In this essay I shall focus on the adoption of the Semantic Approach by structural realists, including myself, who have done so on the grounds that it wears its structuralist sympathies on its sleeve. Despite this, the SA has been identified as standing in tension with the ontological commitments of the so-called ’ontic’ form of this view and so I shall explore that tension before discussing the usefulness of the SA in framing scientific representation and concluding with a discussion of (...) the implications of the ontological status of theories and models themselves. (shrink)

The teleosemantic theory of representational content is held by some philosophers to imply that genes carry semantic information about whole-organism phenotypes. In this paper, I argue that this position is not supported by empirical findings. I focus on one of the most elaborate defenses of this position: Shea’s view that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes. I distinguish between two ways of individuating genes in contemporary biological science as possible vehicles of representational content—as molecular genes and as difference-maker genes. (...) I show that given either of these ways of individuating genes, genes fail to meet conditions which the teleosemantic theory requires an entity to meet if that entity is to qualify as a representational vehicle that represents a whole-organism phenotype. The considerations I present against Shea’s view generalize to other attempts to use the teleosemantic theory in support of the claim that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes. (shrink)

The neural vehicles of mental representation play an explanatory role in cognitive psychology that their realizers do not. In this paper, I argue that the individuation of realizers as vehicles of representation restricts the sorts of explanations in which they can participate. I illustrate this with reference to Rupert’s (2011) claim that representational vehicles can play an explanatory role in psychology in virtue of their quantity or proportion. I propose that such quantity-based explanatory claims can apply (...) only to realizers and not to vehicles, in virtue of the particular causal role that vehicles play in psychological explanations. (shrink)

Functional neuroimaging is sometimes criticized as showing only where in the brain things happen, not how they happen, and thus being unable to inform us about questions of mental and neural representation. Novel analytical methods increasingly make clear that imaging can give us access to constructs of interest to psychology. In this paper I argue that neuroimaging can give us an important, if limited, window into the large-scale structure of neural representation. I describe Representational Similarity Analysis, increasingly used in (...) neuroimaging studies, and lay out desiderata for representations in general. In that context I discuss what RSA can and cannot tell us about neural representation. I compare RSA with fMRI to a different experimental paradigm which has been embraced as being indicative of representation in psychology, and argue that it compares favorably. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to present and defend a thesis according to which conceptual representations of some types of mental states are encoded in the same neural structures that underlie the first-personal experience of those states. To support this proposal here, I will put forth a novel account of the cognitive function played by ‘shared representations’ of emotions and bodily sensations, i.e. neural structures that are active when one experiences a mental state of a certain type as (...) well as when one observes someone else experiencing a state of the same type. I will argue that shared representations in fact constitute vehicles of certain mental state concepts (more precisely, concepts of specific types of emotions and somatosensory states). The main line of arguing for this will consist in showing that shared representations exhibit specific, ‘conceptual’ functional properties:(1) causal effect on forming metacognitive judgments, (2) cognitive penetrability, (3) diversity of input types. (shrink)

The notion of representation in neuroscience has largely been predicated on localizing the components of computational processes that explain cognitive function. On this view, which I call “algorithmic homuncularism,” individual, spatially and temporally distinct parts of the brain serve as vehicles for distinct contents, and the causal relationships between them implement the transformations specified by an algorithm. This view has a widespread influence in philosophy and cognitive neuroscience, and has recently been ably articulated and defended by Shea. Still, I (...) am skeptical about algorithmic homuncularism, and I argue against it by focusing on recent methods for complex data analysis in systems neuroscience. I claim that analyses such as principle components analysis and linear discriminant analysis prevent individuating vehicles as algorithmic homuncularism recommends. Rather, each individual part contributes to a global state space, trajectories of which vary with important task parameters. I argue that, while homuncularism is false, this view still supports a kind of “vehicle realism,” and I apply this view to debates about the explanatory role of representation. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of the view that visual hallucinations lack content. The claim is that visual hallucinations are illusory not because their content is nonveridical, but rather because they seem to represent when they fail to represent anything in the first place. What accounts for the phenomenal character of visual experiences is not the content itself (content-representationalism), but rather the vehicle of content (vehicle-representationalism), that is, not the properties represented by visual experience, but rather the relational properties (...) of experience (or of the brain) of representing singular contents, namely particular instantiations of properties. I argue that the Russellian particular-involving proposition is the only appropriate model for the representational content of visual experience and hence that visual hallucinations are just like failed demonstrations. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an argument for the assumption that contents supervene on vehicles, which is based on the explanatory role of representations in the cognitive sciences. I then show that the supervenience thesis together with the explanatory role imply that the individuation criteria for contents and vehicles are tightly bound together, such that content internalism is in effect equivalent to vehicle internalism. In the remainder of the paper, I argue that some of the different positions in (...) the debate stem from different research questions, namely the question about the acquisition conditions and the question about the entertaining conditions for mental representation. Finally, I argue that the thesis of externalism is much more interesting if understood as a claim about how mental representation works in our world as opposed to how they work in all metaphysically possible worlds. In particular, I argue that this?nomological? understanding of the thesis is able to explain how and why the experimental methods used in contemporary cognitive sciences are able to provide insight into behavior generation. nema. (shrink)

We think the best prospect for a naturalistic explanation of phenomenal consciousness is to be found at the confluence of two influential ideas about the mind. The first is the _computational _ _theory of mind_: the theory that treats human cognitive processes as disciplined operations over neurally realised representing vehicles.1 The second is the _representationalist theory of _ _consciousness_: the theory that takes the phenomenal character of conscious experiences (the “what-it-is-likeness”) to be constituted by their representational content.2 Together (...) these two theories suggest that phenomenal consciousness might be explicable in terms of the representational content of the neurally realised representing vehicles that are generated and manipulated in the course of cognition. The simplest and most elegant hypothesis that one might entertain in this regard is that conscious experiences are identical to (i.e., are one and the same as) the brain’s representing vehicles. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the role of dissimilarity in scientific representation. After briefly reviewing some of the philosophical literature which places a strong emphasis on the role of similarity, I turn to examine some work from Carroll and Borges which demonstrates that perfect similarity is not valuable in the representational use of maps. Expanding on this insight, I go on to argue that this shows that dissimilarity is an important part of the representational use of maps—a point (...) I then extend to the case of scientific representation. Relying on some work from Latour, I argue that dissimilarity plays an essential role in representational practice, by providing novel forms of manipulation and use which affords the achievement of various epistemic and nonepistemic aims. After showing how this point connects to some other literature on scientific representation, I discuss some examples of the value of dissimilarity in the use of representational vehicles. Overall, I argue that to understand scientific representation, we will need to consider more than just similarity. We will need to explore dissimilarities as well. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of the view that visual hallucinations lack content. The claim is that visual hallucinations are illusory not because their content is nonveridical, but rather because they seem to represent when they fail to represent anything in the first place. What accounts for the phenomenal character of visual experiences is not the content itself, but rather the vehicle of content, that is, not the properties represented by visual experience, but rather the relational properties of experience (...) of representing singular contents, namely particular instantiations of properties. I argue that the Russellian particular-involving proposition is the only appropriate model for the representational content of visual experience and hence that visual hallucinations are just like failed demonstrations. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perform valid (but not necessarily sound) surrogative inferences from the model to the system. The main difference between the interpretational conception I (...) defend here and Suárez’s inferential conception is that the interpretational account is a substantial account—interpretation is not just a “symptom” of representation; it is what makes something an epistemic representation of a something else. (shrink)

In this paper, I take scientific models to be epistemic representations of their target systems. I define an epistemic representation to be a tool for gaining information about its target system and argue that a vehicle’s capacity to provide specific information about its target system—its informativeness—is an essential feature of this kind of representation. I draw an analogy to our ordinary notion of interpretation to show that a user’s aim of faithfully representing the target system is necessary for securing this (...) feature. (shrink)

O'Brien & Opie unfairly restrict the classicist's range of options for explaining phenomenal consciousness. Alternative approaches that rely upon differences among representation types offer better prospects of success. The authors rely upon two distinctions: one between symbol processing and connectionist models, the other between process and vehicle models. In this context, neither distinction may be as clear as they assume.

This paper sets out a view about the explanatory role of representational content and advocates one approach to naturalising content – to giving a naturalistic account of what makes an entity a representation and in virtue of what it has the content it does. It argues for pluralism about the metaphysics of content and suggests that a good strategy is to ask the content question with respect to a variety of predictively successful information processing models in experimental psychology and (...) cognitive neuroscience; and hence that data from psychology and cognitive neuroscience should play a greater role in theorising about the nature of content. Finally, the contours of the view are illustrated by drawing out and defending a surprising consequence: that individuation of vehicles of content is partly externalist. (shrink)

Cognitive representations are typically analysed in terms of content, vehicle and format. While current work on formats appeals to intuitions about external representations, such as words and maps, in this paper we develop a computational view of formats that does not rely on intuitions. In our view, formats are individuated by the computational profiles of vehicles, i.e., the set of constraints that fix the computational transformations vehicles can undergo. The resulting picture is strongly pluralistic, it makes space for (...) a variety of different formats, and is intimately tied to the computational approach to cognition in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Peter Godfrey-Smith recently introduced the idea of representational ‘organization’. When a collection of representations form an organized family, similar representational vehicles carry similar contents. For example, where neural firing rate represents numerosity (an analogue magnitude representation), similar firing rates represent similar numbers of items. Organization has been elided with structural representation, but the two are in fact distinct. An under-appreciated merit of representational organization is the way it facilitates computational processing. Representations from different organized families can (...) interact, for example to perform addition. Their being organized allows them to implement a useful computation. Many of the cases where organization has seemed significant, but which fall short of structural representation, are cases where representational organization underpins a computationally useful processing structure. (shrink)

The book from which these sections are excerpted is concerned with the prospects for assimilating the study of human intelligence and its products to the natural sciences through the investigation of cognitive structures, understood as systems of rules and representations that can be regarded as These mental structui′es serve as the vehicles for the exercise of various capacities. They develop in the mind on the basis of an innate endowment that permits the growth of rich and highly articulated structures (...) along an intrinsically determined course under the triggering and partially shaping effect of experience, which fixes parameters in an intricate system of predetermined form. It is argued that the mind is modular in character, with a diversity of cognitive structures, each with its specific properties arid principles. Knowledge of language, of the behavior of objects, and much else crucially involves these mental structures, and is thus not characterizable in terms of capacities, dispositions, or practical abilities, nor is it necessarily grounded in experience in the standard sense of this term. (shrink)

This paper explores a new understanding of mind or mental representation by arguing that contents at the personal level are not carried by vehicles. Contentful mental states at the personal level are distinctive by virtue of their vehicle-less nature: the subpersonal physiological or functional states that are associated with and enable personal level contents cannot be understood as their vehicles, neither can the sensations or the sensory conditions associated with perceptual contents. This result is obtained by first extending (...) the interpretationist ideas of Donald Davidson and Daniel Dennett to show that subpersonal physiological or functional states cannot be construed as the vehicles of personal level contents. Then the anti-foundationalist arguments of Wilfrid Sellars are extended to show that sensory states cannot stand as vehicles to perceptual contents. The line of argumentation extended from Sellars also provides a critique of the current trend to posit non-conceptual contents. (shrink)

Fodor’s radical concept nativism flowed from his view that hypothesis testing is the only route to concept acquisition. Many have successfully objected to the overly-narrow restriction to learning by hypothesis testing. Existing representations can be connected to a new representational vehicle so as to constitute a sustaining mechanism for a new representation, without the new representation thereby being constituted by or structured out of the old. This paper argues that there is also a deeper objection. Connectionism shows that a (...) more fundamental assumption underpinning the debate can also be rejected: the assumption that the development of a new representation must be explained in content-involving terms if innateness is to be avoided. -/- Fodor has argued that connectionism offers no new resources to explain concept acquisition: unless it is merely an uninteresting claim about neural implementation, connectionism’s defining commitment to distributed representations reduces to the claim that some representations are structured out of others (which is the old, problematic research programme). Examination of examples of representational development in connectionist networks shows, however, that some such models explain the development of new representational capacities in non-representational terms. They illustrate the possibility of representational development that is not explicable-by-content. Connectionist representations can be distributed in an important sense, which is incompatible with the assumption of explanation-by-content: they can be distributed over non-representational resources that account for their development. Rejecting the assumption of explanation-by-content thereby opens up a more radical way of rejecting Fodor’s argument for radical concept nativism. (shrink)

The traditional model of human cognition (TMHC) postulates an ontological and/or structural gap between conscious and unconscious mental representations. By and large, it sees higher-level mental processes as commonly conceptual or symbolic in nature and therefore conscious, whereas unconscious, lower-level representations are conceived as non-conceptual or sub-symbolic. However, experimental evidence belies this model, suggesting that higher-level mental processes can be, and often are, carried out in a wholly unconscious way and/or without conceptual representations, and that these can be processed unconsciously. (...) This entails that the TMHC, as well as the theories on mental representation it motivates and that in turn support it, is wrong. (shrink)

Concept empiricists are committed to the claim that the vehicles of thought are re-activated perceptual representations. Evidence for empiricism comes from a range of neuroscientific studies showing that perceptual regions of the brain are employed during cognitive tasks such as categorization and inference. I examine the extant neuroscientific evidence and argue that it falls short of establishing this core empiricist claim. During conceptual tasks, the causal structure of the brain produces widespread activity in both perceptual and non-perceptual systems. I (...) lay out several conditions on what is required for a neural state to be a realizer of the functional role played by concepts, and argue that no subset of this activity can be singled out as the unique neural vehicle of conceptual thought. Finally, I suggest that, while the strongest form of empiricism is probably false, the evidence is consistent with several weaker forms of empiricism. (shrink)

One kind of substantial critique which has been raised by several philosophers against the so called higher order perception theory , advocated for mainly by William Lycan, concerns the combination of two important claims: that qualia are wide contents of perceptual experiences, and that the subject becomes aware of what the world is like by perceiving her own experiences of the world. In what sense could we possibly watch our own mental states if they are representations whose content and qualitative (...) character is determined by factors that are external to the mind? And, furthermore, how can we become aware of what the world is like by means of this process? Fred Dretske says that all we could become aware of by this alleged activity are activities of the nervous system. But being aware of what e.g., a certain colour is like to us, does not seem to be the same as being aware of what a particular nervous activation pattern is like to us. Barry Maund points out that it is not ruled out that the representational vehicle and the representational object share some properties, nor that it is in virtue of having certain properties that a mental state has the content it does. If it were the case that the properties of the representational states showed some iconic resemblance relation to that which they represent, there could perhaps be some point in watching them. But again, we have little reason for thinking that this is the case. It seems improbable that an experience of red would be red, i.e., that the representational vehicle would have these properties. The important issue is: what features could the representational vehicle possibly have that would make it suitable as an object for inner sense and, in turn, would enable us to become aware of what it is like for us to perceive external objects by “looking” at the representation of these objects? I will explore these questions in this paper. (shrink)

The notion of scientific representation plays a central role in current debates on modeling in the sciences. One or maybe the major epistemic virtue of successful models is their capacity to adequately represent specific phenomena or target systems. According to similarity views of scientific representation, models should be similar to their corresponding targets in order to represent them. In this paper, Suárez’s arguments against similarity views of representation will be scrutinized. The upshot is that the intuition that scientific representation involves (...) similarity is not refuted by the arguments. The arguments do not make the case for the strong claim that similarity between vehicles and targets is neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific representation. Especially, one claim that a similarity view wants to uphold, still, is the following thesis: only if a vehicle is similar to a target in relevant respects and to a specific degree of similarity then the vehicle is a scientific representation of that target. (shrink)

What are the vehicles of conceptual thought? Recently, cognitive scientists and philosophers of psychology have developed quite different theories about what kinds of representations concepts are. At one extreme, amodal theories claim that concepts are representations whose vehicles are distinct from those used in perceptual processes. At the other end of the spectrum, neo-empiricism proposes that concepts are perceptual representations grounded in the mind's sensory, motor, and affective systems. In this essay, I examine how evidence from the neuropsychological (...) disorder semantic dementia bears on philosophical debates about the nature of conceptual vehicles. I argue that the pattern of deficits in semantic dementia undermines recent neo-empiricist predictions about where and how conceptual knowledge is organized in the brain. I do not intend my analysis of semantic dementia to wholly discredit neo-empiricism; instead, I draw lessons for future theorizing about conceptual vehicles. (shrink)

The gradual increase in the density of highway vehicles and traffic flow makes the abnormal driving state of vehicles an indispensable tool for assisting traffic dispatch. Intelligent transportation systems can detect and track vehicles in real time, acquire characteristics such as vehicle traffic, vehicle speed, vehicle flow density, and vehicle trajectory, and further perform advanced tasks such as vehicle trajectory. The detection of abnormal vehicle trajectory is an important content of vehicle trajectory understanding. And the development of (...) the Internet of Things and 5G technology has led to a continuous increase in the rate of data information circulation. The “Internet of Vehicles” generated based on the practice of 5G communication technology constitutes a vehicle abnormal trajectory detection system, which has very high feasibility and safety and stability. Therefore, this research is aimed at the needs of preventing major accidents and forensic analysis during highway vehicles. Based on the integration of the Internet of Things 5G communication technology, a trajectorial anomaly detection of highway vehicle trajectory based on the integration of the Internet of Things 5G is proposed. By accurately sensing unsafe events at the perception layer, network layer, and application layer, the vehicle driving trajectory state is divided into several simple semantic representations. The semantic representation is analyzed, and then the moving target detection and moving target tracking algorithms needed to extract the vehicle trajectory are introduced. Through video detection and tracking of moving vehicle targets, the driving trajectory of the vehicle is obtained, and the movement characteristics of the vehicle in each frame of image are extracted. According to the relationship between the trajectory of the vehicle and the lane line, the vehicle trajectory analysis is realized, and then it is judged whether the vehicle has abnormal trajectory. Compared with the traditional method of manually detecting the driving condition of the vehicle, the abnormal trajectory detection of the vehicle based on the integration of the Internet of Things and 5G can quickly detect the abnormal trajectory of the vehicle in the traffic monitoring video. (shrink)

This paper advocates explicitness about the type of entity to be considered as content- bearing in connectionist systems; it makes a positive proposal about how vehicles of content should be individuated; and it deploys that proposal to argue in favour of representation in connectionist systems. The proposal is that the vehicles of content in some connectionist systems are clusters in the state space of a hidden layer. Attributing content to such vehicles is required to vindicate the standard (...) explanation for some classificatory networks’ ability to generalise to novel samples their correct classification of the samples on which they were trained. (shrink)

Mental representation is one of core theoretical constructs within cognitive science and, together with the introduction of the computer as a model for the mind, is responsible for enabling the ‘cognitive turn’ in psychology and associated fields. Conceiving of cognitive processes, such as perception, motor control, and reasoning, as processes that consist in the manipulation of contentful vehicles representing the world has allowed us to refine our explanations of behavior and has led to tremendous empirical advancements. Despite the central (...) role that the concept plays in cognitive science, there is no unanimously accepted characterization of mental representation. Technological and methodological progress in the cognitive sciences has produced numerous computational models of the brain and mind, many of which have introduced mutually incompatible notions of mental representation. This proliferation has led some philosophers to question the metaphysical status and explanatory usefulness of the notion. This book contains state-of-the-art chapters on the topic of mental representation, assembling some of the leading experts in the field and allowing them to engage in meaningful exchanges over some of the most contentious questions. The collection gathers both proponents and critics of the concept of mental representation, allowing them to engage with topics such as the ontological status of representations, the possibility of formulating a general account of mental representation which would fit our best explanatory practices, and the possibility of delivering such an account in fully naturalistic terms. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways (...) in which a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

An interesting feature of some sets of representations is that their structure mirrors the structure of the items they represent. Founding an account of representational content on isomorphism, homomorphism or structural resemblance has proven elusive, however, largely because these relations are too liberal when the candidate structure over representational vehicles is unconstrained. Furthermore, in many cases where there is a clear isomorphism, it is not relied on in the way the representations are used. That points to a (...) potential resolution: that an isomorphism must be used, hence usable, if it is to be an ingredient in a theory of content. This paper argues that the class of exploitable isomorphisms can indeed play a content-constituting role. (shrink)

Philosophers interested in the theoretical consequences of predictive processing often assume that predictive processing is an inferentialist and representationalist theory of cognition. More specifically, they assume that predictive processing revolves around approximated Bayesian inferences drawn by inverting a generative model. Generative models, in turn, are said to be structural representations: representational vehicles that represent their targets by being structurally similar to them. Here, I challenge this assumption, claiming that, at present, it lacks an adequate justification. I examine the (...) only argument offered to establish that generative models are structural representations, and argue that it does not substantiate the desired conclusion. Having so done, I consider a number of alternative arguments aimed at showing that the relevant structural similarity obtains, and argue that all these arguments are unconvincing for a variety of reasons. I then conclude the paper by briefly highlighting three themes that might be relevant for further investigation on the matter. (shrink)

O'Brien & Opie present an attractive alternative to the popular but flawed computational process approach to conscious awareness. Their “vehicle” theory, however, is itself seriously flawed by overstrict allegiance to the notion that explicit representation and stability are defining hallmarks of consciously experienced neural activity patterns. Including reentrant interactions among time-varying patterns in different brain areas can begin to repair their theory.

Vehicle externalism maintains that the vehicles of our mental representations can be located outside of the head, that is, they need not be instantiated by neurons located inside the brain of the cogniser. But some disagree, insisting that ‘non-derived’, or ‘original’, content is the mark of the cognitive and that only biologically instantiated representational vehicles can have non-derived content, while the contents of all extra-neural representational vehicles are derived and thus lie outside the scope of (...) the cognitive. In this paper we develop one aspect of Menary’s vehicle externalist theory of cognitive integration—the process of enculturation—to respond to this longstanding objection. We offer examples of how expert mathematicians introduce new symbols to represent new mathematical possibilities that are not yet understood, and we argue that these new symbols have genuine non-derived content, that is, content that is not dependent on an act of interpretation by a cognitive agent and that does not derive from conventional associations, as many linguistic representations do. (shrink)

The connectionist vehicle theory of phenomenal experience in the target article identifies consciousness with the brain’s explicit representation of information in the form of stable patterns of neural activity. Commentators raise concerns about both the conceptual and empirical adequacy of this proposal. On the former front they worry about our reliance on vehicles, on representation, on stable patterns of activity, and on our identity claim. On the latter front their concerns range from the general plausibility of a vehicle theory (...) to our specific attempts to deal with the dissociation studies. We address these concerns, and then finish by considering whether the vehicle theory we have defended has a coherent story to tell about the active, unified subject to whom conscious experiences belong. (shrink)

The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a system that allows us to distinguish between collections based on the number of items, though only if the ratio between numbers is high enough. One of the questions that has been raised is what the representations involved in this system represent. I point to two important constraints for any account: (a) it doesn’t involve numbers, and (b) it can account for the approximate nature of the ANS. Furthermore, I argue that representations of pure (...) magnitude with vehicles that have an imprecision in the value of the unit of measurement (further clarified through a formal model from measurement theory) fit both these requirements. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic representation may involve (...) tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

Automated Vehicles (AVs) are designed and programmed to follow traffic rules. However, there is no separate and comprehensive regulatory framework dedicated to AVs. The current Queensland traffic rules were designed for humans. These rules often contain open texture expressions, exceptions, and potential conflicts (conflict arises when exceptions cannot be handled in rules), which makes it hard for AVs to follow. This paper presents an automatic compliance checking framework to assess AVs behaviour against current traffic rules by addressing these issues. (...) Specifically, it proposes a framework to determine which traffic rules and open texture expressions need some additional interpretation. Essentially this enables AVs to have a suitable and executable formalization of the traffic rules. Defeasible Deontic Logic (DDL) is used to formalize traffic rules and reasoning with AV information (behaviour and environment). The representation of rules in DDL helps effectively in handling and resolving exceptions, potential conflicts, and open textures in rules. 40 experiments were conducted on eight realistic traffic scenarios to evaluate the framework. The evaluation was undertaken both quantitatively and qualitatively. The evaluation result shows that the proposed framework is a promising system for checking Automated Vehicle interpretation and compliance with current traffic rules. (shrink)

The book from which these sections are excerpted is concerned with the prospects for assimilating the study of human intelligence and its products to the natural sciences through the investigation of cognitive structures, understood as systems of rules and representations that can be regarded as “mental organs.” These mental structui′es serve as the vehicles for the exercise of various capacities. They develop in the mind on the basis of an innate endowment that permits the growth of rich and highly (...) articulated structures along an intrinsically determined course under the triggering and partially shaping effect of experience, which fixes parameters in an intricate system of predetermined form. It is argued that the mind is modular in character, with a diversity of cognitive structures, each with its specific properties arid principles. Knowledge of language, of the behavior of objects, and much else crucially involves these mental structures, and is thus not characterizable in terms of capacities, dispositions, or practical abilities, nor is it necessarily grounded in experience in the standard sense of this term.Various types of knowledge and modes of knowledge acquisition are discussed in these terms. Some of the properties of the language faculty are investigated. The basic cognitive relation is “knowing a grammar”; knowledge of language is derivative and, correspondingly, raises further problems. Language as commonly understood is not a unitary phenomenon but involves a number of interacting systems: the “computational” system of grammar, which provides the representations of sound and meaning that permit a rich range of expressive potential, is distinct from a conceptual system with its own properties; knowledge of language must be distinguished from knowledge of how to use a language; and the various systems that enter into the knowledge and use of language must be further analyzed into their specific subcomponents. (shrink)

If we try to arrive at the simplest and most universally valid definition of the representation of reality in literature, we may dispense with grammatical features such as verisimilitude or with genres such as realism, since these are not universal categories. Their applicability depends on historical circumstances or authorial intent. The most economic and general definition, however, must at least include the following two features. First, any representation presupposes the existence of its object outside of the text and preexistent to (...) it. Readers feel, and critics pronounce, that the text’s significance depends on this objective exteriority, even though this significance may entail destroying the commonplace acceptance of the object; indeed, negating something still presupposes that something. Second, the reader’s response to the mimesis consists in a rationalization tending to verify and complete the mimesis and to expand on it sensory terms . The metalanguage of criticism accordingly prolongs and continues the text’s mimetic discourse, and critics evaluate representation in terms of its precision and suggestive power. Both processes—presupposition and rationalization alike—assume that referentiality is the basic semantic mechanism of the literary mimesis.There are, however, literary representations almost devoid of descriptive content, or so vague and so skimpy that their object cannot be analyzed or rationalized in sensory terms. Criticism is hard put to explain why readers feel compelled to evaluate them. And yet these texts not only lend themselves to interpretation but they are especially apt to trigger and control the reader’s hermeneutic behavior. In short, the represented object eschews referentiality yet refuses to vanish altogether, becoming instead the verbal vehicle of an interpretive activity that ends up by making the object subservient to the subject.1 1. See Roland Barthes et al., Littérature et réalité , esp. my paper, pp. 81-118, on the referential fallacy. Michael Riffaterre, University Professor at Columbia University, is the editor of Romantic Review. He is presently working on a book about Anthony Trollope . His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, “Syllepsis,” appeared in the Summer 1980 issue. (shrink)

Fat people are often depicted in popular media as imperfect, their whole characters riddled with negative features that can be attributed only to their non-idealized body. These representations imply not only that fatness itself is aesthetically and physically imperfect, but that fatness is caused by and causes more robust character imperfections. Using Hulu series Shrill as a model, I argue that in order to address our collective distaste for fat bodies (and, by extension, our shared anti-fat bias) we must create (...) and engage with humanizing representations that show fat people as imperfect without blaming those flaws on their weight. By creating more complex fat characters, we can learn to love and accept fat people without reinforcing harmful stereotypes about fatness. (shrink)

O'Brien & Opie's connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness is heavily dependent on their notion of explicitness as (1) structural and (2) necessary and sufficient for consciousness. These assumptions unnecessarily constrain their position: the authors are forced to find an intrinsic property of patterns that accounts for the distinction between conscious and unconscious states. Their candidate property, stability, does not capture this distinction. Yet, I show that we can drop assumptions (1) and (2) and still develop a vehicle theory of consciousness. (...) This alternative is better served by models that incorporate both connectionist and symbolic representations. (shrink)

The public transport sector in the urban landscape in Nigeria is a prominent social site for the spatial distribution of automobile graffiti signatures. Transporters have various kinds of symbolic tags on their vehicles that convey different messages which represent their local attitudes, beliefs, religious identities, folk psychology, and safety precautionary measures to recipients (other road users and passers-by). This article, based on two case studies, examines the practice of automobile graffiti on trucks and lorries in Calabar metropolis, Cross River (...) State, south-eastern Nigeria. It investigates the motivations, thematic categories, and subjective semiotic interpretations of these verbal signatures from the perspectives of visual semiotics theory using participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations. The study demonstrates that truck drivers/owners use their vehicles as visible artistic platforms in the public space to express their thoughts and sentiments on personal, social, and religious issues affecting the society. The study concludes that these inscriptions and imageries are artistic subcultures that mirror wide ranging value categories and provide outlets for spatial transformation, creative agencies, and social commentaries. (shrink)

A recent debate concerning the representational content of DNA in developmental processes has opposed “dynamicists” and “computationalists.” I review the arguments in favor of a representational interpretation of the role of genes, and show that they are inconclusive. There is a very restricted sense in which genes can be said to represent something, and stronger claims about DNA being a program for the construction of an organism are overstatements. I also show that arbitrariness, taken by representationalists to be (...) a central criterion for identifying representational vehicles, is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition to qualify as a representation. Finally, I propose a relatively new way to define what programs are, which implies that genetic regulatory networks shouldn’t be thought of as being programs. As a consequence, insofar as cognition and development share similar mechanisms, any computational account of cognition should be significantly weakened. (shrink)

This article argues for an anti-deflationist view of scientific representation. Our discussion begins with an analysis of the recent Callender–Cohen deflationary view on scientific representation. We then argue that there are at least two radically different ways in which a thing can be represented: one is purely symbolic, and therefore conventional, and the other is epistemic. The failure to recognize that scientific models are epistemic vehicles rather than symbolic ones has led to the mistaken view that whatever distinguishes scientific (...) models from other representational vehicles must merely be a matter of pragmatics. It is then argued that even though epistemic vehicles also contain conventional elements, they do their job of demonstration in spite of such elements. (shrink)

Among the cognitive capacities of evolved creatures is the capacity to represent. Theories in cognitive neuroscience typically explain our manifest representational capacities by positing internal representations, but there is little agreement about how these representations function, especially with the relatively recent proliferation of connectionist, dynamical, embodied, and enactive approaches to cognition. In this talk I sketch an account of the nature and function of representation in cognitive neuroscience that couples a realist construal of representational vehicles with a (...) pragmatic account of mental content. I call the resulting package a deflationary account of mental representation and I argue that it avoids the problems that afflict competing accounts. (shrink)

Carruthers clearly identifies the basic issues involved in language and thought relations and argues for an adaptive central model. Similar conclusions were reached by classical research in the inner speech tradition. Sokolov (1968; 1972) especially emphasized that inner speech appears only when the task is difficult. The use of inner speech is not a necessity to transform representations, but it is called for when transformations become difficult. This might be related to the cognitive reorganizations leading to language as emphasized by (...) Donald (2001). (shrink)

This article investigates whether increased female representation on a board improves firm performance in terms of electric vehicle (EV) sales in China when government subsidies are available. The increase in EV sales in China is a direct result of the sustainability efforts spearheaded by the various levels of local and state governments. This area is of importance due to the rising Chinese footprint in global EV sales, the increasing role of subsidies, and a transformation from State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to market-driven (...) firms that are more likely to pay attention to corporate governance issues such as board diversity. Using the instrumental variable (IV) approach, we estimate a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression to control for more women representation on EV boards using firm-level data. The results indicate that board gender diversity (BGD) positively impacts firm performance in terms of EV sales. Furthermore, the effect amplifies in the presence of government subsidies. The insights provide valuable contributions to bridge the critical literature gap on how board diversity impacts firm performance in the presence of subsidies and offer valuable insights into corporate governance and policymaking. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to critically examine what I call Action-Centric Theories of Representation (ACToRs). I include in this category theories of representation that (1) reject construing representation in terms of a relation that holds between representation itself (the representational vehicle) and what is represented, and instead (2) try to bring the function that representations play for cognitive systems to the center stage. Roughly speaking, according to proponents of ACToRs, what makes a representation (that is, what is (...) constitutive of it being a representation) is its being functionally involved in preselecting or guiding the actions of cognitive systems. I intend to argue that while definitely valuable, ACToRs are underconstrained and thus not entirely satisfying, since there exist structures that would count as representations according to ACToRs, but which do not play functional roles that could be nontrivially or in an explanatorily valuable way classified as representing something for a cognitive system. I outline a remedy for this theoretical situation by postulating that a fully satisfying theory of representation in cognitive science should have two factors; i.e., it should combine the pragmatic, action-oriented aspect present in ACToRs with an element that emphasizes the importance of the relation holding between a representational vehicle and what is represented. (shrink)