How Learning Experience Shapes the Cognitive and Neural Representations of Letters

cognitive science;grounded cognition;abstractionism;representational similarity analysis;letter acquisition;Cognitive Science

Wiley, Robert WEgeth, Howard ;

Johns Hopkins University

关键词: cognitive science;    grounded cognition;    abstractionism;    representational similarity analysis;    letter acquisition;    Cognitive Science;   

Others  :  https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/60070/WILEY-DISSERTATION-2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: JOHNS HOPKINS DSpace Repository

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation furthers our understanding of the nature of conceptual representations in the mind/brain, specifically with regard to the debate between grounded and abstractionist theories of cognition. Grounded cognition theories range from reductionist views that propose that concepts have only sensory/motor representations, to less reductive views that allow for amodal representations, although positing that these necessarily interact with modality-specific processes. Opposing abstractionist theories propose that conceptual processing is carried out with symbolic, amodal representations, interacting with sensory/motor processes only as context demands.This issue was examined in the domain of letter processing, where previous research has indicated that writing experience is more beneficial than non-motor experience for learning letters. The dissertation research includes a longitudinal training study with behavioral and neuroimaging analyses, designed to reveal the content of letter representations and how these are affected by different letter-learning Conditions: Typing, Visual, or Writing. The results address the following questions about the role of writing experience in letter learning: (1) Are the effects of writing experience due to motor learning per se, or to other variables confounded with the writing experience? (2) Does writing experience recruit only sensory/motor representations? (3) Which types of representations, motoric or otherwise, underlie the behavioral benefits of writing experience?I conclude that the evidence supports the view that cognition involves both groundedness and abstraction. Sensory/motor representations were found to be recruited for letter perception, and moreover were associated with behavioral performance on letter processing tasks. This argues against a strong abstractionist claim that sensory/motor activity is epiphenomenal. However, symbolic, amodal letter identities (SLI) were also associated with behavioral performance, and were strongest in the Writing Condition. These results challenge grounded theories that reduce concepts to sensory/motor representations, and support the existence of conceptual representations that are truly amodal.On the basis of these findings, I propose that writing experience is particularly beneficial to learning letters because it strengthens connections between various modality-specific letter representations, mediated by amodal SLI representations. I discuss the implications of these results for theories of cognition, educational practice and future directions for research.