Riga2013 Symposium on Concepts and Perception

Concepts, Perception and the Dual

Process Theory of Mind

Marcello Frixione - Antonio Lieto

University of Genoa (Italy) - University of Torino (Italy)

[email protected]

9° International Symposium of Cognition, Logic and Communication

PERCEPTION and CONCEPTS, Riga, 17 May 2013

Outline

• Relation between Concepts and Perception

• Analysis of the notion of «Concept»

• Different axes explaining the – heterogeneous - nature of this

notion

• Introduction of a new axis based on the Dual Process Theory

• Conclusions

2

Marcello Frixione and Antonio Lieto - 9th International Symposium of Cognition, Logic

and Communication, 16-18 May 2013. Riga, Latvia

Concepts and Perception

The problem of the relations between concepts and perception is

blurred by the fact that the notion of concept itself is rather confused.

i.e.: It is not easy to say whether and in which measure concept possession

involves entertaining and manipulating perceptual representations,

whether concepts are entirely different from perceptual representations

or not, and so on…

(e.g. distinction conceptual/non conceptual content as a paradigmatic

example of such a confusion: the same phenomena can be categorized

as conceptual by some psychologist and non conceptual by some

philosophers). => unshared notion of concept.

3



Analyzing the notion of «concept»

Different axes through which to consider the nature of concepts:

• Prototypes/Exemplars/Theories

• Compositionality vs Typicality Effects

• Our proposal: System1 vs System2 conceptual competences

4



First Axis: Concept Theories in Cognitive Science

Classical Concept Theory

Prototype Theory

Exemplar Theory

Theory Theory

5

This axis was individuated by

the works of Murphy (2002)

and Machery (2009)

All these approaches aim to

account for typicality effects



Typicality Effects

6

(Rosh E., 1975)

Category membership is not based on

necessary and sufficient conditions but on

typicality traits.

There are members of a category that are

more typical and cognitively relevant w.r.t.

others.

Ex: BIRD, {Robin, Toucan, Penguin…}

Studies preceded by the Wittgenstein

work (1953) and by the concept of «family

of resemblance»



Typicality Theories

7

The different proposals that have been advanced can be grouped in three main classes: a) fuzzy approaches, b) probabilistic and Bayesan approaches, c) approaches based

on non-monotonic formalisms.

Prototype theory: concept as prototype (an approximate, statistically

relevant, representation of a category). A “central” representation

of a category.

Exemplar theory: the mental representation of a concept is the set of

the representations of (some of) the exemplars of that category that

we encountered during our lifetime.

Theory theory: concepts are analogous to theoretical terms in a

scientific theory. For example, the concept CAT is individuated by

the role it plays in our mental theory of zoology. In other version of

the approach, concepts themselves are identified with micro-

theories of some sort.



Multiple «conceptual» representations

8

The different proposals that have been advanced can be grouped in three main classes: a) fuzzy approaches, b) probabilistic and Bayesan approaches, c) approaches based

on non-monotonic formalisms.

These representations are not mutually exclusive.

Different studies (ex. Malt, 1989; Smith et al. 97-98) show that

people use different conceptual representations for dealing

with different type of typicality based processes.

This aspect represents a first symptom suggesting that concepts

have an heterogeneous nature.

Machery: “concepts are not a natural kinds” => 3 natural kinds.



A Further Axis: «conceptual requirements»

Compositionality vs Prototypical representations

9

Frege’s Principle “The meaning of a complex symbol s

functionally depends on the syntactic structure of s and from

the meaning of primitive symbols in it.”



Prototypes and Compositionality

10

Prototypes are not compositional (Osherson and Smith, 1981;

Fodor 1981).

Ex. PET FISH = PET ⋃ FISH

The prototype or “PET FISH” is not the result of the composition

of the prototypes of PET (e.g. furry, warm…) ⋃ FISH

(greyish).



A New Axis: Dual Process Theories

11

We propose to consider a further axis in order to classify

conceptual abilities.

It is inspired by the “Dual Process Theories” born in the field of

the psychology of reasoning and rationality (Stanovitch and West,

2000; Evans and Frankish, 2008; Kahnemann 2011).

According to the dual process theories two different types of

cognitive processes and systems exist which have been called

respectively system 1 and system 2.



System 1/System 2 features

System 1 (Implicit) System 2 (Explicit)

Unconscius Conscious

Automatic Controllable

Evolved early Evolved late

Indipendent from Language Related to Languaged

Parallel, Fast Sequential, Slow

Pragmatic/contextualized Logical/Abstract



Dual Process Theories and Reasoning

13

The dual process approach was originally proposed to account

for systematic errors in reasoning tasks: systematic reasoning

errors should be ascribed to fast, associative and automatic

system 1 processes, while system 2 is responsible for the slow

and cognitively demanding tasks and logical activity.

Ex. Conjunction fallacy (Tversky and Kahnemann, 1983).

In our opinion, the distinction between system 1 and system 2

processes could be plausibly applied also to the problem of

conceptual representations.



Dual Theories and Conceptual Representations

14

There are some crucial conceptual abilities that can be seen in

terms of system 1/ system 2 distinction.

For example:



System 1 System 2

Most Non Monotonic Categorization (Use of Prototypical Knowledge)

Monotonic Categorization (based on slow, sequential, deliberative processes)

Ex. Monotonic Categorization

15

???

??? 19



Ex. Monotonic Categorization

16

EXAGON

PRIME

NUMBER

19



Ex. Non Monotonic Categorization

X {hasFur, WagTail, Woof}

???

17



Ex. Non Monotonic Categorization

An element X is categorized as a DOG because:

X {hasFur, WagTail, Woof}

No one of these traits is definitory of DOG

18



Dual Theories and Conceptual Reasoning

19

If we consider the conjunction fallacy problem from the point of

view of a theory of concepts, it can be interpreted as an example

of the strong tendency of human subjects to resort to prototypical

information in categorization (Non Monotonic Categorization)

als

Ex. Conjunction fallacy (Tversky and Kahnemann, 1983).

A version of the Linda example:

- Pippo weights 200 Kg

- Pippo is 2 metres tall

- Pippo growls and roars

- Pippo has robust teeths



Pippo is a mammal

Pippo is a mammal and he

is wild and dangerous

Non complete overlapping among these

axes

20

These three axes probably do not coincide.



Axis 1 Axis 2 Axis 3

Classical Concepts

Compositionality System 2

Prototypes Typicality Effects System 1

Exemplars Typicality Effects

System 1

Concept as Theory Typicality Effects, Compositionality ???

System 1 and System 2

Concepts/Perception and Dual Process Theory

21

In our opinion it is plausible that, in light of the distinction

between type 1 vs. type 2 systems, certain aspects of conceptual

knowledge pertain type 1 systems, while others pertain type 2.

Perception (or, at least, the so-called low-level perception) is

presumably "closer" to type 1 processes, and more remote from

type 2 ones.

Therefore, those aspects of concepts (if any) that are related to

perception presumably pertain type 1 processes.



Dual Theories and Concepts

The system 1/system2 distinction could also be useful to clarify the differences between philosophers and cognitive psychologist on the notion of «concept».

Philosophers tend to privilege system 2 aspects of this notion.

For the Psychologist, on the other hand, the system 1 aspects have to be considered as conceptual.



Conclusions

23

We propose to support the hypothesis of the heterogeneous

nature of concepts resorting to the dual process theory of mind.

In our opinion, this axis can be fruitful in order to consider the

relations between concepts and perception.

In this sense, we believe that the problem of the relationships

between concepts and perception is in some sense ill-posed; a

satisfactory solution should presuppose a better understanding

of the notion of concept.



Concepts, Perception and the Dual

Process Theory of Mind

Thank you for your attention

Questions/Comments…

Antonio Lieto

University of Torino (Italy)

[email protected]

Education

Riga2013 Symposium on Concepts and Perception