2025/08/20 by John E. Hummel, Rachel F. Heaton, Hummel, John E. +1 · 3 voices · 1 citation
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Action Observation and Synchronization #Affordance #Cognition #Embodied and Extended Cognition #Language and cultural evolution #Perspective (graphical) #Symbolic data analysis #Task (project management) #The Symbolic
paper · pdf · doi:10.1037/rev0000592
published in Psychological Review (American Psychological Association)
openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex publication_date 2025/11/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
-integration of multiple role bindings into multiplace predicates, and integration of multiple correspondences into structure mappings-are minimal requirements, on top of basic dynamic binding, to realize symbolic thought. We tested this hypothesis in a systematic collection of 17 simulations that explored the ability of cognitive architectures with and without the capacity for multiplace predicates and structure mapping to perform various kinds of tasks. The simulations were as generic as possible, in that no task could be performed based on any diagnostic features, depending instead on the capacity for multiplace predicates and structure mapping. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that, along with dynamic binding, multiplace predicates and structure mapping are minimal requirements for basic symbolic thought. These results inform our understanding of how human brains give rise to symbolic thought and speak to the differences between biological intelligence, which tends to generalize broadly from very few training examples, and modern approaches to machine learning, which typically require millions or billions of training examples. The results we report also have important implications for bioinspired artificial intelligence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).