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        Open Lecture Series

 

LECTURES ON THE MIND

 

OVERVIEW 

Below you will find several ‘courses’ of short, free-to-view lectures on YouTube, all of them about various aspects of human cognition from the perspective of the Modular Cognition Framework as developed by myself and John Truscott. Many of the talks never last much longer than 30 minutes, some are longer and a few are very short indeed. Task are divided into three sections. A few topics cross boundaries and are mentioned in both or each of the sections:

Section A covers how the mind in general is organised. Some of this will include advanced excerpts from a book about mind for the general reader and which is already in an advanced stage of preparation.

Section B deals with languages in the mind, how they are acquired and (apparently) lost as well as how two or more languages systems exist side by side and interact with one another.

Section C will deal with applications in more practical spheres of everyday life

There are three basic levels of difficulty as detailed below and they can be used to supplement more extensive study programmes or simply serve as stand alone talks.  At present, there are two separate series. One is on the mind in general. The second one is on language(s) in the mind. Some general features of the framework appear in many of the individual talks. Blue items in the list are planned. The rest (in red) are already  online. This is an ongoing project. Many of the talks are listed together in an MCF podcast (if you can tolerate the initial ad and ‘Skip’): here

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Levels

      • LEVEL 1: INTRODUCTORY (general public/undergraduate and those unfamiliar with the MCF)
      • LEVEL 2/3 INTERMEDIATE
        • LEVEL 2A: Lower intermediate
        • LEVEL 2B: Upper intermediate( final year undergraduate)
      • LEVEL 3: Advanced (MA/PhD and  upwards) and those those already with some familiarity with the MCF)

SECTION A.

ON HUMAN COGNITION

(How the Human Mind works) 

SECTION B.

LANGUAGE(S) IN THE MIND

(How Languages operate in the Human Mind) 

 

C. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

 

DOWNLOADS (1)

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Section A.

ON HUMAN COGNITION

HOW THE MIND WORKS 

This first series focuses on the way the mind in general. The mind is not the brain and brain is not the mind although we like to locate both ‘in the head’ and see them as somehow related. Many researchers working on the physical brain do so in order to discover facts not just about neural matter within the skull but ultimately how their findings will tell us more about the human mind (us) . This series of talks deals 00with how the mind is related to the brain, how it is organised and how it operates over periods of only milliseconds as well as stretches of time much much longer than that. The discussions will reflect leading trends in contemporary thinking but now worked out and elaborated within the MCF framework. Some of the separate items in this series, distinguished by Latin numerals I, II, III etc., are not single presentations but themselves consist of a mini-series of talks around a single theme.

 

A1. Modelling the Mind: an introduction

Level 1 (introductory)

OVERVIEW: This series of short videos and audios in a general introduction to how the mind works. A list of questions will be provided for those who wish to refresh their minds about its content. Feel free to comment and ask questions….and please subscribe to this YouTube channel!

Background reading

  1. Sharwood Smith, M. (2014) In search of conceptual frameworks for relating brain activity to language function . Frontiers in Psychology. 5:716. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00716.
  2. Sharwood Smith, M (2017) Introducing language and cognition: A map of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[duration: under 2 hrs 30 mins in total]

 

1. Introduction

This brief video introduces the following MCF-based presentations on human cognition. Here, the distinction as well as the relationship between the mind and the brain is explained.

[7.30 mins]

A2. The Perceptual Portal: Sensory Perception

How do we make sense of the world outside? The mind is a set of interacting knowledge systems each one with special function but all with a shared basic design consisting of  processor and a store. Representations of one type, i.e. in one system can be associated and coactivated with representations in other systems. In this video, five knowledge systems are introduced that manage and store knowledge representations relating to sensory perceptual experience. Together they act as a ‘perceptual portal’ between, on the one hand, the internal mind and, on the other, five different kinds of physical sensation emanating from the external environment.

[17 mins]

2. Value and Emotion    

Our knowledge, however represented in the mind will always have some value for us and much of it may be associated with particular emotions as well. How do these associations work in this model of the mind? This discussion introduces the  affective system which includes representations of value. These include negative and positive values and also more complex affective representations often referred to as the ‘basic’ emotions like joy, fear and disgust. All of these representations can be associated via interfaces with other types of representation in the mind. 

[12 mins]

4. Meaning   

‘Making sense’ for human being at least cannot happen without being able to process meaning. Abstract meanings are handled in the ‘conceptual’ system. Many but not all of these will be expressible in language, that is, in one or more languages known to the individual. The conceptual store acts a hub for many networks of representations that together up what is often referred to as an individual’s  episodic and encyclopaedic memories. The conceptual system is extremely well developed in humans and may possibly be unique to humans although some of our closest relatives may also have less elaborate versions.

[12 mins]

5. Competition and change

‘It’s a jungle in there’. During online processing, there will be continual competition between candidate presentations for participation in the completion of some current task. Competition occurs within and between different knowledge systems with representations that have been regularly and frequently activated normally having the advantage. New knowledge arises a new associations are made becoming more readily usable directly as a result of repeated activation. Knowledge loss or a decline in its accessibility is related, in part, to a decline in its activation over time. The constant, frenzied activity that characterises the way the  mind works is mercifully hidden from our conscious awareness.

[28 mins]

6. Language(s)

What and where is language in this whole scheme of things? In locating language in the set of interacting knowledge systems being discussed in this series, this video asks the questions: what, if anything, makes language a particularly human characteristic and what does human language have in common with other (animal) communications system which are also loosely called ‘languages’ as well. Kanzi, the brilliant bonobo provides a challenge that will be addressed in this sixth presentation.

        • Check out this talk by Cat Hobaiter on animal and human communication.

[21 mins]

7. Consciousness and Attention

How do consciousnesses and attention fit into this basic model of the mind? How is thinking to be explained? Setting aside the continually mysterious aspects of consciousness, this presentation tries to give an idea of how activating even an apparently simple representation of the meaning of APPLE turns out to involves a whole network of representations across the mind (and indeed the brain). Whenever intense levels of activation are involved the conditions for any form of conscious experience are met. Attention, when the mind is focused on something specific, is part of this activation account.

[24 mins]

8. The Big Picture  (‘Putting it all together’)

This summing up of the previous seven short presentations completes our lightening tour of the mind!

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

[27 mins]

 

  1. Osterhout, L. 2009. Language and the Brain. Part 1. University of Washington Allen Edwards Psychology Lecture.

 

A2. The Human Affective System

Level 2/3 (intermediate/advanced)

    1. Part One: Introduction 

This talk focuses on the human affect system where value and emotions are processed and stored. Contemporary research strongly suggests that he traditional divide between ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ is wishful thinking. In fact the affective system is difficult to disentangle from our ‘cognitive’ side. This makes us, even in our calmest rational moments, never really free of our emotional side and or decisions will very often be much more biased that we would like to think. To understand how this is so requires an understanding of how the mind works guided by a framework like the MCF. It is recommended that you first watch the previous series on modelling the mind.

Video thumbnail: THE HUMAN AFFECTIVE SYSTEM Part 1 (Introduction)

[31 mins]

2. Part Two:  Language meets Affect (forthcoming)

3. Part Three: Affective processing & Subconscious Bias (forthcoming)

 

A3.  Aligning Mind and Brain: developing a human psychome

This is a short 15-minute presentation originally given at a cognitive neuroscience webinar. It introduces a biological view of the mind as the background for aligning Mind and Brain. Put briefly, how can we develop a full account of the mind as a package of ‘biological software’ that can be systematically related to ‘the biological hardware’, i.e. the neural systems of the physical brain. There are many other ways of exploring the mind from different perspectives but these cannot solve the problem of relating physical brain and abstract mind in a non-piecemeal fashion. The MCF provides a psychological tool or starting point for developing a human ‘psychome’ detailing the properties that uniquely together define what it is to be human.  >LINK

 

 

A4.  AUDIO recordings

The following recordings consist of draft excerpts from a book in preparation by Michael Sharwood Smith called provisionally All About the Mind

        1. A draft chapter 5 entitled More about Memory (recorded in July, 2023)
        2. A draft chapter 6 entitled Values and Emotions (recorded in July, 2023)

 

Section B.

ON LANGUAGE(S) IN THE MIND

This second series series focuses on the role of  language and different languages within the the mind in general (the topic of the first series) .As with the first series, the discussions will reflect leading trends in contemporary thinking but now worked out and elaborated within the MCF framework. Again, some of the item in this series are not single presentations but consist of a mini-series of talks around a single theme.

   B1.   How Everyone is a Multilingual 

(forthcoming)

B2.  The Internal Context of Bilingual Processing

Level 2/3 (intermediate/advanced)

OVERVIEW: This series of short YouTube videos, lasting between 15 and 30 minutes each, is an introduction to how the mind works for those who use more than one language. In fact it is also about language representation and processing in general.  It provides a particular perspective about how the mind manages alternative language systems.

Some knowledge of linguistics will be a help but is not crucial. It would also be useful to follow the first series on modelling the mind but this, again, is not strictly necessary. A downloadable list of questions will be provided for those who wish to refresh their minds about what these presentations contain. Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

Background reading/WATCHING

 

  1. Osterhout, L. 2009. Language and the Brain. Part 1. University of Washington Allen Edwards Psychology Lecture.
  2. Sharwood Smith, M (2017a) Introducing language and cognition: A map of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Sharwood Smith, M. (First appeared: 2019) Internal context, language acquisition and multilingualism. Second Language Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658319877673
  4. Sharwood Smith, M. (2017b) Active-passive bilingualism and functional distance between L1 and L2 explained within a unified cognitive perspective . In Ardila, A., Cieślicka, A, Heredia, R. & Rosselli, R. (Eds.). Psychology of Bilingualism: The Cognitive World of Bilinguals (pp 157-185). Berlin: Springer Verlag.
  5. Truscott, J. (2017). Modularity, working memory, and second language acquisition: a research program.  Second Language Research, 33, 3: 313-324.
  6. Truscott, J. & Sharwood Smith, M. (2016) Representation, Processing and Code-switching. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 20, 5, 903-916.
  7. Truscott, J. & Sharwood Smith, M. (2019). Theoretical Frameworks in SLA. In Benati, A & Schwieter, J. (Eds.). Handbook of  Language Learning (pp. 84-108). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  8. Truscott, J. & Sharwood Smith, M. (2019) The Internal Context of Bilingual Processing and Acquisition.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1. The Challenge  

This is the first of a series of talks on how, over time, the mind creates and uses one or more languages when exposed to them. ‘The Challenge’ provides you with the background on the Modular Cognition Framework on which this series is based and discusses how it can be used a stepping stone from a position where explanations are often fairly superficial or fragmentary towards a position where our understanding of language and language development in the individual has become deeper and richer.

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

Video thumbnail: The Internal Context of Bilingual Processing 1 The Challenge

[26 mins]

2. Answering the Challenge  

In the previous talk, a ‘challenge’ – in fact a set of challenges – was made in the form of a role play. This talk begins to respond to the challenge from an MCF perspective. Some basic MCF concepts are introduced to set the scene for talking about bilingual processing in particular. It will be useful but not crucial to have already watched the Modelling the Mind talks (see above).

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

Video thumbnail: MCF CONTEXT 2

[23 mins]

3. Language Cognition: Assumptions & Principles 

In this video, key concepts covered in the previous presentation are reviewed followed by a number of basic principles of cognitive processing as applied language. Here an important distinction is made between ”language‘ processing (and representation) on the one hand which involves many different interacting systems in the mind (and arguably all of them) and , on the other hand, ‘linguistic‘ processing (and representation) which refers only to those systems which specifically handle linguistic structure. In the MCF there happen to be two of them. Where as many systems involved the processing of language as a whole are not specifically designed for use in language processing and have their counterparts in other species, the linguistic systems are. Moreover, they are also special in that they are NOT shared by any other species.

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

Video thumbnail: The Internal Context of Bilingual Processing 3 Assumptions & Principles

[17 mins]

4. Language Cognition: The Architecture  

This video describes MCF architecture with the focus on language cognition. A distinction is made between cognitive systems that occupy the ‘outer’ mind and those at a deeper level called the ‘inner’ mind where linguistic processing also takes place. The presentation then moves on to the idea of ‘context’ in relation to how a specific utterance or text is being currently comprehended. Although perceived as involving states and events in the outside world, context is nevertheless entirely created inside the mind. ‘Linguistic’ processing as opposed to language processing in general, is the domain of two inner systems specifically devoted to handling linguistic structure. These are what make human language uniquely human although both humans and other species have evolved other, sometimes quite sophisticated ways of communicating with one another.

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

Video thumbnail: MCF CONTEXT 4

[18 mins]

B3.  The Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism: Extending the Explanation

 

Part 1

We have heard a lot recently both in the psycholinguistic and neuroscientific research literature and also in the media about the benefits of being bilingual (or multilingual). How can we make sense of what this means in terms of the mind and the way in which the mind works? This is the first part of a talk about this looking for answers by interpreting the research in terms of the Modular Cognition Framework. It deals with the basic concepts used in this talk and finishes with the Homunculus Fallacy whereby we imagine that all the competition and conflict that goes on all the time in our subconscious mind is prevented from ending in chaos and confusion by the intervention of a single decision-making supervisor or ‘supervisory system’ – a ‘mind within a mind’, as it were.

 

 


Video thumbnail: COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF BILINGUALISM 1

[45 mins]

Part 2

Part 1 dealt with the basic concepts and finished with the Homunculus Fallacy dismissing the notion that we have a mind within a mind organising and coordinating everything subconscious. Part 2 takes up the challenge to replace the non-existent single supervisor with an explanation, using the architecture of the MCF to show how the mind can indeed cope with the competition and conflict that marks every millisecond of mental processing. A major role is played by the conceptual and affective hubs which act as crossroads for so much mental traffic: the way these two system respond to the changing situation whereby one moment one activated representational schema (network) will be valued highly valued and dominant and then be suddenly downgraded , giving way to another. Ultimately, the organisation of the mind is not completely hierarchical but in terms of control, it is in the final analysis ‘heterarchical’. Thich means the influences that currently put one schema in the driving seat will shift to another will shift to a different source of influence as the surrounding context changes. If there is anything like a supervisory system it would have to be a multiple allowing dominance to always shift with the changing situation. In other words, there is nothing like a single homunculus in charge. Cognitive skills develop as the mind (as it were) ‘learns’ to cope with these shift smoothly and efficiently without invoking needless resource-hungry, problem-solving conscious processing. Learning to operate smoothly with more than ne language is an excellent way of developing this skill especially since none of this involves the linguistic systems but the very same systems deployed when dealing with non-linguistic tasks.

Video thumbnail: COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF BILINGUALISM PART TWO

[44 mins]

 

B4.  The Homunculus Illusion & the Multilingual Mind

The vast majority of mental activity takes places subconsciously. Myriad ‘decisions’ and ‘predictions’ appear to be taking place beyond our conscious awareness in order for us to be able to to cope with the millions of tasks our mind has to deal with every minute, every second of the day. Given all the possible options that might present themselves at each step of the way, how on earth is chaos avoided? Is there a hidden supervisor that coordinates and regulates all this activity for us? And what about those conscious decisions that we make and expect our subconscious to cooperate with us and carry them out. Is conscious control just an illusion? This presentation uses the Modular Cognition Framework to show exactly what should be involved in answering these questions. Most of the illustration will be based on a typical conflict situation in which bilinguals regularly find themselves. Cheesecake and the issue of free will will make a brief appearance.

Feel free to comment and ask questions….and subscribe to this channel!

[62 mins]

 

B5. Grammar in the Mind: the Role of Affect 

The role of grammar in the mind is an important question because it forces us to distinguish between ‘grammar’ and ‘language’, the latter concept being a much, much  broader concept. This discussion focuses on a specific aspect of grammar in the mind, namely its relationship with emotion and, in particular, positive and negative values. It is generally assumed that learning languages in later in life encounters with a number of obstacles not encountered by native language learners aged 2 -4. One is the simple fact that second language learners already have the vital first language in their heads  already and the new language has share space with it. Aside from that potential obstacle , the fear of making mistakes and failing to learn appears to seriously hamper progress in older learners. Negative attitudes and anxiety feature prominently in Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis put forward in the early 1980s in which he and his associates claimed that these negative emotions act as a filter effectively reducing the ‘input’ from what it is from the point of view of an external observer to something much less than that when it is processed internally by the learner. In other words, it effectively reduces the language to which the learner is actually bring exposed  and deprives the learning mechanism of the information that they need. This hypothesis, which was spelled out in general terms raises some interesting questions about the nature of the processing involved and this will be reformulated here in some detail by exploiting the resources of the MCF in order to examine its implications for language processing and learning and for how ‘grammar’ (to be further defined)  operates alongside all the other cognitive systems that make up the mind.

[59 mins]

B6. How the Mind Creates and Identifies different Language Systems

In this presentation I first consider two ways in which the slippery fuzzy concept of language is formulated more precisely as well as the related way in which different languages are distinguished. I compare ‘language in society – the sociologist’s point of view as opposed to ‘language in the mind’ – the psychologist’s point of view. The bulk of the discussion is then focused on the (MCF-based) mind perspective using the Spanish word problema as a concrete example. I conclude by showing briefly how the two perspectives can be associated using one very particular sociological view of language as an essentially harmful ‘neo-colonialist’ concept.

[40 mins]

 

 

B7. Understanding multimodality in mono- and multi-linguals

What is happening when we simultaneously speak, make gestures, facial impressions and move are heads this way and that? How do our minds produce and integrate all that activity, much of it subconscious? Human communication is carried out in different ways, just one of them being via the medium of language. Much attention has been paid, from various sociological and psychological perspectives, to ways in which different categories of individual use different modalities to communicate meanings to others. It seems to be a good time to understand at a deeper level the cognitive processing underlying such communication and so not only in a more piecemeal manner by looking at particular individuals and selected aspects such as working memory in the context of an experimental study. This therefore means moving the spotlight onto how one mind, as a set of collaborating systems, uses all the cognitive resources at its disposal to communicate with another mind. This provides a good opportunity to apply the MCF (Modular Cognition Framework). In the process of doing so there will be a brief mention of some interesting primatological research showing what humans and their nearest relative, the chimpanzee actually have in common when it comes to communicating with their peers. This will in turn lead on to detailing how humans, that is both monolinguals and multilinguals on the one hand and on the other even the cleverest chimpanzee will differ, both qualitatively and quantitatively when it comes to multimodal communication. The cognitive system that will be placed centre stage in this account will not be the important system(s) responsible for building and activating linguistic (phonological and syntactic) structure for any language but rather the highly developed human conceptual system. This development, it is hypothesised, has arisen due to the synergy between the conceptual and linguistic systems

[71 mins]

 

B8. The Conceptual Hub

Implications for Communication and Multilingual Processing

When discussing communication, whether using language or other means to impart information to others, one human cognitive system stands out as playing the central role. This presentation gives this particular ‘expert system’ its rightfully prominent role. It describes how meanings created in this system (in both the mind and the brain) depend on a ‘communication hub’ in order to connect up with and make meaningful’ many other types of knowledge representations that are stored in other systems. We are talking specifically about the Conceptual System. The human conceptual system is where all communication begins and ends so it is important to establish how it works in the mind and also in the brain whether or not language is involved.

[43 mins]

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