoning that can lead to disasters such as Chernobyl. It shows why our irrational fears may become psychological illnesses, why terrorists develop 'crazy' ideologies, and how we can act in order to improve our reasoning. The book ends by looking at the role of reasoning in three extraordinary case histories: the Wright brothers' use of analogies in inventing their flyer, the cryptanalysts' deductions in breaking the German's Enigma code in World War II, and Dr. John Snow's inductive reasoning in discovering how cholera spread from one person to another. Accessible, stimulating, and controversial, How we Reason presents a bold new approach to understanding one of the most intriguing facets of being human.

Mind, Brain and Narrative

Mind, Brain and Narrative PDF Author: Anthony J. Sanford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107017564
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
An examination of the scientific evidence for the mechanisms which underlie the effect a writer's language has on the reader.

Semantics, Pragmatics and Meaning Revisited

Semantics, Pragmatics and Meaning Revisited PDF Author: Magdalena Sztencel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319691163
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
This book systematically investigates what follows about meaning in language if current views on the limited, or even redundant, role of linguistic semantics are taken to their radical conclusion. Focusing on conditionals, the book defends a wholly pragmatic, wholly inferential account of meaning – one which foregrounds a reasoning subject’s individual state of mind. The topics discussed in the book include conceptual content, internalism and externalism, the semantics-pragmatics distinction, meaning holism and explicit versus implicit communication. These topics and the author’s analysis of conditionals will allow the reader to engage with some traditional and current research in linguistics, philosophy and psychology.

The Nature of Cognition

The Nature of Cognition PDF Author: Robert J. Sternberg
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262692120
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 760

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Book Description
This book is the first to introduce the study of cognition in terms of the major conceptual themes that underlie virtually all the substantive topics.

The Tapestry of Reason

The Tapestry of Reason PDF Author: Amalia Amaya
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782255176
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
In recent years coherence theories of law and adjudication have been extremely influential in legal scholarship. These theories significantly advance the case for coherentism in law. Nonetheless, there remain a number of problems in the coherence theory in law. This ambitious new work makes the first concerted attempt to develop a coherence-based theory of legal reasoning, and in so doing addresses, or at least mitigates these problems. The book is organized in three parts. The first part provides a critical analysis of the main coherentist approaches to both normative and factual reasoning in law. The second part investigates the coherence theory in a number of fields that are relevant to law: coherence theories of epistemic justification, coherentist approaches to belief revision and theory-choice in science, coherence theories of practical and moral reasoning and coherence-based approaches to discourse interpretation. Taking this interdisciplinary analysis as a starting point, the third part develops a coherence-based model of legal reasoning. While this model builds upon the standard theory of legal reasoning, it also leads to rethinking some of the basic assumptions that characterize this theory, and suggests some lines along which it may be further developed. Thus, ultimately, the book not only improves upon the current state of coherence theory in law, but also contributes to the larger debate about how to articulate a theory of legal reasoning that results in better decision-making.