Managing abductions in working memory: the influence of percepts
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Donna E. West
Donna E. West (PhD, Cornell University) is Professor of Linguistics at the State University of New York, Cortland, USA. For nearly forty years she has presented and published internationally (nearly 80 articles/chapters) on Peirce’s semiotic. She has served two terms on the Board of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics, as well as on several editorial boards. Her 2013 book,
Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play , investigates the ontogeny of indexical signs. Her 2016 edited volume on Peirce’s concept of habit offers a fresh, global perspective (scholars from twelve nations). She is likewise editing the “Mathematics and Cognition” section for theHandbook on Cognitive Mathematics (Springer, 2022)—her own contribution explores the formidable role of chunking in abductive rationality. Following the 2021 publication of two guest-edited journal issues on Peirce and consciousness (Cognitive Semiotics ,Semiotica ), her 2022 book (Springer) presents retrospective narratives as the scaffold toward Peirce’s retroductive logic.
Abstract
This inquiry addresses how working memory underpins abductive inferences, given their means to objectify meanings. Binding experiences in WM: integrates features with objects, makes obvious object situatedness, and determines impingement of objects upon other objects. These meaning chunks verify how events affect consequences, tracing episodic profiles. WM binding is essential to the evolution of sign meanings, when hatching inferences about which objects/events should be included in the same image, illustrating how WM bindings are implicated in constructing Percepts. Percepts mark the starting point when new meanings are attributed to objects (7.671). These new meanings materialize consequent to implied predicative alterations. WM chunks consist in locative and/or descriptive predicates; they can be implicit in Terms, or explicit in Propositions (1908: 8.373). As Terms with implied predicates, percepts provide the building blocks to attribute new meanings to event profiles, complying with Peirce’s proviso that interpretants “have to be much widened” (1906: 4.538).
About the author
Donna E. West (PhD, Cornell University) is Professor of Linguistics at the State University of New York, Cortland, USA. For nearly forty years she has presented and published internationally (nearly 80 articles/chapters) on Peirce’s semiotic. She has served two terms on the Board of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics, as well as on several editorial boards. Her 2013 book, Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play, investigates the ontogeny of indexical signs. Her 2016 edited volume on Peirce’s concept of habit offers a fresh, global perspective (scholars from twelve nations). She is likewise editing the “Mathematics and Cognition” section for the Handbook on Cognitive Mathematics (Springer, 2022)—her own contribution explores the formidable role of chunking in abductive rationality. Following the 2021 publication of two guest-edited journal issues on Peirce and consciousness (Cognitive Semiotics, Semiotica), her 2022 book (Springer) presents retrospective narratives as the scaffold toward Peirce’s retroductive logic.
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous
- Eulogy for Göran Sonesson (17 October 1951 – 17 March 2023)
- Articles
- The cognitive advantages of the notebook
- Managing abductions in working memory: the influence of percepts
- Mnemonics as signs of memory: semiotics and agency
- In the fold of the manifold: a reflection on Bloomsbury Semiotics
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous
- Eulogy for Göran Sonesson (17 October 1951 – 17 March 2023)
- Articles
- The cognitive advantages of the notebook
- Managing abductions in working memory: the influence of percepts
- Mnemonics as signs of memory: semiotics and agency
- In the fold of the manifold: a reflection on Bloomsbury Semiotics
