·       by developing corpus (MacWhinney, 2019) and online experimental (eCALL) methods (MacWhinney, 2017), the model now provides a fuller microgenetic account of the growth of fluency .


By addressing each of these issues within the context of analyses of L2 learning, the current version of the UCM allows us to better understand not only L2 learning, but also language evolution (MacWhinney, 2005), language change, child language development (MacWhinney, 2015), language disorders (Presson & MacWhinney, 2011), and language attrition (MacWhinney, 2018).


Spreading activation is a method for searching associative networks, biological and artificial neural networks, or semantic networks. The search process is initiated by labeling a set of source nodes (e.g. concepts in a semantic network) with weights or "activation" and then iteratively propagating or "spreading" that activation out to other nodes linked to the source nodes. Most often these "weights" are real values that decay as activation propagates through the network. When the weights are discrete this process is often referred to as marker passing. Activation may originate from alternate paths, identified by distinct markers, and terminate when two alternate paths reach the same node. However brain studies show that several different brain areas play an important role in semantic processing.


Spreading activation models are used in cognitive psychology to model the fan out effect.


Spreading activation can also be applied in information retrieval, by means of a network of nodes representing documents and terms contained in those documents.


When a word (the target) is preceded by an associated word (the prime) in word recognition tasks, participants seem to perform better in the amount of time that it takes them to respond. For instance, subjects respond faster to the word "doctor" when it is preceded by "nurse" than when it is preceded by an unrelated word like "carrot". This semantic priming effect with words that are close in meaning within the cognitive network has been seen in a wide range of tasks given by experimenters, ranging from sentence verification to lexical decision and naming.


As another example, if the original concept is "red" and the concept "vehicles" is primed, they are much more likely to say "fire engine" instead of something unrelated to vehicles, such as "cherries". If instead "fruits" was primed, they would likely name "cherries" and continue on from there. The activation of pathways in the network has everything to do with how closely linked two concepts are by meaning, as well as how a subject is primed.


A directed graph is populated by Nodes[ 1...N ] each having an associated activation value A [ i ] which is a real number in the range [ 0.0 ... 1.0]. A Link[ i, j ] connects source node[ i ] with target node[ j ]. Each edge has an associated weight W [ i, j ] usually a real number in the range [0.0 ... 1.0].


Language coordination is the tendency of people to mimic the language of others. The coordination occurs when one person responds to another using similar vocabulary, or word or sentence structure. Language coordination can also be applied to individuals, who linguistically coordinate to a group. As suggested by the communication accommodation theory, this is often used as a way to reduce social distance (convergence). Language coordination often occurs unconsciously.


A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent toward a proposition.


Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. "believed") governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.


Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false from the perspective of the person. An agent can have different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition (e.g., "S believes that her ice-cream is cold," and "S fears that her ice-cream is cold").


Propositional attitudes have directions of fit: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it.


One topic of central concern is the relation between the modalities of assertion and belief, perhaps with intention thrown in for good measure. For example, we frequently find ourselves faced with the question of whether or not a person's assertions conform to his or her beliefs. Discrepancies here can occur for many reasons, but when the departure of assertion from belief is intentional, we usually call that a "lie".


Other comparisons of multiple modalities that frequently arise are the relationships between belief and knowledge and the discrepancies that occur among observations, expectations, and intentions. Deviations of observations from expectations are commonly perceived as "surprises", phenomena that call for "explanations" to reduce the shock of amazement.


In logic, the formal properties of verbs like "assert", "believe", "command", "consider", "deny", "doubt", "imagine", "judge", "know", "want", "wish", and a host of others that involve attitudes or intentions toward propositions are notorious for their recalcitrance to analysis.


One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of "substitutivity", also known as fungibility — or, as it might well be called, that of "indiscernibility of identicals". It provides that, "given a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other in any true statement and the result will be true". It is easy to find cases contrary to this principle. For example, the statements:


are true; however, replacement of the name 'Giorgione' by the name 'Barbarelli' turns (2) into the falsehood:


Quine's example here refers to Giorgio Barbarelli's sobriquet "Giorgione", an Italian name roughly glossed as "Big George." The basis of the paradox here is that while the two names signify the same individual (the meaning of the first statement), the names are not themselves identical; the second statement refers to an attribute (origin) that they do not share.


What sort of name shall we give to verbs like 'believe' and 'wish' and so forth? I should be inclined to call them 'propositional verbs'. This is merely a suggested name for convenience, because they are verbs which have the "form" of relating an object to a proposition. As I have been explaining, that is not what they really do, but it is convenient to call them propositional verbs. Of course you might call them 'attitudes', but I should not like that because it is a psychological term, and although all the instances in our experience are psychological, there is no reason to suppose that all the verbs I am talking of are psychological. There is never any reason to suppose that sort of thing. (Russell 1918, 227).


What a proposition is, is one thing. How we feel about it, or how we regard it, is another. We can accept it, assert it, believe it, command it, contest it, declare it, deny it, doubt it, enjoin it, exclaim it, expect it. Different attitudes toward propositions are called "propositional attitudes", and they are also discussed under the headings of "intentionality" and "linguistic modality".


Many problematic situations in real life arise from the circumstance that many different propositions in many different modalities are in the air at once. In order to compare propositions of different colours and flavours, as it were, we have no basis for comparison but to examine the underlying propositions themselves. Thus we are brought back to matters of language and logic. Despite the name, propositional attitudes are not regarded as psychological attitudes proper, since the formal disciplines of linguistics and logic are concerned with nothing more concrete than what can be said in general about their formal properties and their patterns of interaction.


Bilingual lexical access is an area of psycholinguistics that studies the activation or retrieval process of the mental lexicon for bilingual people.


Bilingual lexical access can be understood as all aspects of the word processing, including all of the mental activity from the time when a word from one language is perceived to the time when all its lexical knowledge from the target language is available. Research in this field seeks to fully understand these mental processes. Bilingual individuals have two mental lexical representations for an item or concept and can successfully select words from one language without significant interference from the other language. It is the field's goal to understand whether these dual representations interact or affect one another.


Bilingual lexical access researchers focus on the control mechanisms bilinguals use to suppress the language not in use when in a monolingual mode and the degree to which the related representations within the language not in use are activated. For example, when a Dutch-English bilingual is asked to name a picture of a dog in English, he or she will come up with the English word "dog". Bilingual lexical access is the mental process that underlies this seemingly simple task: the process that makes the connection between the idea of a dog and the word "dog" in the target language. While activating the English word "dog", its Dutch equivalent ("hond") is most likely also in a state of activation.


Early research of bilingual lexical access was based on theories of monolingual lexical access. These theories relied mainly upon generalizations without specifying how lexical access works.


Subsequent advancement in medical science has improved understanding of psycholinguistics, resulting in more detailed research and a deeper understanding of language production. "Many early studies of second language acquisition focused on the morphosyntactic development of learners and the general finding was that bound morphemes appear in the same order in the first and second language".


Knowledge of monolingual access led to the question of bilingual lexical access. Early models of bilingual lexical access shared similar characteristics with these monolingual lexical access models; the bilingual models began by focusing on if bilingual lexical access would be different from monolinguals. In addition, to study the activation process in a separate language, they also investigated whether the lexical activation would be processed in a parallel fashion for both languages or selectively processed for the target language. The bilingual models also study whether the bilingual system has a single lexicon combining words from both languages or separate lexicons for words in each language.


Language-selective access is the exclusive activation of information in the contextually appropriate language system. It implies when a bilingual encounters a spoken or written word, the activation is restricted to the target language subsystem which contains the input word.


Language-nonselective access is the automatic co-activation of information in both linguistic systems. It implies that when a bilingual encounters a spoken or written word, the activation happens in parallel in both contextually appropriate and inappropriate linguistic subsystems. Also, there is evidence that bilinguals take longer than monolinguals to detect non-words while in both bilingual and monolingual modes, providing evidence that bilinguals do not fully deactivate their other language while in a monolingual mode.


Once bilinguals acquire the lexical information from both languages, bilingual lexical access activates in language comprehension. "Lexical access incomprehension" is the process of how people make contact with lexical representation in their mental lexicon that contains the information, which enables them to understand the words or sentences. Word recognition is the most essential process of bilingual lexical access in language comprehension, in which researchers investigate the selective or non-selective recognition of isolated words. At the same time, sentence processing also plays an important role in language comprehension, where researchers can investigate if the presence of words in a sentence context restricts lexical access only to the target language.


Word recognition is usually used in both narrow and broad ways. When it is used in the narrow sense, it means the moment when a match occurs between a printed word and its orthographic word-form stored in the lexicon, or a match between a spoken word and its phonological word-form. Only after this match has taken place, all the syntactical and morphological information of the word and the meaning of the word will become accessible for further processing. In a broader way, it refers to lexical access is the entire period from the matching processing to the retrieval of lexical information. In the research of bilingual lexical access, word recognition uses single, out-of-context words from both languages to investigate all the aspects of bilingual lexical access.


In word recognition studies, the cognate or interlingual homograph effects are most often used with the following tasks:


Models of bilingual lexical access in word recognition.


Most current models in word recognition assume that bilingual lexical access is nonselective, which also take into account the demands of task and context-dependence of processing.


The IC model is complementary to the BIA model. It focuses on the importance of task demands and regulation that happened during language processing by modifying the levels of activation of items in the language network. In this model, a key concept is the language task schema, which specifies the mental processing steps that bilinguals take to perform a particular language task. The language task schema regulates the output from the word identification system by altering the activation levels of representations within that system by inhibiting outputs from it. For example, when a bilingual switches from one language to another in translation, a change in the language schema corresponding to the languages must take place.


In the language model framework, language processing mechanisms and languages as a whole can be achieved to different extents. The relative activation state of language is called language mode, and it is influenced by many factors, such as the person spoke or listened to, users’ language proficiency, the non-linguistic context and so on. Language users can be in a bilingual mode if they are talking to other bilinguals or reading text with mixed languages. However, if they listen to someone who is monolingual or is just speaking one language, the activation state would switch to a more monolingual mode. Based on this model, the bilinguals' language mode depends on the language users' expectation and by language environment.


The BIA+ model is an extension and adaptation of the BIA model. The BIA+ model includes not only an orthographic representation and language nodes, but also phonological and semantic representations. All these representations are assumed to be part of a word identification system that provides output to a task/decision system. The information flow in bilingual lexical processing proceeds exclusively from the word identification system toward a task/decision system without any influence of this task/decision system on the activation state of words.


Most current studies of bilingual lexical access are based on the comprehension of isolated words without considering whether contextual information affects lexical access in bilinguals. However, in everyday communication, words are most often encountered in a meaningful context and not in isolation (e.g. in a newspaper article). Research done by Déprez (1994) has shown that mixed utterances in children are not limited to the lexical level but also in the areas of morphology, syntax, and pronunciation. Researchers also began to investigate the cognitive nature of bilingual lexical access in context by examining word recognition in sentences.


The main methodological tasks in sentence processing.


In sentence processing, a number of online measuring techniques are exploited to detect cognitive activity at the very moment it takes place or only slightly after. Cognates and interlingual homographs are often used as markers that are inserted in test sentences with the following tasks:


Studies of bilingual lexical access in sentence processing.


Although most studies on bilingual sentence processing focus on L2 processing, there are still a few studies that have investigated cross-language activation during their native language (L1) reading. For example, van Assche et al. replicated the cognate effect in L1 with Dutch–English bilinguals, and found that a non-dominant language may affect native-language sentence reading, both at earliest and at later reading stages. Titone et al. observed this cross-language activation in English-French bilinguals at early reading stages only when the L2 was acquired early in life. They also concluded that the semantic constraint provided by a sentence can attenuate cross-language activation at later reading stages.


Polysemy ( or ; from , , "many" and , , "sign") is the capacity for a word or phrase to have multiple meanings, usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field. Polysemy is thus distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two (or even more) words (such as "bear" the animal, and the verb "to bear"); while homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not. In deciding between polysemy or homonymy, it might be necessary to look at the history of the word to see if the two meanings are historically related. Dictionary writers often list polysemes under the same entry; homonyms are defined separately.


In linear or vertical polysemy, one sense of a word is a subset of the other. These are examples of hyponymy and hypernymy, and are sometimes called autohyponyms. For example, 'dog' can be used for 'male dog'. Alan Cruse identifies four types of linear polysemy:


In non-linear polysemy, the original sense of a word is used figuratively to provide a different way of looking at the new subject. Alan Cruse identifies three types of non-linear polysemy:


There are several tests for polysemy, but one of them is zeugma: if one word seems to exhibit zeugma when applied in different contexts, it is likely that the contexts bring out different polysemes of the same word. If the two senses of the same word do not seem to "fit," yet seem related, then it is likely that they are polysemous. This test again depends on speakers' judgments about relatedness, which means that it is not infallible, but merely a helpful conceptual aid.


The difference between homonyms and polysemes is subtle. Lexicographers define polysemes within a single dictionary lemma, numbering different meanings, while homonyms are treated in separate entries (or lemmata). Semantic shift can separate a polysemous word into separate homonyms. For example, "check" as in "bank check" (or "Cheque"), "check" in chess, and "check" meaning "verification" are considered homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from chess in the 14th century. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that homonyms and polysemes are represented differently within people's mental lexicon: while the different meanings of homonyms (which are semantically unrelated) tend to interfere or compete with each other during comprehension, this does not usually occur for the polysemes that have semantically related meanings. Results for this contention, however, have been mixed.


For Dick Hebdige polysemy means that, "each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings," making, according to Richard Middleton, "any homology, out of the most heterogeneous materials, possible. The idea of "signifying practice"—texts not as communicating or expressing a pre-existing meaning but as 'positioning subjects' within a "process" of semiosis—changes the whole basis of creating social meaning".


Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins' definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the 'inner' one contributes to understanding of the 'outer' one.


One group of polysemes are those in which a word meaning an activity, perhaps derived from a verb, acquires the meanings of those engaged in the activity, or perhaps the results of the activity, or the time or place in which the activity occurs or has occurred. Sometimes only one of those meanings is intended, depending on context, and sometimes multiple meanings are intended at the same time. Other types are derivations from one of the other meanings that leads to a verb or activity.


This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example 1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.


The different meanings can be combined in a single sentence, e.g. "John used to work for the newspaper that you are reading."


A lexical conception of polysemy was developed by B. T. S. Atkins, in the form of lexical implication rules. These are rules that describe how words, in one lexical context, can then be used, in a different form, in a related context. A crude example of such a rule is the pastoral idea of "verbizing one's nouns": that certain nouns, used in certain contexts, can be converted into a verb, conveying a related meaning.


Another clarification of polysemy is the idea of predicate transfer—the reassignment of a property to an object that would not otherwise inherently have that property. Thus, the expression "I am parked out back" conveys the meaning of "parked" from "car" to the property of "I possess a car". This avoids incorrect polysemous interpretations of "parked": that "people can be parked", or that "I am pretending to be a car", or that "I am something that can be parked". This is supported by the morphology: "We are parked out back" does not mean that there are multiple cars; rather, that there are multiple passengers (having the property of being in possession of a car).


Cognitive shifting is the mental process of "consciously" redirecting one's attention from one fixation to another. In contrast, if this process happened "unconsciously", then it is referred to as task switching. Both are forms of cognitive flexibility.


In the general framework of cognitive therapy and awareness management, cognitive shifting refers to the conscious choice to take charge of one's mental habits—and redirect one's focus of attention in helpful, more successful directions. In the term's specific usage in corporate awareness methodology, cognitive shifting is a performance-oriented technique for refocusing attention in more alert, innovative, charismatic and empathic directions.


In cognitive therapy, as developed by its founder Aaron T. Beck and others, a client is taught to shift his or her cognitive focus from one thought or mental fixation to a more positive, realistic focus—thus the descriptive origins of the term "cognitive shifting". In "third wave" ACT therapy as taught by Steven C. Hayes and his associates in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy movement, cognitive shifting is employed not only to shift from negative to positive thoughts, but also to shift into a quiet state of mindfulness. Cognitive shifting is also employed quite dominantly in the meditative-health procedures of medical and stress-reduction researchers such as Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.


Cognitive shifting has become a common term among therapists especially on the West Coast, and more recently in discussions of mind management methodology. More recently the term, as noted above, has appeared regularly in medical and psychiatric journals etc.


"In research": The term has become fairly common in psychiatric research, used in the following manner: "Neuropsychological findings in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been explained in terms of reduced cognitive shifting ability as a result of low levels of frontal inhibitory activity."


"In therapy": In therapy (as in the work of Steven Hayes and associates), a client is taught first to identify and accept a negative thought or attitude, and then to allow the cognitive shifting process to re-direct attention away from the negative fixation, toward a chosen aim or goal that is more positive—thus the "accept and choose act" from whence comes the ACT therapy name. Cognitive studies of the elderly refer to "...Impaired cognitive shifting in Parkinsonian patients on anticholinergic therapy..." etc.


"Everyday usage": Books such as "The Way Of The Tiger" by Lance Secretan, and "The Creative Manager" by Peter Russell have shown how cognitive shifting principles apply to everyday life. Decades ago Rollo May taught the process of conscious choosing and cognitive shifting at Princeton in his psychology lectures. And in books such as "The Emotional Brain", Joseph LeDoux clarified the power of consciously shifting from a negative to a more positive emotional focus. In John Selby's writings, most notable in "Quiet Your Mind", the term appears frequently.


"In meditation": Among the first references to the general mental process of focal shifting or cognitive shifting (the term cognitive is a relatively new term), the Hindu Upanishads are probably the first written documentation of the meditative process of redirecting one's focus of attention in particular disciplined directions. Cognitive shifting is the core process of all meditation, especially in Kundalini meditation but also in Zen meditation and even in Christian mysticism where the mind's attention is re-directed (or shifted) toward particular theologically-determined focal points. Recent books have spoken directly of cognitive shifting as a meditative procedure.


In a recent NPR interview with Michael Toms, and elsewhere in his writings, John Selby attributes his initial introduction to the process of cognitive shifting to Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom he considers his early spiritual teacher, and also to his training with Rollo May at Princeton. In the NPR interview, Selby says he is almost certain that he first heard the actual term from a lecture by the 1960s philosopher Alan Watts during his "Expanding Christianity" lectures at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1972.


The primary cognitive technology that is used for cognitive shifting is called "focus phrase" methodology. This term has emerged from the actual process in which cognitive shifting is encouraged or even provoked in a client or any other person. The person states clear intent through a specially-worded focus phrase—and then experiences the inner shift that the focus phrase elicits.


Another term sometimes used for focus phrases is "elicitor statements". In some methodologies focus phrases are said as a set of 4 to 7 statements, fairly quickly and to oneself. In other techniques a single focus phrase is held in the mind during a whole morning or day, and perhaps changed each new day during the week.


Formulation of the theory is credited to the Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte and Fabio Metelli, an Italian psychologist, with their work developed in recent years by E.S. Reed and the Gestaltists.


Modal completion is a similar phenomenon in which a shape is perceived to be occluding other shapes even when the shape itself is not drawn. Examples include the triangle that appears to be occluding three disks and an outlined triangle in the Kanizsa triangle and the circles and squares that appear in different versions of the Koffka cross.


Graphical perception is the human capacity for visually interpreting information on graphs and charts. Both quantitative and qualitative information can be said to be encoded into the image, and the human capacity to interpret it is sometimes called decoding. The importance of human graphical perception, what we discern easily versus what our brains have more difficulty decoding, is fundamental to good statistical graphics design, where clarity, transparency, accuracy and precision in data display and interpretation are essential for understanding the translation of data in a graph to clarify and interpret the science.


Graphical perception is achieved in dimensions or steps of discernment by:


Cleveland and McGill's experiments to elucidate the graphical elements humans "detect" most accurately is a fundamental component of good statistical graphics design principles. In practical terms, graphs displaying relative position on a common scale most accurately are most effective. A graph type that utilizes this element is the dot plot. Conversely, angles are perceived with less accuracy; an example is the pie chart. Humans do not naturally order color hues. Only a limited number of hues can be discriminated in one graphic.


Graphic designs that utilize visual pre-attentive processing in the graph design's "assembly" is why a picture can be worth a thousand words by using the brain's ability to perceive patterns. Not all graphs are designed to consider pre-attentive processing. For example in the attached figure, a graphic design feature, table look-up, requires the brain to work harder and take longer to decode than if the graph utilizes our ability to discern patterns.


Graphic design that readily answers the scientific questions of interest will include appropriate "estimation". Details for choosing the appropriate graph type for continuous and categorical data and for grouping have been described. Graphics principles for accuracy, clarity and transparency have been detailed and key elements summarized.


Compartmentalization is a subconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.


Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self-states.


Psychoanalysis considers that whereas isolation separates thoughts from feeling, compartmentalization separates different (incompatible) cognitions from each other. As a secondary, intellectual defense, it may be linked to rationalization. It is also related to the phenomenon of neurotic typing, whereby everything must be classified into mutually exclusive and watertight categories.


Otto Kernberg has used the term "bridging interventions" for the therapist's attempts to straddle and contain contradictory and compartmentalized components of the patient's mind.


Compartmentalization may lead to hidden vulnerabilities in those who use it as a major defense mechanism.


Those suffering from borderline personality disorder will often divide people into all good versus all bad, to avoid the conflicts removing the compartments would inevitably bring, using denial or indifference to protect against any indications of contradictory evidence.


Using indifference towards a better viewpoint is a normal and common example of this. It can be caused by someone having used multiple compartment ideals and having been uncomfortable with modifying them, at risk of being found incorrect. This often causes double-standards, and bias.


Conflicting social identities may be dealt with by compartmentalizing them and dealing with each only in a context-dependent way.


In his novel, "The Human Factor", Graham Greene has one of his corrupt officials use the rectangular boxes of Ben Nicholson's art as a guide to avoiding moral responsibility for bureaucratic decision-making—a way to compartmentalize oneself within one's own separately colored box.


Doris Lessing considered that the essential theme of "The Golden Notebook" was "that we must not divide things off, must not compartmentalise. 'Bound. Free. Good. Bad. Yes. No. Capitalism. Socialism. Sex. Love...'".


The psychology of programming (PoP) is the field of research that deals with the psychological aspects of writing programs (often computer programs). The field has also been called the empirical studies of programming (ESP). It covers research into computer programmers' cognition, tools and methods for programming-related activities, and programming education.


Psychologically, computer programming is a human activity which involves cognitions such as reading and writing computer language, learning, problem solving, and reasoning.


It is desirable to achieve a programming performance such that creating a program meets its specifications, is on schedule, is adaptable for the future and runs efficiently. Being able to satisfy all these goals at a low cost is a difficult and common problem in software engineering and project management. By understanding the psychological aspects of computer programming, we can better understand how to achieve a higher programming performance, and to assist programmers to produce better software with less error.


Some methods which one can use to study the psychological aspects of computer programming include introspection, observation, experiment, and qualitative research.


Models of consciousness are used to illustrate and aid in understanding and explaining distinctive aspects of consciousness. Sometimes the models are labeled theories of consciousness. Anil Seth defines such models as those that relate brain phenomena such as fast irregular electrical activity and widespread brain activation to properties of consciousness such as qualia. Seth allows for different types of models including mathematical, logical, verbal and conceptual models.


The Neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) formalism is used as a major step towards explaining consciousness. The NCC are defined to constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept, and consequently sufficient for consciousness. In this formalism, consciousness is viewed as a state-dependent property of some undefined complex, adaptive, and highly interconnected biological system.


Timothy Leary introduced and Robert Anton Wilson and Antero Alli elaborated the Eight-circuit model of consciousness as hypothesis that "suggested eight periods [circuits] and twenty-four stages of neurological evolution".


Daniel Dennett proposed a physicalist, information processing based multiple drafts model of consciousness described more fully in his 1991 book, Consciousness Explained.


The Dehaene–Changeux model (DCM), also known as the global neuronal workspace or the global cognitive workspace model is a computer model of the neural correlates of consciousness programmed as a neural network. Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeux introduced this model in 1986. It is associated with Bernard Baars's Global workspace theory for consciousness.


Clouding of consciousness, also known as brain fog or mental fog, is a term used in medicine denoting an abnormality in the regulation of the overall level of consciousness that is mild and less severe than a delirium. It is part of an overall model where there's regulation of the "overall level" of the consciousness of the brain and aspects responsible for "arousal" or "wakefulness" and awareness of oneself and of the environment.


Electromagnetic theories of consciousness propose that consciousness can be understood as an electromagnetic phenomenon that occurs when a brain produces an electromagnetic field with specific characteristics. Some electromagnetic theories are also quantum mind theories of consciousness; examples include quantum brain dynamics (QBD).


Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR) model is based on the hypothesis that consciousness in the brain originates from quantum processes inside neurons, rather than from connections between neurons (the conventional view). The mechanism is held to be associated with molecular structures called microtubules. The hypothesis was advanced by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff and has been the subject of extensive debate,


Min proposed in a 2010 paper a Thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness. The model suggests consciousness as a "mental state embodied through TRN-modulated synchronization of thalamocortical networks". In this model the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) is suggested as ideally suited for controlling the entire cerebral network, and responsible (via GABAergic networking) for synchronization of neural activity.


Functionalism is a view in the theory of the mind. It states that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role – that is, they have causal relations to other mental states, numerous sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs.


Sociology of human consciousness uses the theories and methodology of sociology to explain human consciousness. The theory and its models emphasize the importance of language, collective representations, self-conceptions, and self-reflectivity. It argues that the shape and feel of human consciousness is heavily social.


Levels of Consciousness are a complete overview of the evolution of Human Consciousness and possible life experiences.


The model of hierarchical complexity (MHC) is a framework for scoring how complex a behavior is, such as verbal reasoning or other cognitive tasks. It quantifies the order of hierarchical complexity of a task based on mathematical principles of how the information is organized, in terms of information science. This model was developed by Michael Commons and Francis Richards in the early 1980s.


The model of hierarchical complexity (MHC) is a formal theory and a mathematical psychology framework for scoring how complex a behavior is. Developed by Michael Lamport Commons and colleagues, it quantifies the order of hierarchical complexity of a task based on mathematical principles of how the information is organized, in terms of information science. Its forerunner was the general stage model.


Behaviors that may be scored include those of individual humans or their social groupings (e.g., organizations, governments, societies), animals, or machines. It enables scoring the hierarchical complexity of task accomplishment in any domain. It is based on the very simple notions that higher order task actions:


It is cross-culturally and cross-species valid. The reason it applies cross-culturally is that the scoring is based on the mathematical complexity of the hierarchical organization of information. Scoring does not depend upon the content of the information (e.g., what is done, said, written, or analyzed) but upon how the information is organized.


The MHC is a non-mentalistic model of developmental stages. It specifies 16 orders of hierarchical complexity and their corresponding stages. It is different from previous proposals about developmental stage applied to humans; instead of attributing behavioral changes across a person's age to the development of mental structures or schema, this model posits that task sequences of task behaviors form hierarchies that become increasingly complex. Because less complex tasks must be completed and practiced before more complex tasks can be acquired, this accounts for the developmental changes seen, for example, in individual persons' performance of complex tasks. (For example, a person cannot perform arithmetic until the numeral representations of numbers are learned. A person cannot operationally multiply the sums of numbers until addition is learned).


The creators of the MHC claim that previous theories of stage have confounded the stimulus and response in assessing stage by simply scoring responses and ignoring the task or stimulus. The MHC separates the task or stimulus from the performance. The participant's performance on a task of a given complexity represents the stage of developmental complexity.


Development of Hierarchal Complexity and Relationship to the Traditional Stage Theory.


The traditional stage theory is the idea that an action’s complexity is determined by how frequently specific sub actions occur. This differs from the theory of hierarchal complexity, as the complexity of an action here is determined by the nonarbitrary organization of sub actions. In other words, the primary difference is that TST counts repeated sub actions, whereas THC organizes sub actions.


The traditional stage theory was unsatisfying to Commons and Richards, as they felt it did not show the existence of the stages more than describing sequential changes in human behavior. This led them to create a list of two concepts they felt a successful developmental theory should address. The two ideas they wanted to study were (1) the hierarchical complexity of the task to be solved and (2) the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of the task performance (and the development of the performance).


One major basis for this developmental theory is task analysis. The study of ideal tasks, including their instantiation in the real world, has been the basis of the branch of stimulus control called psychophysics. Tasks are defined as sequences of contingencies, each presenting stimuli and each requiring a behavior or a sequence of behaviors that must occur in some non-arbitrary fashion. The complexity of behaviors necessary to complete a task can be specified using the horizontal complexity and vertical complexity definitions described below. Behavior is examined with respect to the analytically-known complexity of the task.


Every task contains a multitude of subtasks. When the subtasks are carried out by the participant in a required order, the task in question is successfully completed. Therefore, the model asserts that all tasks fit in some configured sequence of tasks, making it possible to precisely determine the hierarchical order of task complexity. Tasks vary in complexity in two ways: either as "horizontal" (involving classical information); or as "vertical" (involving hierarchical information).


Hierarchical complexity refers to the number of recursions that the coordinating actions must perform on a set of primary elements. Actions at a higher order of hierarchical complexity: (a) are defined in terms of actions at the next lower order of hierarchical complexity; (b) organize and transform the lower-order actions (see Figure 2); (c) produce organizations of lower-order actions that are qualitatively new and not arbitrary, and cannot be accomplished by those lower-order actions alone. Once these conditions have been met, we say the higher-order action coordinates the actions of the next lower order.


To illustrate how lower actions get organized into more hierarchically complex actions, let us turn to a simple example. Completing the entire operation 3 × (4 + 1) constitutes a task requiring the distributive act. That act non-arbitrarily orders adding and multiplying to coordinate them. The distributive act is therefore one order more hierarchically complex than the acts of adding and multiplying alone; it indicates the singular proper sequence of the simpler actions. Although simply adding results in the same answer, people who can do both display a greater freedom of mental functioning. Additional layers of abstraction can be applied. Thus, the order of complexity of the task is determined through analyzing the demands of each task by breaking it down into its constituent parts.


The hierarchical complexity of a task refers to the number of concatenation operations it contains, that is, the number of recursions that the coordinating actions must perform. An order-three task has three concatenation operations. A task of order three operates on one or more tasks of vertical order two and a task of order two operates on one or more tasks of vertical order one (the simplest tasks).


Stage theories describe human organismic and/or technological evolution as systems that move through a pattern of distinct stages over time. Here development is described formally in terms of the model of hierarchical complexity (MHC).


Since actions are defined inductively, so is the function "h", known as the order of the hierarchical complexity. To each action "A", we wish to associate a notion of that action's hierarchical complexity, "h(A)". Given a collection of actions A and a participant "S" performing A, the "stage of performance" of "S" on A is the highest order of the actions in A completed successfully at least once, i.e., it is: stage ("S", A) = max{"h(A)" | "A" ∈ A and "A" completed successfully by "S"}. Thus, the notion of stage is discontinuous, having the same transitional gaps as the orders of hierarchical complexity. This is in accordance with previous definitions.


Because MHC stages are conceptualized in terms of the hierarchical complexity of tasks rather than in terms of mental representations (as in Piaget's stages), the highest stage represents successful performances on the most hierarchically complex tasks rather than intellectual maturity.


The following table gives descriptions of each stage in the MHC.


The hierarchal complexity model builds directly on both Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s theories. Because of this, it is considered by many to be neo-Piagetian, as it supposes the Piagetian model is correct, but that there are several stages above it that a normal human adult achieves (which are explained and described in the theory of hierarchal complexity).


There are some commonalities between the Piagetian and Commons' notions of stage and many more things that are different. In both, one finds:


What Commons et al. (1998) have added includes:


This makes it possible for the model's application to meet real world requirements, including the empirical and analytic. Arbitrary organization of lower order of complexity actions, possible in the Piagetian theory, despite the hierarchical definition structure, leaves the functional correlates of the interrelationships of tasks of differential complexity formulations ill-defined.


Moreover, the model is consistent with the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development. According to these theories, progression to higher stages or levels of cognitive development is caused by increases in processing efficiency and working memory capacity. That is, higher-order stages place increasingly higher demands on these functions of information processing, so that their order of appearance reflects the information processing possibilities at successive ages.


The following dimensions are inherent in the application:


More complex behaviors characterize multiple system models. The four highest stages in the MHC are not represented in Piaget's model. The higher stages of the MHC have extensively influenced the field of positive adult development. Some adults are said to develop alternatives to, and perspectives on, formal operations; they use formal operations within a "higher" system of operations. Some theorists call the more complex orders of cognitive tasks "postformal thought", but other theorists argue that these higher orders cannot exactly be labelled as postformal thought.


Jordan (2018) argued that unidimensional models such as the MHC, which measure level of complexity of some behavior, refer to only one of many aspects of adult development, and that other variables are needed (in addition to unidimensional measures of complexity) for a fuller description of adult development.


The MHC has a broad range of applicability. Its mathematical foundation permits it to be used by anyone examining task performance that is organized into stages. It is designed to assess development based on the order of complexity which the actor utilizes to organize information. The model thus allows for a standard quantitative analysis of developmental complexity in any cultural setting. Other advantages of this model include its avoidance of mentalistic explanations, as well as its use of quantitative principles which are universally applicable in any context.


The following practitioners can use the MHC to quantitatively assess developmental stages:


In one representative study, Commons, Goodheart, and Dawson (1997) found, using Rasch analysis (Rasch, 1980), that hierarchical complexity of a given task predicts stage of a performance, the correlation being r = 0.92. Correlations of similar magnitude have been found in a number of the studies. The following are examples of tasks studied using the model of hierarchical complexity or Kurt W. Fischer's similar skill theory:


As of 2014, people and institutes from all the major continents of the world, except Africa, have used the model of hierarchical complexity. Because the model is very simple and is based on analysis of tasks and not just performances, it is dynamic. With the help of the model, it is possible to quantify the occurrence and progression of transition processes in task performances at any order of hierarchical complexity.


The descriptions of stages 13–15 have been described as insufficiently precise.


An object of the mind is an object that exists in the imagination, but which, in the real world, can only be represented or modeled. Some such objects are abstractions, literary concepts, or fictional scenarios.


Closely related are intentional objects, which are what thoughts and feelings are about, even if they are not about anything real (such as thoughts


about unicorns, or feelings of apprehension about a dental appointment which is subsequently cancelled). However, intentional objects may coincide with real objects (as in thoughts about horses, or a feeling of regret about a missed appointment).


Mathematics and geometry describe abstract objects that sometimes correspond to familiar shapes, and sometimes do not. Circles, triangles, rectangles, and so forth describe two-dimensional shapes that are often found in the real world. However, mathematical formulas do not describe individual physical circles, triangles, or rectangles. They describe ideal shapes that are objects of the mind. The incredible precision of mathematical expression permits a vast applicability of mental abstractions to real life situations.


Many more mathematical formulas describe shapes that are unfamiliar, or do not necessarily correspond to objects in the real world. For example, the Klein bottle is a one-sided, sealed surface with no inside or outside (in other words, it is the three-dimensional equivalent of the Möbius strip). Such objects can be represented by twisting and cutting or taping pieces of paper together, as well as by computer simulations. To hold them in the imagination, abstractions such as extra or fewer dimensions are necessary.


If-then arguments posit logical sequences that sometimes include objects of the mind. For example, a counterfactual argument proposes a hypothetical or subjunctive possibility which "could" or "would" be true, but "might not" be false. Conditional sequences involving subjunctives use intensional language, which is studied by modal logic, whereas classical logic studies the extensional language of necessary and sufficient conditions.


In general, a logical antecedent is a sufficient condition, and a logical consequent is a necessary condition (or the contingency) in a logical conditional. But logical conditionals accounting only for necessity and sufficiency do not always reflect every day if-then reasoning, and for this reason they are sometimes known as material conditionals. In contrast, indicative conditionals, sometimes known as non-material conditionals, attempt to describe if-then reasoning involving hypotheticals, fictions, or counterfactuals.


Truth tables for if-then statements identify four unique combinations of premises and conclusions: true premises and true conclusions; false premises and true conclusions; true premises and false conclusions; false premises and false conclusions. Strict conditionals assign a positive truth-value to every case except the case of a true premise and a false conclusion. This is sometimes regarded as counterintuitive, but makes more sense when false conditions are understood as objects of the mind.


A false antecedent is a premise known to be false, fictional, imaginary, or unnecessary. In a conditional sequence, a false antecedent may be the basis for any consequence, true or false.


The subjects of literature are sometimes false antecedents. For instance, the contents of false documents, the origins of stand-alone phenomena, or the implications of loaded words. Moreover, artificial sources, personalities, events, and histories. False antecedents are sometimes referred to as "nothing", or "nonexistent", whereas nonexistent referents are not referred to.


Art and acting often portray scenarios without any antecedent other than an artist's imagination. For example, mythical heroes, legendary creatures, gods and goddesses.


A false consequent, in contrast, is a conclusion known to be false, fictional, imaginary, or insufficient. In a conditional statement, a fictional conclusion is known as a non sequitur, which literally means "out of sequence". A conclusion that is out of sequence is not contingent on any premises that precede it, and it does not follow from them, so such a sequence is not conditional. A conditional sequence is a connected series of statements. A false consequent cannot follow from true premises in a connected sequence. But, on the other hand, a false consequent can follow from a false antecedent.


As an example, the name of a team, a genre, or a nation is a collective term applied ex post facto to a group of distinct individuals. None of the individuals on a sports team is the team itself, nor is any musical chord a genre, nor any person America. The name is an identity for a collection that is connected by consensus or reference, but not by sequence. A different name could equally follow, but it would have different social or political significance.


In metaphysics and ontology, Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong advanced nonexistent objects in the 19th and 20th century within a "theory of objects". He was interested in intentional states which are directed at nonexistent objects. Starting with the "principle of intentionality", mental phenomena are intentionally directed towards an object. People may imagine, desire or fear something that does not exist. Other philosophers concluded that intentionality is not a real relation and therefore does not require the existence of an object, while Meinong concluded there is an object for every mental state whatsoever—if not an existent then at least a nonexistent one.


In philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism is the doctrine that mental activities exist apart from the physical body, notably posited by René Descartes in "Meditations on First Philosophy".


Many objects in fiction follow the example of false antecedents or false consequents. For example, "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien is based on an imaginary book. In the "Appendices" to "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien's characters name the "Red Book of Westmarch" as the source material for "The Lord of the Rings", which they describe as a translation. But the "Red Book of Westmarch" is a fictional document that chronicles events in an imaginary world. One might imagine a different translation, by another author.


Social reality is composed of many standards and inventions that facilitate communication, but which are ultimately objects of the mind. For example, money is an object of the mind which currency represents. Similarly, languages signify ideas and thoughts.


Objects of the mind are frequently involved in the roles that people play. For example, acting is a profession which predicates real jobs on fictional premises. Charades is a game people play by guessing imaginary objects from short play-acts.


Imaginary personalities and histories are sometimes invented to enhance the verisimilitude of fictional universes, and/or the immersion of role-playing games. In the sense that they exist independently of extant personalities and histories, they are believed to be fictional characters and fictional time frames.


Science fiction is abundant with future times, alternate times, and past times that are objects of the mind. For example, in the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, the number 1984 represented a year that had not yet passed.


Calendar dates also represent objects of the mind, specifically, past and future times. In "", which was released in 1986, the narration opens with the statement, "It is the year 2005." In 1986, that statement was futuristic. During the year 2005, that reference to the year 2005 was factual. Now, "The Transformers: The Movie" is retro-futuristic. The number 2005 did not change, but the object of the mind that it represents did change.


Deliberate invention also may reference an object of the mind. The intentional invention of fiction for the purpose of deception is usually referred to as lying, in contrast to invention for entertainment or art. Invention is also often applied to problem solving. In this sense the physical invention of materials is associated with the mental invention of fictions.


The theoretical posits of one era's scientific theories may be demoted to mere objects of the mind by subsequent discoveries: some standard examples include phlogiston and ptolemaic epicycles.


This raises questions, in the debate between scientific realism and instrumentalism about the status of current posits, such as black holes and quarks. Are they still merely intentional, even if the theory is correct?


The situation is further complicated by the existence in scientific practice of entities which are explicitly held not to be real, but which nonetheless serve a purpose—convenient fictions. Examples include field lines, centers of gravity, and electron holes in semiconductor theory.


A reference that names an imaginary source is in some sense also a self-reference. A self-reference automatically makes a comment about itself. Premises that name themselves as premises are premises by self-reference; conclusions that name themselves as conclusions are conclusions by self-reference.


In their respective imaginary worlds the "Necronomicon", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and the "Red Book of Westmarch" are realities, but only because they are referred to as real. Authors use this technique to invite readers to pretend or to make-believe that their imaginary world is real. In the sense that the stories that quote these books are true, the quoted books exist; in the sense that the stories are fiction, the quoted books do not exist.


Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or otherwise sensed. This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addresses the development of young children's social and mental capacities. There is not yet scientific consensus on when the understanding of object permanence emerges in human development.


Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist who first studied object permanence in infants, argued that it is one of an infant's most important accomplishments, as, without this concept, objects would have no separate, permanent existence. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, infants develop this understanding by the end of the "sensorimotor stage", which lasts from birth to about two years of age. Piaget thought that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence.


Piaget concluded that some infants are too young to understand object permanence. A lack of object permanence can lead to A-not-B errors, where children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be. Older infants are less likely to make the A-not-B error because they are able to understand the concept of object permanence more than younger infants. However, researchers have found that A-not-B errors do not always show up consistently. They concluded that this type of error might be due to a failure in memory or the fact that infants usually tend to repeat a previous motor behavior.


In Piaget's formulation, there are six stages of object permanence. These are:


In more recent years, the original Piagetian object permanence account has been challenged by a series of infant studies suggesting that much younger infants do have a clear sense that objects exist even when out of sight. Bower showed object permanence in 3-month-olds. This goes against Piaget's coordination of secondary circular reactions stage because infants are not supposed to understand that a completely hidden object still exists until they are eight to twelve months old. The two studies below demonstrate this idea.


There are primarily four challenges to Piaget's framework:


One criticism of Piaget's theory is that culture and education exert stronger influences on a child's development than Piaget maintained. These factors depend on how much practice their culture provides in developmental processes, such as conversational skills.


Experiments in non-human primates suggest that monkeys can track the displacement of invisible targets, that invisible displacement is represented in the prefrontal cortex, and that development of the frontal cortex is linked to the acquisition of object permanence. Various evidence from human infants is consistent with this. For example, formation of synapses in the frontal cortex peaks during human infancy, and recent experiments using near infrared spectroscopy to gather neuroimaging data from infants suggests that activity in the frontal cortex is associated with successful completion of object permanence tasks.


One of the areas of focus on object permanence has been how physical disabilities (blindness, cerebral palsy and deafness) and intellectual disabilities (Down syndrome, etc.) affect the development of object permanence. In a study that was performed in 1975–76, the results showed that the only area where children with intellectual disabilities performed more weakly than children without disabilities was along the lines of social interaction. Other tasks, such as imitation and causality tasks, were performed more weakly by the children without disabilities. However, object permanence was still acquired similarly because it was not related to social interaction.


The language of thought hypothesis (LOTH), sometimes known as thought ordered mental expression (TOME), is a view in linguistics, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, forwarded by American philosopher Jerry Fodor. It describes the nature of thought as possessing "language-like" or compositional structure (sometimes known as "mentalese"). On this view, simple concepts combine in systematic ways (akin to the rules of grammar in language) to build thoughts. In its most basic form, the theory states that thought, like language, has syntax.


Using empirical evidence drawn from linguistics and cognitive science to describe mental representation from a philosophical vantage-point, the hypothesis states that thinking takes place in a language of thought (LOT): cognition and cognitive processes are only 'remotely plausible' when expressed as a system of representations that is "tokened" by a linguistic or semantic structure and operated upon by means of a combinatorial syntax. Linguistic tokens used in mental language describe elementary concepts which are operated upon by logical rules establishing causal connections to allow for complex thought. Syntax as well as semantics have a causal effect on the properties of this system of mental representations.


These mental representations are not present in the brain in the same way as symbols are present on paper; rather, the LOT is supposed to exist at the cognitive level, the level of thoughts and concepts. The LOTH has wide-ranging significance for a number of domains in cognitive science. It relies on a version of functionalist materialism, which holds that mental representations are actualized and modified by the individual holding the propositional attitude, and it challenges eliminative materialism and connectionism. It implies a strongly rationalist model of cognition in which many of the fundamentals of cognition are innate.


The hypothesis applies to thoughts that have propositional content, and is not meant to describe everything that goes on in the mind. It appeals to the representational theory of thought to explain what those tokens actually are and how they behave. There must be a mental representation that stands in some unique relationship with the subject of the representation and has specific content. Complex thoughts get their semantic content from the content of the basic thoughts and the relations that they hold to each other. Thoughts can only relate to each other in ways that do not violate the syntax of thought. The syntax by means of which these two sub-parts are combined can be expressed in first-order predicate calculus.


The thought "John is tall" is clearly composed of two sub-parts, the concept of John and the concept of tallness, combined in a manner that may be expressed in first-order predicate calculus as a predicate 'T' ("is tall") that holds of the entity 'j' (John). A fully articulated proposal for what a LOT would have to take into account greater complexities such as quantification and propositional attitudes (the various attitudes people can have towards statements; for example I might "believe" or "see" or merely "suspect" that John is tall).


The language of thought hypothesis has been both controversial and groundbreaking. Some philosophers reject the LOTH, arguing that our public language "is" our mental language—a person who speaks English "thinks" in English. But others contend that complex thought is present even in those who do not possess a public language (e.g. babies, aphasics, and even higher-order primates), and therefore some form of mentalese must be innate.


The notion that mental states are causally efficacious diverges from behaviorists like Gilbert Ryle, who held that there is no break between the cause of mental state and effect of behavior. Rather, Ryle proposed that people act in some way because they are in a disposition to act in that way, that these causal mental states are representational. An objection to this point comes from John Searle in the form of biological naturalism, a non-representational theory of mind that accepts the causal efficacy of mental states. Searle divides intentional states into low-level brain activity and high-level mental activity. The lower-level, nonrepresentational neurophysiological processes have causal power in intention and behavior rather than some higher-level mental representation.


Daniel Dennett accepts that homunculi may be explained by other homunculi and denies that this would yield an infinite regress of homunculi. Each explanatory homunculus is “stupider” or more basic than the homunculus it explains, but this regress is not infinite but bottoms out at a basic level that is so simple that it does not need interpretation. John Searle points out that it still follows that the bottom-level homunculi are manipulating some sorts of symbols.


LOTH implies that the mind has some tacit knowledge of the logical rules of inference and the linguistic rules of syntax (sentence structure) and semantics (concept or word meaning). If LOTH cannot show that the mind knows that it is following the particular set of rules in question, then the mind is not computational because it is not governed by computational rules. Also, the apparent incompleteness of this set of rules in explaining behavior is pointed out. Many conscious beings behave in ways that are contrary to the rules of logic. Yet this irrational behavior is not accounted for by any rules, showing that there is at least some behavior that does not act by this set of rules.


Another objection within representational theory of mind has to do with the relationship between propositional attitudes and representation. Dennett points out that a chess program can have the attitude of “wanting to get its queen out early,” without having representation or rule that explicitly states this. A multiplication program on a computer computes in the computer language of 1’s and 0’s, yielding representations that do not correspond with any propositional attitude.


Susan Schneider has recently developed a version of LOT that departs from Fodor's approach in numerous ways. In her book, The Language of Thought: a New Philosophical Direction, Schneider argues that Fodor's pessimism about the success of cognitive science is misguided, and she outlines an approach to LOT that integrates LOT with neuroscience. She also stresses that LOT that is not wedded to the extreme view that all concepts are innate. She fashions a new theory of mental symbols, and a related two-tiered theory of concepts, in which a concept's nature is determined by its LOT symbol type and its meaning.


Since connectionist models can change over time, supporters of connectionism claim that it can solve the problems that LOTH brings to classical AI. These problems are those that show that machines with a LOT syntactical framework very often are much better at solving problems and storing data than human minds, yet much worse at things that the human mind is quite adept at such as recognizing facial expressions and objects in photographs and understanding nuanced gestures. Fodor defends LOTH by arguing that a connectionist model is just some realization or implementation of the classical computational theory of mind and therein necessarily employs a symbol-manipulating LOT.


Connectionists have responded to Fodor and Pylyshyn by denying that connectionism uses LOT, by denying that cognition is essentially a function that uses representational input and output or denying that systematicity is a law of nature that rests on representation. Some connectionists have developed implementational connectionist models that can generalize in a symbolic fashion by incorporating variables.


Since LOTH came to be it has been empirically tested. Not all experiments have confirmed the hypothesis;


Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία "stratēgia", "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included several subsets of skills including military tactics, siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in Eastern Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy" came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact.


Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves, setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.


Henry Mintzberg from McGill University defined strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions to contrast with a view of strategy as planning, while Henrik von Scheel defines the essence of strategy as the activities to deliver a unique mix of value – choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals. while Max McKeown (2011) argues that "strategy is about shaping the future" and is the human attempt to get to "desirable ends with available means". Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully." Complexity theorists define strategy as the unfolding of the internal and external aspects of the organization that results in actions in a socio-economic context.


Professor Richard P. Rumelt described strategy as a type of problem solving in 2011. He wrote that good strategy has an underlying structure he called a "kernel". The kernel has three parts: 1) A "diagnosis" that defines or explains the nature of the challenge; 2) A "guiding policy" for dealing with the challenge; and 3) Coherent "actions" designed to carry out the guiding policy.


President Kennedy illustrated these three elements of strategy in his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation of 22 October 1962:


Rumelt wrote in 2011 that three important aspects of strategy include "premeditation, the anticipation of others' behavior, and the purposeful design of coordinated actions." He described strategy as solving a design problem, with trade-offs among various elements that must be arranged, adjusted and coordinated, rather than a plan or choice.


Strategy typically involves two major processes: "formulation" and "implementation". "Formulation" involves analyzing the environment or situation, making a diagnosis, and developing guiding policies. It includes such activities as strategic planning and strategic thinking. "Implementation" refers to the action plans taken to achieve the goals established by the guiding policy.


Bruce Henderson wrote in 1981 that: "Strategy depends upon the ability to foresee future consequences of present initiatives." He wrote that the basic requirements for strategy development include, among other factors: 1) extensive knowledge about the environment, market and competitors;


2) ability to examine this knowledge as an interactive dynamic system; and


3) the imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives. Henderson wrote that strategy was valuable because of: "finite resources, uncertainty about an adversary's capability and intentions; the irreversible commitment of resources; necessity of coordinating action over time and distance; uncertainty about control of the initiative; and the nature of adversaries' mutual perceptions of each other."


In military theory, strategy is "the utilization during both peace and war, of all of the nation's forces, through large scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security and victory" ("Random House Dictionary").


The father of Western modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." B. H. Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy". Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals. U.S. Naval War College instructor Andrew Wilson defined strategy as the "process by which political purpose is translated into military action." Lawrence Freedman defined strategy as the "art of creating power."


Eastern military philosophy dates back much further, with examples such as "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu dated around 500 B.C.


Modern business strategy emerged as a field of study and practice in the 1960s; prior to that time, the words "strategy" and "competition" rarely appeared in the most prominent management literature.


Alfred Chandler wrote in 1962 that: "Strategy is the determination of the basic long-term goals of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals." Michael Porter defined strategy in 1980 as the "...broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals" and the "...combination of the "ends" (goals) for which the firm is striving and the "means" (policies) by which it is seeking to get there."


Henry Mintzberg described five definitions of strategy in 1998:


In game theory, a "strategy" refers to the rules that a player uses to choose between the available actionable options. Every player in a non-trivial game has a set of possible strategies to use when choosing what moves to make.


A strategy may recursively look ahead and consider what actions can happen in each contingent state of the game—e.g. if the player takes action 1, then that presents the opponent with a certain situation, which might be good or bad, whereas if the player takes action 2 then the opponents will be presented with a different situation, and in each case the choices they make will determine their own future situation.


Strategies in game theory may be random (mixed) or deterministic (pure). Pure strategies can be thought of as a special case of mixed strategies, in which only probabilities 0 or 1 are assigned to actions.


Strategy based games generally require a player to think through a sequence of solutions to determine the best way to defeat the opponent.


Divide and rule (), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.


The use of this technique is meant to empower the sovereign to control subjects, populations, or factions of different interests, who collectively might be able to oppose his rule. Niccolò Machiavelli identifies a similar application to military strategy, advising in Book VI of "The Art of War" (1521) ("L'arte della guerra"): a Captain should endeavor with every art to divide the forces of the enemy. Machiavelli advises that this act should be achieved either by making him suspicious of his men in whom he trusted, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, and, because of this, become weaker.


The maxim divide et impera has been attributed to Philip II of Macedon. It was utilised by the Roman ruler Julius Caesar and the French emperor Napoleon (together with the maxim "divide ut regnes)".


The strategy, but not the phrase, applies in many ancient cases: the example of Aulus Gabinius exists, parting the Jewish nation into five conventions, reported by Flavius Josephus in Book I, 169–170 of "The Jewish War" ("De bello Judaico"). Strabo also reports in "Geographica", 8.7.3 that the Achaean League was gradually dissolved under the Roman possession of the whole of Macedonia, owing to their not dealing with the several states in the same way, but wishing to preserve some and to destroy others.


by Immanuel Kant (1795), Appendix one, "Divide et impera" is the third of three political maxims, the others being "Fac et excusa" (Act now, and make excuses later) and "Si fecisti, nega" (If you commit a crime, deny it).


Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories.


Immanuel Kant was an advocate of this tactic, noting that "the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils" so long as they possess an appropriate constitution which pits opposing factions against each other with a system of checks and balances.


The concept is also mentioned as a strategy for market action in economics to get the most out of the players in a competitive market.


Divide and rule can be used by states to weaken enemy military alliances. This usually happens when propaganda is disseminated within the enemy states in an attempt to raise doubts about the alliance. Once the alliance weakens or dissolves, a vacuum will allow the state to achieve military dominance.


In politics, the concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures, and especially prevents smaller power groups from linking up, causing rivalries and fomenting discord among the people to prevent a rebellion against the elites or the people implementing the strategy. The goal is either to pit the lower classes against themselves to prevent a revolution, or to provide a desired solution to the growing discord that strengthens the power of the elites.


The principle "divide et impera" is cited as a common in politics by Traiano Boccalini in "La bilancia politica".


Clive R. Boddy found that "divide and conquer" was a common strategy by corporate psychopaths used as a smokescreen to help consolidate and advance their grip on power in the corporate hierarchy.


Harry G. Broadman opined in Forbes regarding President Donald Trump: "[a]s in his campaign, the President has been successfully—at least to date—pursuing a divide and conquer strategy domestically and internationally to try to achieve his goals. The result is an absence of a robust set of checks and balances to ensure that the best economic interests of the U.S. and the world will be served."


Examples of this strategy are not entirely limited to deliberate efforts from U.S. Politicial Candidates. Political divide is a systemic problem with bipartisan politics itself, with numerous examples of divided interest among competing politicians adversely sowing divide among the populace they are meant to represent, across many countries. The effects of 'divide and rule' strategies are not always the result of a deliberate effort to control the population.


The disruptive solutions process (DSP) is a concept for innovation execution applied to the mishap prevention part of the combat operations process, often at the tactical or operational level, primarily in Air National Guard applications. However, it has been used successfully in other government agencies and the private sector. At its core is the notion of iterative, low-cost, first-to-market development. The term 'disruptive' was borrowed from the marketing term disruptive technologies. DSP was created in 2005 by fighter pilot and the United States Air Force/Air National Guard Colonel Edward Vaughan.


Typical defense industry bureaucratic approach to problem-solving involves exquisite enterprise solutions requiring long lead times, the establishment of large, standing teams, and relative inflexibility. The long development cycles and lead times associated with this approach sometimes result in fielding a solution that is no longer relevant. Recent attempts to resolve inefficiencies may include overwhelming with superior funding, resources, and manpower—for example, take any major weapon systems development such as a new fighter jet or IT system. Conversely, when resources are constrained, bureaucratic staff adopt a tactic of continuous process improvement, similar to that espoused in Kaizen, total quality management, and Lean Six Sigma. This further discourages innovation and perpetuates low-value programs and work teams that should be eliminated altogether rather than "improved".


Because most preventable "safety" mishaps are caused by human factors (83% of the Fiscal Year 2007 Air Force major mishap costs due to human factors per AF Safety Center) and can be traced to human cultural and behavioral issues, according to DSP, safety can and should uniquely apply a "disruptive" solution set to address the issues. Such a disruptive, iterative approach may not be appropriate in otherwise hardware-centric, large budget programs, such as aircraft procurement and production.


To address the safety cultural issues associated with mishap prevention in a large bureaucracy, Air National Guard safety directorate pursued a disruptive approach in requirement definition, problem identification, solution vetting, funding, and procurement. Using Boyd's Observe, Orient, Decide, Act OODA Loop to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the process, DSP was created. However, taking on a bureaucracy is not without its downside. Fiefdoms and stovepipes within the system attempt to protect their "turf" and "lanes" with rules, regulations, and non-stop administrative delays and paperwork. All this requires a commitment to a long-term solution set, while constantly changing the solution itself in order to work through the bureaucratic hurdles.


The DSP approach is both persistent and adaptive, which makes it entrepreneurial, according to Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek in their article "Fending off the Recession with 'Adaptive Persistence'," published in Harvard Business Review, April 2009. They write... "Persistence is about refusing to give up even in the face of adversity. Adaptation is about shortening the time to success through ingenuity and flexibility. 'Adaptive persistence' entails alternating between anticipation, changing course, and sticking with it, deftly navigating that paradox with aplomb."


The "process" is executed similar to a venture capitalist's portfolio of projects in that the team invests small amounts of resources in many disruptive ideas. Steps in the process are not rigorous and may be eliminated, combined, or reordered appropriately to the desired outcome. Then the team assesses initial demonstrations and validations (DEM/VAL) of those solutions, choosing only to fully develop those that show success and return on the investment. Within the simplified OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) model, step 1 would be observed, steps 2 and 3 combine to form orient, steps 4 and 5 are decide, and step 6 is Act.


Essentially DSP is a six-step process that runs counter to the military mantra of "requirements-driven", which is backward-looking and focuses instead on projecting future market needs that will eventually become formal requirements but not currently identified as such. Accomplish this by looking at front-line problem solving activity and scaling these solutions up. These six steps, when applied rapidly, can get ahead of recognition, providing viable solutions at the point and time of need:


1. POLL FIELD—IDEA MINING: use network of professionals at the field unit level to identify best practice mishap prevention, education, mishap investigation, procurement, and other tools. Project unpublished requirements by including end-use customers in the idea mining process. Look for full and partial solutions.


2. CONSOLIDATE / RACK AND STACK: Heuristically sort list of ideas into groups based on resource requirements, proven record, technology leveraging, mission accomplishment, Department of Defense, Air Force Instruction, and National Guard Bureau identified needs. Based on chosen development cycles, monthly, quarterly, etc., rank order all projects based on overall value to the force using DSP assessment algorithm (citation forthcoming after public release of algorithm).


3. ELIMINATE BAD FITS: Scrub the list for those items requiring major hardware, Air Force Major Command level funding, or other special, difficult to acquire funding or processes. Enterprise-level and/or exquisite programs are anathema to this innovative process. Additionally remove from consideration solutions that duplicate or compete directly with future programmed or existing military programs unless the cost savings is significant. Eliminate those programs that are not scalable in scope.


4. SELECT AND DEM/VAL: Consider resource requirements and rapidly source field unit funding or headquarters seed monies in the sub-$50K range to perform a limited DEM/VAL of concept. Many technology solutions can be demonstrated with little or no initial funding. Air National Guard Safety office has a presentation on creative funding without a budget. Use rapid contracting mechanisms through government contracting office, primarily employing SBA set-asides, blanket purchase agreements, or previously procured assets that may be re-roled into current use. This requires expert contracting officers and staff who possess training in performing basic functions of government contracting officer representative, or contracting officer technical representative. The key is to remove barriers to execution that typically delay other military efforts.


5. ITERATE FOR RESULTS: Establish definition of success at the outset. Measurable and reportable. Demonstrate measurable results within six months and seek further external and scalable funding from sources such as DARPA, Defense Safety Oversight Council (DSOC), other services, other government agencies, etc. Match requirements to resources and solutions.


6. LEAD AND MARKET: lead the effort on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, Joint, Interagency, etc. and tighten the OODA loop down to nothing. Essentially creating an agile, continuous loop so tight, Boyd might describe it as an OODA Point. Market the solution intensely and seek buy in by returning the solution to same experts that initially proposed it. Identify capable project leaders to run with the project.


More recently, DSP has been used in the ANG and USAF to create and field mishap prevention programs. Safety programs created, executed, or developed using DSP:


SEE AND AVOID – Joint DOD and Interagency with AOPA, EAA, and FAA. It is a web based civilian-military midair collision avoidance program created by then-Lt Col Ed Vaughan and led by ANG Safety directorate from 2005 to 2009, considered a best practice. ACC is partner; AFCENT asked for Iraq, Afghanistan coverage, now under contract, currently led and funded by FAA and ANG.


WingmanDay.org: Originally fielded as RealBase across the Air National Guard...this Comprehensive Commander’s Toolkit identifies safety issues, resiliency subject matter, and provides tools for commanders, leaders, and care practitioners to address; created by ANG Safety directorate after 2007 Safety Stand Down Day to provide ONE STOP SHOPPING for commanders and leaders. The RealBase web portal ran through 2009, when IT officials at the National Guard Bureau suspended it. In 2011, the program was relaunched as Wingman Day. The Air Force Safety Center took the RealBase Toolkit concept and developed one-stop-shopping online tool kits hosted on the secure Air Force Portal.


Maintenance Resource Management (MRM): Joint DOD-wide. Originated by Lt Col Doug Slocum (AZ ANG) --see Maintenance Resource Management. ANG included it in DSP and took it DOD-wide with ANG and DOD funding...now Air Force program mandated by Air Force Instruction 21–101. Air Force Safety Center will propose way ahead on ORM revitalization & role of CRM / MRM.


FlyAwake: ANG-wide, soon to be DOD-wide Joint Service. 201 Airlift Squadron (DC ANG), under command of Col Woody Akins, originated the basic concept for a web-based fatigue risk management tool which returns quantitative fatigue analysis for given flight schedule. This tool was based on the algorithm contained within FAST. Under direction of program manager Captain Lynn Lee, the ANG integrated it into the DSP and took it ANG-wide, then DOD-wide.


Wingman Project: The Wingman Project was created by Lt Col Edward Vaughan, chief of aviation safety at the Air National Guard in August 2007. Wingman Project is an ANG suicide intervention initiative that SHOWS, not tells, family and friends of distressed Airmen how to intervene to save a life, using a validated model known as ACE (Ask, Care, Escort). The Wingman Project provides training and awareness through media outreach in 54 U.S. states and territories.


dBird bird mortality model. Created and developed as interagency program combining partners from CDC, Smithsonian, NSF, USDA, DHS, and NOAA under ANG leadership to track, target, and predict movements of pathogen-infected bird flocks using BASH resources such as BAM/AHAS, NexRAD radar system, and others.


BASH: ANG has comprehensive full-service BASH assessments and plan writing program, with MIPR and contracts from ANG to USDA and the world’s leading expert in avian wildlife biology, Dr. Russ DeFusco.


Air Reserve Component Chief of Safety Course (ARCCOS) – created by the ANG safety directorate in 2005, ARCCOS is tailored to ANG/AFRC needs; syllabus designed and course taught by ANG, well represented at active duty mishap investigation courses.


Low Altitude Deconfliction Program – Deconflict.org is online scheduling function with FAA's MADE program to provide collision avoidance for military aircraft operating in low altitude environment.


Ready 54 – Ready54.org is online joint resiliency outreach and education tool with associated mobile apps. Ready 54 is a joint endeavor between the Air and Army National Guard.


On September 25, 2009, Dr. John Ohab of the American Forces Press Service, and host of Armed With Science interviewed Lt Col Edward Vaughan about the Disruptive Solutions Process. An article about that interview can be found here Defense News Service. A direct link to the interview here


Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy.


It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes.


Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting strategic goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be planned (intended) or can be observed as a pattern of activity (emergent) as the organization adapts to its environment or competes.


Strategy includes processes of formulation and implementation; strategic planning helps coordinate both. However, strategic planning is analytical in nature (i.e., it involves "finding the dots"); strategy formation itself involves synthesis (i.e., "connecting the dots") via strategic thinking. As such, strategic planning occurs around the strategy formation activity.


Michael Porter wrote in 1980 that formulation of competitive strategy includes consideration of four key elements:


The first two elements relate to factors internal to the company (i.e., the internal environment), while the latter two relate to factors external to the company (i.e., the external environment). These elements are considered throughout the strategic planning process.


Data is gathered from a variety of sources, such as interviews with key executives, review of publicly available documents on the competition or market, primary research (e.g., visiting or observing competitor places of business or comparing prices), industry studies, etc. This may be part of a competitive intelligence program. Inputs are gathered to help support an understanding of the competitive environment and its opportunities and risks. Other inputs include an understanding of the values of key stakeholders, such as the board, shareholders, and senior management. These values may be captured in an organization's vision and mission statements.


Strategic planning activities include meetings and other communication among the organization's leaders and personnel to develop a common understanding regarding the competitive environment and what the organization's response to that environment (its strategy) should be. A variety of strategic planning tools (described in the section below) may be completed as part of strategic planning activities.


The organization's leaders may have a series of questions they want to be answered in formulating the strategy and gathering inputs, such as:


The output of strategic planning includes documentation and communication describing the organization's strategy and how it should be implemented, sometimes referred to as the strategic plan. The strategy may include a diagnosis of the competitive situation, a guiding policy for achieving the organization's goals, and specific action plans to be implemented. A strategic plan may cover multiple years and be updated periodically.


The organization may use a variety of methods of measuring and monitoring progress towards the strategic objectives and measures established, such as a balanced scorecard or strategy map. Companies may also plan their financial statements (i.e., balance sheets, income statements, and cash flows) for several years when developing their strategic plan, as part of the goal-setting activity. The term operational budget is often used to describe the expected financial performance of an organization for the upcoming year. Capital budgets very often form the backbone of a strategic plan, especially as it increasingly relates to Information and Communications Technology (ICT).


Whilst the planning process produces outputs, as described above, strategy implementation or execution of the strategic plan produces Outcomes. These outcomes will invariably differ from the strategic goals. How close they are to the strategic goals and vision will determine the success or failure of the strategic plan. There will also arise unintended Outcomes, which need to be attended to and understood for strategy development and execution to be a true learning process.


A variety of analytical tools and techniques are used in strategic planning. These were developed by companies and management consulting firms to help provide a framework for strategic planning. Such tools include:


Simply extending financial statement projections into the future without consideration of the competitive environment is a form of financial planning or budgeting, not strategic planning. In business, the term "financial plan" is often used to describe the expected financial performance of an organization for future periods. The term "budget" is used for a financial plan for the upcoming year. A "forecast" is typically a combination of actual performance year-to-date plus expected performance for the remainder of the year, so is generally compared against plan or budget and prior performance. The financial plans accompanying a strategic plan may include 3–5 years of projected performance.


McKinsey & Company developed a capability maturity model in the 1970s to describe the sophistication of planning processes, with strategic management ranked the highest. The four stages include:


Categories 3 and 4 are strategic planning, while the first two categories are non-strategic or essentially financial planning. Each stage builds on the previous stages; that is, a stage 4 organization completes activities in all four categories.


For Michael C. Sekora, Project Socrates founder in the Reagan White House, during the cold war the economically challenged Soviet Union was able to keep on western military capabilities by using technology-based planning while the U.S. was slowed by finance-based planning, until the Reagan administration launched the Socrates Project, which should be revived to keep up with China as an emerging superpower.