The Role of Belief in Cognition
There are
working, episodic and semantic memories in our brain among others. It is not very clear whether these are
completely seperate regions in our brain.
They can be easily detected functionally.
Working
memory is the memory we use when we are actually thinking or talking. Episodic memory holds the information related
to events and when/where they occur.
Semantic memory holds the abtracted concepts/knowledge.
An event
first happens in the working memory, then it is recorded in the episodic
memory. If there is a knowledge that can
be deducted, it is recorded in the semantic memory.
The semantic
memory is specially organised so that generalization and instantiation can be
done automatically. For example we do
not think too much to say an eagle flies.
In the semantic tree, eagle is
connected to bird and bird is connected to
flying animal and that to animal. How
the information is stored in our brain is possibly related with the formation
of connections during the perception and further processing. It is not a
surprise that categorical subject test have shown regions close to the
perception/subject specialization.
When some
concept is being inserted to the semantic memory, an appropriate location in
the semantic tree is searched. Actually
this may be an innate procedure that is done automatically while forming new
connections. The crux of the issue is
how it is established that a connection of the eagle to the bird occur.
The context
of the word eagle may establish the relation of eagle to bird if the context of
the bird is similar to the eagle. The
more the contexts' similarity the better.
The better what? We answer this what question as: Belief.
The more the
new item, the new leaf fits into the semantic tree the more it is confident. On the other hand, the more confident the
leafs of a semantic tree, the more confident it is.
Schachter
says in his 'Memory, Brain and Belief', "I use the term 'belief' when I
use the attribution of truth value to a particular thought content, either
percieved of recalled."
The semantic
tree holds not only the data items but also their belief factors. Harold
Pashler says in his 'Encyclopedia of the Mind', "An alternative answer to
the question of what justifies memory beliefs turns on the idea that memory is
preservative not just respect to the content of beliefs but also with respect
to their justification".
Belief helps
us to feel our thoughts.
Belief is how we sense our brain.
Belief is how we sense our brain.
Ali R+ SARAL
