[Paleopsychology]

Signs of Consciousness: Part II

 

Perception and the Interpretation of Signs

 

First it is necessary to consider briefly the semiotics of C. S. Peirce. According to Colapietro (1989), consciousness, for Peirce, was understood as a particular instance of a more general activity of signs that are the subject matter of a correspondingly more general field he called semiotics and hence the study of consciousness is a branch of semiotics. Peircean semiotics is frequently contrasted with Saussurian semiotics. Whereas Saussure (1915/1966) described signs as a dyadic relation between a sign (signifier) and its referent (signified), Peirce described signs in a triadic manner as object-sign-interpretant in which a sign stood for an object and to an interpretant "in some respect or capacity" (See object-sign-interpretant link below). The sign, for Peirce, might be said to be a mediation between the world (objects) and understanding (interpretants) in some practical context.

 

Now a sign has, as such, three references: 1st, it is a sign to some thought which interprets it; 2d, it is a sign for some object to which in that thought it is equivalent; 3d, it is a sign, in some respect or quality, which brings it into connection with its object. (Peirce, 1868b, [1983, p. 223])

 

Peirce's semiotic, in contrast to that of Saussure, must be based on the psychology of perceiving, thinking, and acting as much as on linguistics. For a Peircean semiotic "verbal language is far too narrow a field from which to construct a general theory of signs" (Hoopes, 1991, p. 11). For Peirce, semiotics is a part of natural science, but an emergent part that is culture creating. Peirce's semiotic is not a result, but the very ground, of language, culture, and history. Perceiving, thinking and acting are not, on a Peircean view, different things. Indeed, thinking is but a way of acting and its effects are as real as for any action. Acting effects changes and is understood by the changes it effects. All of these are forms of practical interpretation. Consequently, perceiving, like thinking and acting, is constrained by previous practical interpretations, not only immediately preceding interpretations of the thinking actor but by the previous interpretive actions of the larger culture. They are the effects and effectors of history. From his early writings Peirce argued against intuitionism and the notion of immediate access to understanding. Understanding is, for Peirce, always in signs mediated by further signs. There is no moment when the Cartesian observer apprehends clear and distinct ideas that stand alone on a projection screen in the mind.  

Iconic Signs: Peirce

Peirce classified signs into many types; the icon, index, and symbol being the best known and perhaps most basic types. For the present argument I wish to focus on the iconic sign. The icon is the most basic sign since the iconic sign has a direct connection with its object by being a part, component, or aspect of the object itself. The icon stands for the sign as pars pro toto. The relation is thus that of synecdoche in which a part, component, or an aspect of its object as, for example, the human hand or head may stand for the person or the tusks of an elephant might stand for the elephant. However, by employing the notion of an aspect of an object I mean to convey that aspects such as shape, proportion, concavities, aspect ratios, etc. might serve as iconic signs. 

[object-sign-interpretatant] 

Although any aspect of an object might serve as an iconic sign those aspects that are selected are typically diagnostic of the object in that they serve to differentiate that object, in some respect or practical way, from other objects (e.g., Tversky, 1977). The iconic sign is based then on a direct physical connection of the sign and object. An indexical sign has a less direct connection, that of association. Indexical signs may, however, be even more basic and have historically preceded iconic signs. The indexical sign stands for its object associatively and hence we may describe that association as one of metonymy, as the royal seal might stand for the monarch or the hoof prints may stand for the deer. Finally, the symbol stands for an object by virtue of some convention or, likely more often, by historical evolution of earlier iconic and indexical signs. 

Perception: Gibson

Gibson (1966) was struck by the relevance of the Peircean triadic sign system, which he encountered indirectly through Ogden & Richards (1930), to his own notion of perception. Gibson was a particularly forceful proponent of the notion of perception as a construction based on information pickup from the ambient optic array. Gibson argued that rather than simply acting as a screen upon which images were projected the eye conveyed information to the brain by actively scanning the environment for structural invariants from which percepts are constructed. Arguing from Ogden and Richard's analysis of symbol or word meaning, Gibson, in effect, worked backwards to an equivalent of Peirce's more fundamental iconic sign. Gibson comments "I have suggested . . . that a three-way relation exists between a precept, a stimulus invariant, and its source" (p. 244). Gibson then provides a diagram that creates a parallel between the source and the object (referent in Ogden and Richard's terminology), the percept and the interpretant (thought), and the stimulus invariant and the sign. [source-invariant-percept] 
The notion of stimulus invariant is quite relevant for the notion of diagnostic feature. An invariant property of an object is a property that remains identifiable under a variety of transformations, such as lighting, station point, certain types of partial occlusion, and so on. The information based on the invariants is interpreted in the context of preceding and concurrent interpretations that build, maintain, and transform our understanding of the world. 

Object Identification: Biederman

A more recent theory of perception that may be seen to develop these notions further is Beiderman's (1987) Recognition by Components (RBC) theory of object perception. Beiderman argues that object perception depends upon the extraction of edge information, the parsing of objects at regions of concavity and the determination of components and their relations based on nonaccidental properties and the subsequent identification of the object. Perceptual activity extracts components (called geons by Beiderman) based on nonaccidental properties (i.e., components that are reliable diagnostic features) and matching the components for a positive identification. We will consider Beiderman's RBC theory in greater depth later. 

object-geon-identification 
 

[pce]Psychology, Culture, and Evolution. 

"Venus" Figurines as Iconic Signs

Venus Images 

[Willendorf Venus] 

Willendorf Venus Figurine

[Lamouthe Venus] 

Lamouthe Venus in High Relief

Perhaps one of the most striking cases of iconicity in Paleolithic graphics may be seen in images and icons of women. Distinctive features standing for whole figures may be found in the portrayal of female figures in both mobiliary and parietal graphics. In the very great majority of these figures the distinctive features consist exclusively of breasts, buttocks, bellies and vulvas. These are emphasized and greatly exaggerated, while the extremities: head, arms, hands, legs and feet, are very much diminished or missing Some of the images, such as the famous Willendorf Venus on the left, or the recently rediscovered figure from the Louis Alexandre Jullien Collection, are virtually solely composed of distinctive features: breasts, bellies, buttocks, thighs, and vulvas. Rather than features or superstructures attached to the basic infrastructure of the torso they essentially constitute the object. There is scarcely more to some of the figurines than the sum of their distinctive parts. The fact that many of these figures are often faceless, and sometimes headless, further suggests that these images are signs of woman rather than images of women.  
 
 

Iconic or Indexical?

Bourdois Frieze

Finally, there are many wall carvings of bellies and vulvas (or pubic triangle with vulva), and of just the vulva. Such images are relatively common in parietal graphics. It should be mentioned that Bahn (1986, 1994) notes that many images have "unjustifiably" been identified as vulvas. Certainly some of the images that have been identified as images of vulvas are open to plausible alternative interpretations. One interesting alternative for some is that they are actually hoof prints of horses (i.e., indexical signs). Such indexical signs very likely served as spoor. Delluc & Delluc (1985) provide numerous illustrations of images of animal prints, including those of birds and mammals both prey and predator species. The accompanying figures presented here from the wall of a recently discovered rock shelter at Bourdois seem unlikely candidates for such alternative interpretations. In such cases we may be viewing early examples of pure iconic signs. Rather than images being composed of distinctive features, a few distinctive features, and in some cases, a single distinctive feature constitutes the image. A distinctive feature stands iconically for the object of which it is a part. Perhaps this is one route by which our ancestors achieved the rich repertoire of signs that characterize human culture wherever it is found. I have arranged the figures from more of less complete images to isolated features for expository purposes only. There is no implied claim for any historical development from complete figures to isolated iconic signs. Indeed, under the current hypothesis the reverse trend seems more likely. 

 

 

[pcelogo]Psychology, Culture, and Evolution  

Peirception and Consciousness

Saussurian semiology considers a purely linguistic universe. What is signified is a set of contrasts, of relations of difference, among word-concepts. Meaning is grounded in the set of internal relations among signs, either in sequences of signs within discourse whereby a sign takes its meaning syntagmatically from its location in discourse or, paradigmatically, through association in a given and fixed system of other signs. Saussurian semantics are arbitrary in two important respects. The selection of the particular acoustic sign is arbitrary and, more significantly, the particular constellation of features making up the referent is also arbitrary. On this view we are at liberty to segment and unitize the world in an indeterminate (and arbitrary) number of ways. Thus, not only is the nature of the sign arbitrary but so too is the nature of signified.  

From his earliest writings Peirce argued against intuitionism and the notion of immediate access to understanding. Understanding is, for Peirce, always in signs mediated by further signs. There is no moment when the Cartesian observer apprehends clear and distinct ideas that stand alone on a projection screen in the mind. "From the proposition that every thought must be a sign, it follows that every thought must address itself to some other, must determine some other . . . every thought must be interpreted in another . . . (Peirce, 1868a [1983, pp. 207-208]). Every thought and every perception must then be predicated on some previous thoughts or perceptions. Meaning "lies not in what is actually thought, but in what this thought may be connected with in representation by subsequent thoughts; so that the meaning of a thought is altogether something virtual" (Peirce, 1868b [1983, p. 227]). "Accordingly, just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body we ought to say that we are in thought, and not that thought is in us" (Peirce, 1868b [1983, p. 227, n4]). 

Now a sign has, as such, three references: 1st, it is a sign to some thought which interprets it; 2d, it is a sign for some object to which in that thought it is equivalent; 3d, it is a sign, in some respect or quality, which brings it into connection with its object.(Peirce, 1868b, [1983, p. 223])

A sign may refer to an external object but "as the thought is determined by the previous thought of the same object, it refers to the thing through denoting this previous thought" (Peirce, 1868b, [1983, p. 224]). The facts of consciousness seem now something of an illusion. It is an illusion of the sort that Dennett illustrates by reference to wallpaper noting that conscious fact of the repeated figure on some wallpaper is an illusion. One sees one figure and then another and another in sequence and it "seems" that we are experiencing an over-all pattern when it is something of an illusion, a kind of inference going "beyond the information given" in Bruner's apt phrase. We can only focus on a small portion of the visual field falling on the foveal area of the retina. The rest is indistinct background. 

The sign for Peirce, in contrast to Saussure, is part of a triad serving as a constrained mediation between objects of the world and the interpretants of consciousness. The sign is constrained by non-arbitrary physical structures of the world and of the interpreter. The world is unlabelled but not amorphous. There are real world constraints that preclude strict arbitrariness of interpretation and guide our segmenting. There are also physiological and cultural-historical constraints on the categorization and selection of signs (e.g., Edelman, 1989).  

In summary, the semiotic relation is one in which one object stands as a sign for another object and to a third object, an interpretant, in some respect or capacity. The sign mediates the object of understanding for the interpretant. It is what is taken as the object by the interpretant. Whenever and wherever there is an interpretant there is consciousness. There are many levels of consciousness and perhaps many varieties of consciousness. Perhaps there are as many or more sorts of consciousness as there are species and cultures. Human consciousness is a historical-cultural one and hence human interpretants, that we usually call "understanding" is the understanding of a "historically and culturally effected consciousness" (Gadamer, 1989).  

[Note]There is an interesting implication arising from the historical-cultural aspect of this view of consciousness that is at once methodological and existential. It implies that we are always "on the way to consciousness" and "thrown" as Heidegger expressed this state of always being in media res. On this view "[w]e must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are the things which it does not occur to us can be questioned . . . A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts" (Peirce, 1868b [1983, p. 212]). From a Peircean perspective we are essentially confirmation seekers qualified by sensitive anomaly detectors. This view will go some way to helping understand the development of graphic representation. 

Object Perception as Abduction

Peirce's Three Forms of Logic: Most scientists are very familiar with the distinction between deduction and induction. Rather fewer are familiar with the distinctions between each of these and abduction. Peirce attempts to elucidate each of these inferences by a rather homely if somewhat restrictive syllogisms about beans, color, and beanbags. They are listed below in order of the security of each type of inference making. Deduction is the inference of a result from a rule and a case. Induction is the inference of a rule from a result and a case. Abduction is the inference of a case from a rule and a result. Deduction of results is absolutely certain given the truth of the case and the rule. Induction of rules is rather more uncertain given a case and a result. Still less certain is the abduction of cases from results and rules. Yet all of these inferences must be employed as we live each day and none more frequently than abduction. For every image that falls on our retinas, for every vibration that tickles our cochleae, indeed, for every sensation in our experience we make an abduction or, at least, consider whether to make one. We draw together the scattered results of our experiences to determine something to be the case. 

  • DEDUCTION (TAUTOLOGY) 
    • CASE: THESE BEANS CAME FROM THE BAG 
    • RULE: ALL THE BEANS IN THE BAG ARE WHITE 
    • RESULT: THESE BEANS ARE WHITE 
  • INDUCTION (GENERALIZATION) 
    • RESULT: THESE BEANS ARE WHITE 
    • CASE: THESE BEANS COME FROM THAT BAG 
    • RULE: ALL THE BEANS IN THAT BAG ARE WHITE 
  • ABDUCTION (HYPOTHESIS / DIAGNOSIS) 
    • RULE: THESE BEANS ARE WHITE 
    • RESULT: ALL THE BEANS IN THAT BAG ARE WHITE 
    • CASE: THESE BEANS CAME FROM THAT BAG 

As Peirce noted scientists often conflate induction and abduction. It is also likely the case that abduction is confused with deduction as well. Sherlock Holmes is several times made to say by Conan Doyle that he employs "deduction" to solve the baffling crimes with which he is frequently presented. Yet consider what the detective is faced with; a set of results -- a body, some blood stains, a few strands of thread, cigar ash, or bit of dried mud. These are the scattered signs that there is something that is the case. What is required is neither deduction nor induction, but abduction. Holmes carries out two strategies to determine what it is that is the case. On the one hand he rummages about in the vast storehouse of rules with which he has prepared his mind generating hypotheses. He will draw upon his knowledge of rules about blood coagulation and staining, about varieties of threads and cigar ash, and about the soil types in and about London. Then he will combine them in one plausible and coherent argument. He then sets about search for more results, or clues, that might render his hypothetical case more complete and satisfying or, alternatively, less plausible. At some point, all going well, as it generally does for Holmes; he will have a compelling case that he feels he can act upon. Although Holmes' employment of abduction entertains us as something remarkable, each of us does no less remarkably each time we identify an object in our environment. Each object that falls within our sensorium presents us with results, clues to which we apply some knowledge or rules. This is true whether we are solving murder mysteries, diagnosing illness, or identifying objects. These then are desiderata not only for detectives and physicians but also perceptual systems. These systems must always act as though they were questioning their hypotheses, always sensitive to incoherence. I recorded the following experience a few years ago that seems to me to capture the implicitly "suspicious" nature of perceptual systems. 

I am reading a student's doctoral thesis rather reluctantly this morning. My attention wanders and I gaze out into the garden through the panes of French doors and see a pigeon in the pine tree. It is near noon and they come for their bread crumbs about this time most days. I resume reading but something troubles me. I look up again. The pigeon is still there. But is it a pigeon? I squint and stare. Now I am sure it is not a pigeon. I am not sure what changed my mind. It looks like nothing else but a pigeon, but somehow it is not convincing when I look more closely, carefully, critically as I do now with increasing suspicion. I get up and go through the doors. I see now that it is simply a stump of a branch but I can see what fooled me. The light scaly bark of the branch resembles the light gray back of a pigeon and the end of the stump is blackened suggesting the dark green head. Yet now that I am a bit closer, even though I can "see" the resemblance, it seems an act of considerable imagination to see a pigeon in this rather shapeless stump. Yet back there in my study it was, for a brief few moments, not only effortless but compelling.

Thus, even though a clear and confident decision had been made, it was in no regard final. This seems to me to cast some doubt on the claim that hypotheses must be provisional, or tentative, or framed as questions. In some fundamental sense that is true -- they must always be open, and highly responsive, to contradiction. Yet perhaps we do not need to wear our doubts on our sleeves, as it were. Hypotheses, certainly the hypotheses of object identification are functional decisions underlying essential actions. It seems to me there must be commitment to hypotheses, a positivity to our object identifications that leads to decisive action. Once an hypothesis is seized upon we must have routines to confirm that hypothesis. Perhaps we are confirmation seekers but, at the same time, anomaly detectors. The advantage of confirmation biases is that they give us some guidance about what to look for and where to look. Positive hypotheses tell us where to focus our attention and what to explore. It is only with special training and considerable ingenuity that scientists are able to "test" hypotheses by setting them up for a fall. Perhaps the only practical corrective to the admitted problems of confirmation bias is a remarkable sensitivity to anomalies. Confirmation can be planned. Disconfirmation just happens. 

That morning when I went into the garden I was not seeking to confirm an alternative hypothesis, for I had none. I think I was trying to allay a suspicion. I was driven by the detection of some anomaly for which I had no hypothesis of which I was aware. I suggest that some anomaly had activated, or reactivated my confirmation seeking. However, redeployment of attention, orientation, eye and head movements, and finally locomotion and closer inspection forced me to change hypotheses and ultimately to confirm a new hypothesis. 

[pce]Psychology, Culture, and Evolution.  

The Search for Positive Identification

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape of a camel? 

Polonius: By th' mass and t'is, like a camel indeed.

Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. 

Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. 

Hamlet: Or, like a whale? 

Polonius: Very like a whale. 

Gibson stressed the activity of the perceiver in extracting invariants from the environment. This is less obvious in the case of Beiderman who is mainly interested in very rapid, low level, bottom-up processing of coarsely textured objects. However, I develop a macro-level identificatory model which incorporates the basic features of Beiderman's model. Of particular interest to the present is the processing of ambiguous, impoverished, or perceptually degraded presentations of objects, such as are commonly encountered in the real world. Simple signs are, of course, almost always polysemous. One of the basic tasks of any organism is to make pragmatic interpretations of objects and events of the world. One of the more practical as well as basic tasks is the positive identification of objects that have a bearing on our activity and survival. On the premise that objects are identified through their components or combinations of components as distinctive or diagnostic features or iconic signs the organism must have a repertoire of strategies for detecting and interpreting those signs. The most basic of these strategies are described in Beiderman's model; edge extraction, detection of nonaccidental properties, parsing, interpretation of components and their relations. For simple objects under ideal conditions and for coarse-grained decisions such as those studied by Beiderman, this process may occur in a simple scan of the environment. However, under conditions when a positive identification is not forthcoming then, within the constraints of security and time-energy budgets, a series of macro-level strategies may be brought into play, such as, internal attentional shifts, head and eye movements, locomotion toward and around the object, direct engagement with the object through exploratory investigation and play. With increasing engagement with the object, additional signs are detected (See Figure) and their interpretation is biased by the interpretation of previous signs. 
 

[attention-orient-investigate] 
Any or all of these activities may entail the recursive zooming in on previously parsed regions within which further analysis of edge extraction, detection of nonaccidental properties, and so on. Although the model assumes that there is a general bias to select viewpoint invariant features for object identification, positive identification of complex objects under degraded conditions may require viewing from more than one station point. Each of the macro-activities activities may thus potentially reveal further features or signs and further interpretation leading to a positive identification through locomotion (i.e., changing the station point) or manipulation. This flexibility in viewpoints means that there may be canonical orientations for the object as a whole and for particular components or combinations of components. Thus, positive identification, especially under degraded conditions of viewing may sometimes require more than one station point. 
 

[object identification model] 

 
For the purposes of the present argument I need to focus on the transitions to and between exploration and play. As Hutt (1966) has shown investigation and playful and instrumental activities serve complementary functions. Complex novel objects are, depending upon internal state, time-energy constraints, and the availability of a secure base (cf Bally, Fagen), often intensely scrutinized by primates, especially humans of all ages. Investigation, that is, the zooming in on and examination and manipulation of features continues until all evident components have been elucidated after which the object may be abandoned, engaged instrumentally, or manipulated in a playful manner. In the latter cases, the organism brings to bear on the object the instrumental repertoire of the individual transforming it in some way by construction, destruction, consumption, etc. However, if, in the course of so engaging the object its identification becomes problematized by the discovery of a new feature the identificatory repertoire becomes reengaged. Hutt (1966) illustrated this in a study in which children were allowed to investigate a complex novel object over a series of session. As the children became familiar with the object their investigatory activity decline and their playful and instrumental activities increased. However, midway through the series she revealed a new component (sound) of the object. Playful and instrumental activity ceased and investigative activities increased dramatically. As these new features became incorporated into the identification of the object investigation declined over sessions and instrumental and playful activity gradually recovered over subsequent sessions. Thus most mammals, especially humans, have an elaborate repertoire for elaborating cues for the identification of ambiguous objects. 

There are few scenes more commonplace as that of a child watching clouds drift by and seeing a rabbit, a clown's face, or a duck's head. Yet the game of seeing things in clouds is a curious activity for all its banality. It seems obvious that it is a by-product of a very active organism, one that is constantly interpreting and making sense out of the world: one that never develops a fixed repertoire of interpretations, one that is constantly open to ambiguity, and yet, dwelling on it forces it into something familiar and positive. Seeing animal figures in clouds is a paradigm example of this as and is currently reflected in the tendency to identify computer generated fractal images with fantastic animal names, such as dragons. In the last one hundred and fifty years the ink-blot test associated with the name Rorschach has become another paradigm for our ability to interpret ambiguous images. The ink-blot method was used in the eighteenth century by the landscape artist Alexander Cozens as a method for stimulating originality in landscape painting. Curiously, although in the psychoanalytic context one may see mainly sexual images, Cozens and his students saw mainly landscapes. After all, they were landscape painters, looking for inspiration. Justinius Kerner, another painter who used ink-blots for inspiration, was also a good nineteenth century spiritualist and naturally saw mainly ghosts in his ink-blots (Gombrich, 1977). The notion that such imaginative interpretation of ambiguous lines and patterns was the impetus to art and image making has been popular since first formulated by Leon Batista Alberti five hundred years ago (Gombrich, 1977). Paleolithic people likely saw images in clouds, in surface cracks in rock shelters and caves, and in the shadows cast on those uneven walls by the setting sun or flickering fires. However, it is necessary, in order to turn imaginative interpretation into productive images, that these interpretations be amplified by addition and subtraction, as Alberti put it. Imagination must be supported by action; detailed, skilled, purposive action. In all of the instantiations of the Alberti hypothesis this critical question has remained unanswered. The question is; "How did human action become productively tied to human imagination?" 

Part III 

[pce]Psychology, Culture, and Evolution.