Re: RT list: Fw: Cognitive effects/Contextual effects

This treatment of cognitive and contextual effects seems to eliminate
the impact that perceptual salience (contextual effect) may have on
cognitive processing.

At 11:52 AM 29/01/2007, Dan Sperber wrote:
>It is true we now use "cognitive effects" rather than "contextual
>effects". This is a terminological rather than a substantive change.
>"Contextual effect" has to be defined or else it does not evoke any
>clear meaning, not even a rough one, in most readers. "Cognitive
>effect" on the other hand can be roughly understood (as something
>worth achieving) even without a precise idea of what it might
>consist of. So, when we have to explain in a few paragraphs the
>basic tenets of the theory, " cognitive effect" yield more
>cognitive/contextual effect for less effort than "contextual
>effect". Still, it is hard to imagine any cognitive effect, or at
>least any cognitive effect of a non-negligible magnitude, that would
>not satisfy our definintion of contextual effect (i.e. some effect
>that follows neither from the input alone or from the context alone,
>but that follows from the union of the input and the context). I
>hope this helps.
>
>Cheers, Dan
>
>
>
>
>At 19:14 29/01/2007, Anabella Niculescu wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Dear All,
>>
>>I know that my question may seem really childish, but I cannot
>>gather myself to discover which is the actual term.
>>
>>What I mean is: I know that initially (1986), RT used
>>either cognitive effects or contextual effects. Then it gave up
>>one of those and now uses the other one.
>>
>>Though I have RT books and articles all over, I cannot be certain
>>of anything now.
>>
>>Thanks for this.
>>
>>Anabella
>
>
>Bill McKellin mcke@interchange.ubc.ca
>Dept. of Anthropology phone 604-822-2756
>University of British Columbia fax 604 822-6161
>Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
>V6T 1Z1
Received on Thu Feb 15 22:04:39 2007