The nature of cognitive artefacts 131
pictorial forms and their constitutive W role to the accomplishment of cognitive
functions, and by then exploring the interplay between cognitive artefacts and
informational environments on a more general level.
Being guided by pictures
Pictorial forms are a fairly elementary kind of cognitive artefact that may help us
to a clearer view of the relation between natural and artificial cognitive resources.
Pictorial forms function both on the individual level and on the collective level,
in a partly analogous fashion to language. Without making a claim for a genuine theory of pictorial representation – or anything close to the paradigms set by
Charles Sanders Peirce (1998) and Nelson Goodman (1976), I will understand
pictures in a wide sense while keeping this concept distinct from the notion of
images which, for including abstract mathematical mappings, is not necessarily
perception related. A picture may be a photograph as well as a painting or drawing, but it may also be a visual presentation or representation of a more abstract
and formal kind, such as a pictogram, a graph or a map. A picture may also be of
the moving kind, such as a film or an animated simulation.
It would be difficult to provide solid empirical evidence for the plausible claim
that one constituent S of the evolution of human cognitive capacities lies in the
creation and use of pictures, and that it does so in a similar or even related way to
what Terrence Deacon (1997) claims for language (as discussed towards the end
of Chapter 7). If one sees the essential connection between language and cognitive
capacities in that co-evolutionary process to lie in the evolution of symbolic reference, and if symbolic reference is to be understood in the Peircean sense here, as
distinguished from iconic and indexical reference, pictorial and linguistic forms
would prima facie appear as quite distinct affairs anyway:
1
symbolic reference is
based on conventions and implicit norms of usage rather than qualitative similarities or causal connection respectively, whereas pictures would seem to be iconic
rather than symbolic in referential character. Notably, however, pictorial forms, in
their broad variety, encompass the entire range of the Peircean iconic, indexical
and symbolic modes of reference, where even iconic reference may partly rely on
conventions and implicit norms, and where symbolic reference is accomplished in
a partly different and less articulated fashion than for language.
If the pictorial forms in question are supposedly realistic or, in Peircean terms,
iconic representations of natural scenes or familiar objects, they can be presumed to
capture and contain some of the natural information for perception that is, has been or
hypothetically could have been present in the agents’ environment. Even if the scenes
or objects are idealised or fictitious, and even if they could not possibly exist, recognition of the type of thing depicted will be possible, as long as they are provided with
some recognisable characteristics of real-world objects or scenes. One will recognise
a fantasy picture of a band of unicorns roaming the grassy hills of a red-skied planet
shortly before the setting of its two suns not least because the analogy to bands of
horses roaming the grassy hills somewhere on Earth near sunset – things that one is
likely to perceptually encounter in a real environment – is strong and clear enough.
pictorial forms and their constitutive W role to the accomplishment of cognitive
functions, and by then exploring the interplay between cognitive artefacts and
informational environments on a more general level.
Being guided by pictures
Pictorial forms are a fairly elementary kind of cognitive artefact that may help us
to a clearer view of the relation between natural and artificial cognitive resources.
Pictorial forms function both on the individual level and on the collective level,
in a partly analogous fashion to language. Without making a claim for a genuine theory of pictorial representation – or anything close to the paradigms set by
Charles Sanders Peirce (1998) and Nelson Goodman (1976), I will understand
pictures in a wide sense while keeping this concept distinct from the notion of
images which, for including abstract mathematical mappings, is not necessarily
perception related. A picture may be a photograph as well as a painting or drawing, but it may also be a visual presentation or representation of a more abstract
and formal kind, such as a pictogram, a graph or a map. A picture may also be of
the moving kind, such as a film or an animated simulation.
It would be difficult to provide solid empirical evidence for the plausible claim
that one constituent S of the evolution of human cognitive capacities lies in the
creation and use of pictures, and that it does so in a similar or even related way to
what Terrence Deacon (1997) claims for language (as discussed towards the end
of Chapter 7). If one sees the essential connection between language and cognitive
capacities in that co-evolutionary process to lie in the evolution of symbolic reference, and if symbolic reference is to be understood in the Peircean sense here, as
distinguished from iconic and indexical reference, pictorial and linguistic forms
would prima facie appear as quite distinct affairs anyway:
1
symbolic reference is
based on conventions and implicit norms of usage rather than qualitative similarities or causal connection respectively, whereas pictures would seem to be iconic
rather than symbolic in referential character. Notably, however, pictorial forms, in
their broad variety, encompass the entire range of the Peircean iconic, indexical
and symbolic modes of reference, where even iconic reference may partly rely on
conventions and implicit norms, and where symbolic reference is accomplished in
a partly different and less articulated fashion than for language.
If the pictorial forms in question are supposedly realistic or, in Peircean terms,
iconic representations of natural scenes or familiar objects, they can be presumed to
capture and contain some of the natural information for perception that is, has been or
hypothetically could have been present in the agents’ environment. Even if the scenes
or objects are idealised or fictitious, and even if they could not possibly exist, recognition of the type of thing depicted will be possible, as long as they are provided with
some recognisable characteristics of real-world objects or scenes. One will recognise
a fantasy picture of a band of unicorns roaming the grassy hills of a red-skied planet
shortly before the setting of its two suns not least because the analogy to bands of
horses roaming the grassy hills somewhere on Earth near sunset – things that one is
likely to perceptually encounter in a real environment – is strong and clear enough.