Journal
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 15, Issue 5, Pages 207-211Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00437.x
Keywords
cognition; continuity; dynamical systems; eye movements
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Real-time cognition is best described not as a sequence of logical operations performed on discrete symbols but as a continuously changing pattern of neuronal activity. The continuity in these dynamics indicates that, in between describable states of mind, mental activity does not lend itself to the linguistic labels relied on by much of psychology. We discuss eye-tracking and mouse-tracking evidence for this temporal continuity and provide geometric visualizations of mental activity, depicting it as a continuous trajectory through a state space (a multidimensional space in which locations correspond to mental states). When the state of the system travels toward a frequently visited region of that space, the destination may constitute recognition of a particular word or a particular object; but on the way there, the majority of the mental trajectory is in intermediate regions of that space, revealing graded mixtures of mental states.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available