Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T04:33:58.754Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Taking symbols for granted? Is the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds the product of external symbol systems?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2008

Gary Lupyan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. lupyan@cornell.eduhttp://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/~glupyan

Abstract

The target article provides a convincing argument that nonhuman animals cannot process role-governed rules, relational schemas, and so on, in a human-like fashion. However, actual human performance is often more similar to that of nonhuman animals than Penn et al. admit. The kind of rule-governed performance the authors take for granted may rely to a substantial degree on language on external symbol systems such as those provided by language and culture.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright ©Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davidoff, J. & Roberson, D. (2004) Preserved thematic and impaired taxonomic categorisation: A case study. Language and Cognitive Processes 19:137–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druks, J. & Shallice, T. (1996) Modality specific naming impairments: The case of multiple semantics. Brain and Cognition 32:245–47.Google Scholar
Elman, J. L. (2004) An alternative view of the mental lexicon. Trends in Cognitive Science 7:301306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elman, J. L. (2005) Connectionist models of cognitive development: Where next? Trends in Cognitive Science 9:111–17.Google Scholar
Gick, M. L. & Holyoak, K. J. (1980) Analogical problem solving. Cognitive Psychology 12:306–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2006) Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gomez, R. L. (2002) Variability and detection of invariant structure. Psychological Science 13(5):431–36.Google Scholar
Gomez, R. L. & Gerken, L. (2000) Infant artificial language learning and language acquisition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(5):178–86.Google Scholar
Hare, M. L., McRae, K. & Elman, J. L. (2003) Sense and structure: Meaning as a determinant of verb subcategorization probabilities. Journal of Memory and Language 48:281303.Google Scholar
Hare, M. L., McRae, K. & Elman, J. L. (2004) Admitting that admitting verb sense into corpus analyses makes sense. Language and Cognitive Processes 19:181224.Google Scholar
Holyoak, K. J., Junn, E. N. & Billman, D. (1984) Development of analogical problem-solving skill. Child Development 55:2042–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Namy, L. L. & Gentner, D. (2002) Making a silk purse out of two sow's ears: Young children's use of comparison in category learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology 131:515.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rattermann, M. J. & Gentner, D. (1998b>) The effect of language on similarity: The use of relational symbols improves young children's performance on a mapping task. In: Advances in analogy research: Integration of theory and data from the cognitive, computational and neural sciences, ed. Holyoak, K., Gentner, D. & Kokinov, B., pp. 274–81. New Bulgarian University.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Rakoczy, H. (2003) What makes human cognition unique? From individual to shared to collective intentionality. Mind and Language 18(2):121–47.Google Scholar