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12High- vs Low-Level Cognition and the Neuro- Emulative Theory of Mental RepresentationIn Ulrich Gähde, Stephan Hartmann & Jörn Henning Wolf (eds.), Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity, De Gruyter. pp. 141-152. 2013.
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25The evolutionary and social preference for knowledge: How to solve meno’s problem within reliabilismGrazer Philosophische Studien 79 (1): 137-156. 2009.
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49Composition and replay of mnemonic sequences: The contributions of REM and slow-wave sleep to episodic memoryBehavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (6): 610-611. 2013.We propose that rapid eye movement (REM) and slow-wave sleep contribute differently to the formation of episodic memories. REM sleep is important for building up invariant object representations that eventually recur to gamma-band oscillations in the neocortex. In contrast, slow-wave sleep is more directly involved in the consolidation of episodic memories through replay of sequential neural activity in hippocampal place cells.
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71The complex first paradox Why do semantically thick concepts so early lexicalize as nouns?Interaction Studies 9 (1): 67-83. 2008.
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61Complex First? On the Evolutionary and Developmental Priority of Semantically Thick WordsPhilosophy of Science 77 (5): 1096-1108. 2010.The Complex-First Paradox consists in a set of collectively incompatible but individually well-confirmed propositions that regard the evolution, development, and cortical realization of the meanings of concrete nouns. Although these meanings are acquired earlier than those of other word classes, they are semantically more complex and their cortical realizations more widely distributed. For a neurally implemented syntaxsemantics interface, it should thus take more effort to establish a link betwe…Read more
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234We defend a realistic attitude towards biological species. We argue that two species are not different species because they differ in intrinsic features, be they phenotypic or genomic, but because they are separated with regard to gene flow. There are no intrinsic species essences. However, there are relational ones. We argue that bearing a gene flow relation to conspecifics may serve as the essence of a species. Our view of the species as a Gene-Flow Community differs from Mayr’s definition of …Read more
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122The Oxford Handbook of Compositionality (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.Leading linguists and philosophers report on all aspects of compositionality, the notion that the meaning of an expression can be derived from its parts. This book explores every dimension of this field, reporting critically on different lines of research, revealing connections between them, and highlighting current problems and opportunities.
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40Non-symbolic compositional representation and its neuronal foundation: towards an emulative semanticsIn Markus Werning, Wolfram Hinzen & Edouard Machery (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Compositionality, Oxford University Press. 2012.This article proposes a neurobiologically motivated theory of meaning as internal representation that holds on to the principle of compositionality, but negates the principle of semantic constituency. The approach builds on neurobiological findings regarding topologically structured cortical feature maps and the mechanism of object-related binding by neuronal synchronization. It incorporates the Gestalt principles of psychology and is implemented by recurrent neural networks. The semantics to be…Read more
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188What is episodic memory if it is a natural kind?Synthese 193 (5): 1345-1385. 2016.Colloquially, episodic memory is described as “the memory of personally experienced events”. Even though episodic memory has been studied in psychology and neuroscience for about six decades, there is still great uncertainty as to what episodic memory is. Here we ask how episodic memory should be characterized in order to be validated as a natural kind. We propose to conceive of episodic memory as a knowledge-like state that is identified with an experientially based mnemonic representation of a…Read more
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17The “complex first” paradoxIn M. Arbib D. Bickerton (ed.), The Emergence of Protolanguage: Holophrasis Vs Compositionality, John Benjamins. pp. 24--67. 2010.
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82Descartes discarded? Introspective self-awareness and the problems of transparency and compositionality☆Consciousness and Cognition 19 (3): 751-761. 2010.What has the self to be like such that introspective awareness of it is possible? The paper asks if Descartes’s idea of an inner self can be upheld and discusses this issue by invoking two principles: the phenomenal transparency of experience and the semantic compositionality of conceptual content. It is assumed that self-awareness is a second-order state either in the domain of experience or in the domain of thought. In the former case self-awareness turns out empty if experience is transparent…Read more