Abstraction as Dynamic Interpretation in Perceptual Symbol Systems
Lawrence W. Barsalou · Psychology Press eBooks · 2005
INTRODUCTION If a scientific construct’s centrality reflects the variety of forms it takes, then abstraction is a central construct in cognitive science, taking at least the following six senses: Sense 1: Abstraction as categorical knowledge. Abstraction can simply mean that knowledge of a specific category has been abstracted out of the buzzing and blooming confusion of experience. Just about any account of knowledge is comfortable with this sense, including rule-based, prototype, exemplar, connectionist, and embodied theories. Sense 2: Abstraction as the behavioral ability to generalize across instances. Another relatively uncontroversial sense is that people can summarize the properties of one or more category members behaviorally. All theories agree that people state generics, such as “Bats live in caves,” and state quantifications, such as “Some birds fly.” Behaviorally, people clearly produce abstractions.