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From reifying mental pictures to reifying spatial models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2005

Zenon W. Pylyshyn
Zenon W. Pylyshyn*
Affiliation:
Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University at New Brunswick, Piscataway, NJ08854-8020
*
[email protected]
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Abstract:

Assuming that the vehicle of imaginal thought is a spatial model may not be quite as egregious an error as assuming it is a two-dimensional picture, but it represents no less a reification error. Because the model is not a literal physical layout, one is still owed an explanation of why spatial properties hold in the model – whether because of architectural constraints or by stipulation. The difference is like the difference between explaining behavior from a principle and predicting it by looking it up in a list. In the latter case no purpose is being served by calling it a mental model.

Type
Author's Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , August 2004 , pp. 590 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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Footnotes

Commentary onZenon W. Pylyshyn (2002). Mental imagery? In search of a theory. BBS 25(2):157–182.

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