Research in sports, dance and rehabilitation has shown that basic action concepts (BACs) are fundamental building blocks of mental action representations. BACs are based on chunked body postures related to common functions for realizing action goals. In this paper, we outline issues in research methodology and an experimental method, the structural dimensional analysis of mental representation ...

This paper examines the implications of cross-linguistic multifunctionality patterns, as described by semantic maps, in terms of mental representation, that is, to what extent these patterns tell us something about the existence of a relationship between different conceptual situations that is perceived by speakers and is arguably represented in a speaker’s mind. By conceptual situation is mean...

Two experiments investigated the mental representation of spatial descriptions. In Experiment 1, the subjects classified a series of diagrams, each presented after a spatial description, as either consistent or inconsistent with the description. They were then given an unexpected recognition test of their memory for the descriptions. The subjects remembered the meanings of determinate descripti...

This paper discusses the representation and explanation of relationships between phenomena that are important in psychiatric contexts. After a general discussion of complexity in the philosophy of science, I distinguish zoomingout approaches from zooming-in approaches. Zooming-out has to do with seeing complex mental illnesses as abstract models for the purposes of both explanation and reductio...

A new method was used to explore the role of perceptual information in familiarity-based recognition. The method uses a pairwise recognition task to compare recognition judgments to a test word when that word is related and unrelated to an immediately preceding word. If the false-alarm rate to the test word is greater when the two words are related, this is interpreted as reflecting an increase...