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Language and the Evolution of Cognition

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Author

Summary, in English

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the kinds of mental representations that are required for language to evolve. Firstly, I distinguish between cued and detached representations. A cued representation stands for something that is present in the current external situation of the representing organism, while a detached representation may stand for objects or events that are neither present in the current situation nor triggered by some recent situation. The inner environment of an agent is deÞned as the collection of all detached representations of the agent. The fundamental difference between signal and a symbol is that the reference of a symbol is a detached representation, while a signal refers to a cued representation. Icons also refer to detached representations, but unlike symbols, the choice of representation is not arbitrary, since an icon in some aspects resembles the thing it represents

Department/s

Publishing year

1995

Language

English

Document type

Working paper

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics
  • Learning

Keywords

  • Cognitive Studies

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1101-8453