ABOUT

Prof. Gabriel Greenberg
PHIL 281: Philosophy of Mind • Winter 2021 • UCLA
When: Wed 2-5
Where: Dodd 399
Office hours: Fri 2-3​

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​SYLLABUS

Course descriptions: The course on non-linguistic representation explores the representation of information and concepts beyond verbal language, focusing on visual, auditory, and tactile forms. It investigates cognitive processes behind non-verbal communication, bridging natural and artificial systems. The aim is to understand the theories and mechanisms of non-linguistic representation, its applications, and its influence on human cognition and artificial intelligence.

The seminar will be organized around guest lectures from international researchers in philosophy and cognitive science.  (The first two meetings will be for background.)

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1. Representation and meaning beyond language
​[GG]
​W 1/6

Handout
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Reading​​

• No required reading.
• (Suggested) Giardino and Greenberg (2015) "Varieties of Iconicity"

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2. The architecture of linguistic meaning 
[GG]
​W 1/13

Handout
​
Reading​​

• Portner (2005) What is Meaning?, Ch 1: "The Fundamental Question", Ch 2 (through 2.4): "Putting a Meaning Together from Pieces", and Ch. 3.6: "Modeling Properties with Sets and Functions"v

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3. The compositionality of perception
Kevin Lande (York)
​W 1/20

Reading​​

• ​Lande, K. (MS) "Compositionality and Context Perception"

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4. Character and content in depiction
John Kulvicki (Dartmouth)
​W 1/27

Reading​​

• ​Selections from Kulvicki (2020) ​Modelling the Meaning of Pictures
  • ​Chapter 1, "Pictures, Communication, and Meaning"
  • Chapter 2, "Character, Content, and Reference"
  • Chapter 3, "Pictorial Dthat"

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5. Iconic and symbolic representation
[GG]
​W 2/3

Reading​

• ​Greenberg, G. (MS) "The Iconic-Symbolic Spectrum"​

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6. Image production and graphical conventions 
Judy Fan (UCSD)
​W 2/10

Reading

• ​Fan, J. E., Yamins, D. L., & Turk‐Browne, N. B. (2018). Common object representations for visual production and recognition. Cognitive science, 42(8), 2670-2698.
• Hawkins, R. X., Sano, M., Goodman, N. D., & Fan, J. W. (2019). Disentangling contributions of visual information and interaction history in the formation of graphical conventions. In CogSci Proceedings (pp. 415-421). 

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7. Algorithmic bias and proxy representation
Gabbrielle Johnson (Claremont McKenna)
​F 2/19

Reading

• Johnson, G. (MS) "Proxies Aren't Intentional, They're Intentional"​

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8. Semantic properties of diagrammatic representation systems
Atsushi Shimojima (Doshisha)
​W 2/24

Reading

• Selections from Semantic Properties of Diagrams and their Cognitive Potentials
  • ​Chapter 1, "Introduction"
  • Chapter 2, "Potential for Free Ride in Inference"

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9. Multi-modal discourse and coherence
Malihe Alikhani (Pittsburgh)
​W 3/3

Reading

• Alikhani, M., Sharma, P., Li, S., Soricut, R., & Stone, M. (2020). Clue: Cross-modal Coherence Modeling for Caption Generation. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.00908.
• Alikhani, M., & Stone, M. (2018, August). Arrows are the verbs of diagrams. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (pp. 3552-3563).​

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10. Towards a formal semantics of dance
Pritty Patel-Grosz (Oslo)
​​W 3/10

​Reading

• Patel-Grosz, P., Grosz, P. Kelkar, T., Jensenius A. (MS) Steps towards a formal semantics of dance. 
• Optional: a video version of the paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQTpbFQWm0E​

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