This Research Scientist Development Award (Level II) application requests support for training and research in two related directions: (a) an extended and more thorough completion of the candidate's research on dynamic information and mental representation currently funded by NIMH research grant 2-R01-MH39784; and (b) a broadening of the research program on mental representations to include an exploration of using the connectionist framework to model dynamic mental representations. and to include an integration of dynamic mental representations with """"""""shareability"""""""" (Freyd, 1983c). The research currently funded by the R01 grant assumes that dynamic information is fundamental to perception and cognition even when the stimuli to be thought about or perceived are technically static (such as handwritten characters, snap-shots, and even stable scenes). This research is motivated by a theory of dynamic mental representations (Freyd, 1987), which claims that a temporal dimension is sometimes necessary to mental representation. Thus a major focus of the proposed research is to provide detailed support or such a theoretical position: Experiments in the area of """"""""representational momentum"""""""" and related phenomena will continue to determine whether the temporal dimension in representations has certain similarities to time in the world, such as directionality and continuity. Training and research in mathematics, neurobiology, and computer science is proposed to allow a broadening of the current research program to include a connectionist simulation of dynamic representations, with the goals of creating a unified theory of mental representation is requested. Such a theory would address the relationship between dynamic representations underlying perceptual processes, and those representations that support the sharing of information and conscious introspection. The unified theory would draw on the concept of shareability (Freyd, 1983c) which predicts that shared knowledge structures have been transformed from private (e.g. perceptual) representations such that information is represented categorically instead of continuously.
| Freyd, J J; Jones, K T (1994) Representational momentum for a spiral path. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 20:968-76 |
| Freyd, J J; Kelly, M H; DeKay, M L (1990) Representational momentum in memory for pitch. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 16:1107-17 |
