Graphs, Concepts and reasoning.

1. Graphs, Concepts and reasoning. Any explanation of the functioning of graphs is committed with a theory of concepts and a theory of reasoning. This commitment should be explicit. I.e. the researcher working on graphs should explicitly aim at using graphs to produce arguments, testable hypothesis, case studies, etc. in favour of one or another theory of concepts and reasoning. A work of terminological clarification. Terms such as resemblance, analogies, natural correspondence, mapping,… have a strong intuitive impact, but we do not know if there are natural kinds behind them. Graphs could be a good study case to work on technical definitions of these terms.

2. Concepts: Amodal symbols vs. situated multimodal simulations. (1) Amodal symbols = analogue to words in sentences (Fodor, Pylyshyn). Horse “mane” = Lion “mane” (2) Situated multimodal simulations = re-activation of past perceptual, motor and introspective experiences (Barsalou, Prinz). Concepts are diffused webs of activation located in the modalities. The precise properties of the web depends on the immediate context and on the personal experience of the subject. Horse “mane” ≠ Lion “mane” Empirical work seems to support (2), but many intermediary views are possible.

3. ‘BEEEEH’ ‘Sheep’ Taste of Kebab Sensation of coat on the hand

4. The conceptual system (and all the tasks we perform thanks to it) shares many properties with perception Consequence 1: The conceptual system encodes information as perception does, i.e. continuous coding (≠concepts are digital entities). Continuous coding: something can represent more or less something else (related concepts: analogue coding, coarse coding,…?). A portrait can resemble more or less its subject.

5. The conceptual system (and all the tasks we perform thanks to it) shares many properties with perception “Participants were faster to verify that “Open the drawer.” is grammatical with a button press toward their bodies than with a button press away from their bodies. Glenberg and Kaschak also observed such effects for sentences that implied an abstract direction of motion. For example, participants were fastest to verify that “Liz told you the story” is grammatical with a button press toward their bodies”. (Barsalou, 2005)

6. II.The conceptual system (and all the tasks we perform thanks to it) shares many properties with perception Consequence 2: concepts combination can use visual imagery (to combine two concepts you can imagine a visual scene with the two corresponding entity and see what are their possible relations (E.g “happy” + “Bird”; “Sad” + “Bird”; …)).

7. III. What technical vocabulary to speak of pictures, graphs, diagrams, and of all the artefacts which uses the analogical properties of the conceptual system? Classic statement: “This diagram represents that “there are more B than A” in a way which is easy to translate into a conceptual representation (the translation is easier than with a linguistic representation). = homoncular error A B This visual pattern is part of the concept “more than”. It is not translated into this concept.

8. Questions at the interface between research on graphs and theories of concepts and reasoning. (1) How to operationalize the intuitive distinction between the format of perception and the format of language. Analogue vs. Digital, Continuous vs. Discrete, categories with sharp edges vs. “more or less” categories, … ? (2) When reasoning on a graph, when is the visual information converted into a digital format ? 1. Right after perception, before reasoning. 2. After reasoning, just before verbal report. 3. During reasoning, i.e. reasoning operates both with analogue and digital information.