2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
ACT of intelligence: Applied Category Theory for higher cognitive development
| Project/Area Number |
23K11797
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| Research Institution | National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
Steven Phillips 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 情報・人間工学領域, 上級主任研究員 (90344209)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2023-04-01 – 2026-03-31
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| Keywords | Language of Thought / symbol / subsymbol / category / topos / systematicity |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This project proposes a category theory approach to the (co-)development of (symbol-like) higher cognition in relation to nonsymbolic (spatial) abilities. The classical view supposedly accounts for higher cognitive abilities as a Language of Thought (LoT), i.e. thought processes are language-like, and recent proponents of this view point to LoT-like properties in nonlinguistic (spatial) domains to claim that LoT is the “best game in town” for explanatory coverage. However, the LoT hypothesis does not explain how/why symbol-like cognitive representations connect to other (non-symbolic) formats. The main achievement for this financial year was to provide a category/topos theoretic approach as a formal framework for bringing together symbolic and nonsymbolic (spatial) cognition. This work was presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Sydney, Australia (Phillips, 2023) and published in the international academic journal, Frontiers in Psychology (Phillips, 2024).
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Topos theory brings together algebra, topology and logic, cf. language, perception and reasoning. This approach is supposed to bridge the gap between symbol-like and spatial cognition as a duality, in a category theory sense, between perception and conception. Various properties of spatial cognition that provide further support for LoTs (e.g., discrete constituents, role-filler bindings and logical connectives) follow from categorical universal constructions. Together, these constructions constitute a special kind of category, called a topos, and every topos has an interpretation in first-order logic, hence the apparent pervasiveness of logic across age-groups and species.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The plan for the next financial year is to extend this approach to incorporate resources and goals (intentions) thereby also explaining why there are systematic failures to induce higher cognitive abilities, such as exhibited in the Relational Schema Induction paradigm. An early version of this work was submitted for presentation at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The amount carried over will pay for publication fees for a Journal article.
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Research Products
(2 results)
