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Conceptual Spaces:

The Geometry of Throught
Front Cover
2 Reviews
MIT Press, 2004 - Psychology - 307 pages

Within cognitive science, two approaches currently dominate the problem of modelingrepresentations. The symbolic approach views cognition as computation involving symbolicmanipulation. Connectionism, a special case of associationism, models associations using artificialneuron networks. Peter Gardenfors offers his theory of conceptual representations as a bridgebetween the symbolic and connectionist approaches.Symbolic representation is particularly weak atmodeling concept learning, which is paramount for understanding many cognitive phenomena. Conceptlearning is closely tied to the notion of similarity, which is also poorly served by the symbolicapproach. Gardenfors's theory of conceptual spaces presents a framework for representing informationon the conceptual level. A conceptual space is built up from geometrical structures based on anumber of quality dimensions. The main applications of the theory are on the constructive side ofcognitive science: as a constructive model the theory can be applied to the development ofartificial systems capable of solving cognitive tasks. Gardenfors also shows how conceptual spacescan serve as an explanatory framework for a number of empirical theories, in particular thoseconcerning concept formation, induction, and semantics. His aim is to present a coherent researchprogram that can be used as a basis for more detailed investigations.

  

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Very useful approach for data modeling and scientific information systems

Review: Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought

User Review  - Nat - Goodreads

Gärdenfors sketches an intermediate level of representational content, between the "symbolic" (syntactic and propositional) and associationist levels, and argues that this intermediate level of ... Read full review

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Contents

Dimensions
1
12 Conceptual Spaces as a Framework for Representations
4
13 Quality Dimensions
6
14 Phenomenal and Scientific Interpretations of Dimensions
8
Color Sound and Taste
9
16 Some Mathematical Notions
15
17 How Dimensions Are Identified
21
18 Integral and Separable Dimensions
24
47 Concept Dynamics and Nonmonotonic Reasoning
131
48 Objects as Special Kinds of Concepts
134
49 Four Geometrical Categorization Models
136
410 The Shell Space
142
411 Experiments
145
Semantics
151
52 Six Tenets of Cognitive Semantics
159
53 Analyses of Some Aspects of Lexical Semantics
167

19 On the Origins of Quality Dimensions
26
110 Conclusion
30
Symbolic Conceptual and Subconceptual Representations
33
22 Symbolic Representations
35
23 Subconceptual Representations
40
24 Conceptual Representations
43
25 Connections to Neuroscience
48
26 Comparisons
53
27 The Jungle of Representations
56
Properties
59
32 Properties in Intensional Semantics
60
33 Criticism of the Traditional View of Properties
62
34 Criteria for Natural Regions of Conceptual Spaces
66
35 Natural Properties
70
36 Reconsidering the Problems
77
37 The Relativism of Conceptual Spaces
80
38 Connections to Prototype Theory
84
39 Voronoi Tessellations of a Space
87
310 Higher Level Properties and Relations
92
311 Conclusion
99
Concepts
101
42 Modeling Concepts
102
43 The Role of Similarity in Concept Formation
109
44 Combining Concepts
114
45 Learning Concepts
122
46 Nonmonotonic Aspects of Concepts
126
54 An Analysis of Metaphors
176
55 The Learnability Question
187
56 Communicating Referents
189
57 Can Meanings Be in the Head?
196
The Semantic Program
201
Induction
203
62 The Symbolic Level
205
63 The Conceptual Level
211
64 The Role of Theoretical Concepts
215
65 The Subconceptual Level
219
66 Correlations between Domains
225
What Is Induction?
230
Computational Aspects
233
72 Conceptual Spaces as Emergent Systems
244
73 Smolenskys Treatment of Connectionism
247
74 Not All Computation Is Done by Turing Machines
249
75 A System for Object Recognition
251
76 Conclusion
253
In Chase of Space
255
82 Connections among Levels
257
The Need for a New Methodology
259
Notes
263
References
283
Illustration Credits
299
Index
301
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought
Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought
Peter Gärdenfors
No preview available - 2000

Common terms and phrases

analysis ANNs argued artificial neuron basic ceptual spaces chapter city-block metric cognitive science cognitive semantics color space concept formation conceptual level conceptual space conceptual structure connected connectionism context contrast class convex region convex set coordinates correlations corresponding criterion defined described determined dimension x dimensional distance distinction domains dynamic Euclidean example Figure function Gardenfors geometrical structure grue identified image schemas inductive inferences input intensional interpretation kind language learning level of representation linguistic expressions logical mapping meaning mental metaphor metric multidimensional scaling natural properties nonmonotonic Nosofsky notion objects particular perceptual Petitot points possible worlds predicates prepositions presented in section problem proposed prototype theory psychological quality dimensions relation represented role rule salience seen sense shape similarity spatial star-shaped regions stimuli subconceptual level symbolic level symbolic representations theory of conceptual three levels tion topological traditional Turing machine vector Voronoi tessellation

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References from web pages

Conceptual Spaces - The MIT Press
A new theory of conceptual representations as a bridge between the symbolic and connectionist approaches
mitpress.mit.edu/ 0262572192

Conceptual Spaces Cheat Sheet
Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought Peter Gärdenfors MIT Press, 2000 (Table Of Contents). The essence of conceptual spaces, as I understand it, ...
www.jch.com/ jch/ cscs.html

An Empirical Study of Knowledge Representation and Learning within ...
An Empirical Study of Knowledge Representation and Learning within. Conceptual Spaces for Intelligent Agents. Ickjai Lee and Bayani Portier ...
ieeexplore.ieee.org/ iel5/ 4276338/ 4276339/ 04276425.pdf?tp=& isnumber=& arnumber=4276425

Reformulation of the theory of conceptual spaces
Gardenförs, P., Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought. 2000. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. [6]. P. Gardenförs, How to make the semantic Web more semantic? ...
portal.acm.org/ citation.cfm?id=1282866.1282930& coll=GUIDE& dl=GUIDE& CFID=15151515& CFTOKEN=6184618

Conceptual Spaces for Data Descriptions
Conceptual Spaces - The Geometry of Thought. MIT Press, 2000. [4] Peter Gardenfors. How to make the semantic web more semantic. In ac Vieu and L. Varzi, ...
ifgi.uni-muenster.de/ ~lette/ CAME_2006-revised.pdf

Peter Gärdenfors, Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought
Peter Gärdenfors, Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry. of Thought. Bradford/MIT Press, Cambridge/London, 2004, xi+307,. Paperback, $19, ISBN 0-262-57219-2 ...
www.springerlink.com/ index/ r4g82qx365640772.pdf

sciencedirect - Robotics and Autonomous Systems : Conceptual ...
In his book, Conceptual Spaces. The Geometry of Thought1, Peter Gärdenfors proposes the notion of conceptual space as a way to overcome the opposition ...
linkinghub.elsevier.com/ retrieve/ pii/ S092188900300023X

Fast Qualitative Reasoning about Categories in Conceptual Spaces
Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought. The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000. [6] P. Gardenfors and ma. Williams. Clustering Large Datasets in Arbitrary ...
www.cs.jcu.edu.au/ ftp/ pub/ techreports/ HIS-231.pdf

Conceptual Spaces
... offers a somewhat personal interpretation; The content is drawn mostly from Gärdenfors’ “Conceptual Spaces: The geometry of thought”, MIT Press, 2000. ...
ir.dcs.gla.ac.uk/ oldseminars/ Bruza.ppt

Conceptual Spaces
Conceptual Spaces. As an alternative to symbolic representations of information and knowledge, a theory of conceptual spaces is investigated. ...
www.lucs.lu.se/ Peter.Gardenfors/ Conceptual.Spaces/

About the author (2004)

Peter Gärdenfors is Professor of Cognitive Science at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Conceptual Spaces
TitleConceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Throught
A Bradford book
AuthorPeter Gardenfors
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherMIT Press, 2004
ISBN0262572192, 9780262572194
Length307 pages
Subjects › 

Computers / Intelligence (AI) & Semantics
Psychology / Cognitive Psychology
  
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