1 Discussion of: Discourse Referents and External Anchors in Developmental Thought by Josef Perner Alan Garnham Psychology University of Sussex

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 2 Karttunen, 1969 Karttunen’s 1969 paper, published in Jim McCawley’s 1976 “Linguistic Underground” volume of Syntax and Semantics, was a precursor of modern theories of reference in both formal semantics (e.g. DRT) and cognitive science (e.g. Mental Models Theory)

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 3 Hence,…. My own interest in Discourse Referents! Mental models contain representations of entities that may stand in various relations to each other and to actual entities. Compare discourse referents and external anchors

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 4 Karttunen, 1969 / 1976…. Uses the notion of discourse referent to analyse a number of linguistic phenomena, In particular.. The logic of complement constructions Presupposition He developed accounts of both of these in more detail later.

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 5 However,…. The point of more general interest… As noted by McCawley in his introduction to Karttunen’s paper …is the idea of indefinite NPs as both binding variables (asserting existence - as in Russell’s account) - AND introducing “constants” (DRs) that can be referred to again

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 6 Mental Models, DRs and DRT Psychological factors, findings etc, may constrain psychological theories based on Mental Models containing DRs. BUT, it is hard to deny that discourse is about things in the real world, imaginary worlds and abstract domains, and that there must be a good deal of veracity in the representations of them. Entities are represented as having various properties and from various “perspectives”.

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 7 Computational Theory I have argued elsewhere (Garnham, Johnson-Laird Festschrift) that the Mental Models theory of text processing is a computational theory in the sense of David Marr - the result of a logical task analysis of the processes involved. Some of Karttunen’s article can be read in a similar way THIS is what a theory of referent tracking MUST be like

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 8 Perner’s Analysis The interesting and crucial point here… Which is not a major issue in showing how a (psychological version of) a theory based around DRs can be applied to adult “language, inference and consciousness” …is that the “Defining Label” plays a role the importance of which only becomes apparent when certain other (metarepresentional) processes on DRs don’t occur. Defining Labels also define perspectives on entities

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 9 Adults and Identity Statements Not problematic for adults! We make use of known identities to group information in memory Anderson and Bower (1973) George Washington had good health The first president of the US had good health Not distinguished in memory

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 10 Anderson and Hastie (1974) Not-previously-known identities James Bartlett is the lawyer James Bartlett rescued the kitten The lawyer rescued the kitten If identities are learned first, verification of second and third sentence is equally quick, no matter which was presented If presented later, actually seen sentences are verified quicker

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 11 Semantic Networks Anderson’s theoretical position (at the time - early 1970s) was based on semantic network-like representations (Anderson and Bower, HAM) Nodes in semantic networks don’t need to have the structure that DR-based representations have Perner’s arguments indicate constraints on the representations

Paris July 2007 Fallibilities, Illusion and Metacognition ESF Eurocore Programme Consciousness in a natural and a cultural context 12 And in Conclusion… A major advantage of Perner’s account of is that is provides a theoretical underpinning for a wide variety of developmental changes that appear at a similar time. The account of problems with identity statements confirms an “unexpected” prediction of this kind of account