A mathematical theory of sign-mediated concept formation

Yair Neuman; Ophir Nave

doi:10.1016/j.amc.2007.12.001

A mathematical theory of sign-mediated concept formation

Yair Neuman, Ophir Nave

School of Education

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Cognitive theories of concept formation have usually ignored the fact that, as a natural part of their cognitive development, people form concepts through the linguistic mediation of signs. In this paper, we propose a mathematical theory of sign-mediated concept formation (SMCF). This theory relies heavily on ideas from category theory, specifically the ideas of pushout and pullback. The theory addresses some of the major problems in modeling concept formation, including family resemblance and contextuality, and has potential applications for a wide variety of tasks involving concept computation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	72-81
Number of pages	10
Journal	Applied Mathematics and Computation
Volume	201
Issue number	1-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amc.2007.12.001
State	Published - 15 Jul 2008

Keywords

Category theory
Concept formation
Interdisciplinary research
Pullback
Pushout
Semiotics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computational Mathematics
Applied Mathematics

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10.1016/j.amc.2007.12.001

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KW - Interdisciplinary research

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KW - Pushout

KW - Semiotics

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A mathematical theory of sign-mediated concept formation

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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