Viktor Kewenig - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Papers by Viktor Kewenig
Humans learn and process language in complex and dynamic contexts, involving simultaneous process... more Humans learn and process language in complex and dynamic contexts, involving simultaneous processing of connected speech, faces, bodies, objects and including, at times, touch, odor, and taste. How words and their associated concepts are encoded in the brain during real world processing is unclear. We investigated the representational structure of conceptual encoding in a naturalistic setting and asked to what extent brain responses dynamically depend on context. Across different contexts, we find evidence that concrete and abstract concepts encode experience-based information in roughly differential sets of brain regions. However, these differences reduce when contextual variance is considered. Specifically, the response profile of abstract concepts becomes more concrete-like when they are processed in context highly related to their meaning. Conversely, when context is unrelated to a given concrete concept, the activation pattern resembles more that of abstract conceptual processi...
AI Love You, 2019
Robots already assist humans in a wide spectrum of domains. As technology evolves, social interac... more Robots already assist humans in a wide spectrum of domains. As technology evolves, social interaction with robots will become more frequent and propagate into the most private social spheres. In his seminal book “Love and Sex with Robots”, Levy (Love and sex with robots. New York, NY: Harper; 2007) sets out his reasons for being optimistic about this development. His thought-provoking arguments have been opposed on feminist and ethical grounds. Feminists argue that sex robots reinforce gender inequalities. Ethical concerns centre around the outside and the inside of robots. First, it is argued that human autonomy is violated in human–robot relationships because robots cannot be part of reciprocal loving relationships. Second, it is worried that we will enter a “Slavery 2.0” if we program conscious beings according to our needs and preferences. I argue that with a certain conceptual understanding of the mind, these objections can be met. There will certainly be good reasons for resis...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2018
Child directed language has been characterized by exaggerated prosody which can serve multiple fu... more Child directed language has been characterized by exaggerated prosody which can serve multiple functions including highlighting properties of meaning via iconicity. Iconic prosody may help language acquisition by bringing properties of displaced or unknown referents to the language learner's "mind's eye" or facilitating the acquisition of abstract features such as "direction", or "speed". We investigate iconic prosody in semi-naturalistic caregiver-child interactions. 50 caregivers were asked to talk to their child (2-4 years) about a set of toys either known or unknown to the child, and either present or absent from the interaction. In a first analysis, we included instances of iconic prosody as subjectively coded. In a second analysis, we looked at acoustic modulations for a set of seed words. In both analyses, we found that caregivers made use of iconic prosody more when talking about unknown or displaced objects, pointing to a neglected role...
Humans learn and process language in complex and dynamic contexts, involving simultaneous process... more Humans learn and process language in complex and dynamic contexts, involving simultaneous processing of connected speech, faces, bodies, objects and including, at times, touch, odor, and taste. How words and their associated concepts are encoded in the brain during real world processing is unclear. We investigated the representational structure of conceptual encoding in a naturalistic setting and asked to what extent brain responses dynamically depend on context. Across different contexts, we find evidence that concrete and abstract concepts encode experience-based information in roughly differential sets of brain regions. However, these differences reduce when contextual variance is considered. Specifically, the response profile of abstract concepts becomes more concrete-like when they are processed in context highly related to their meaning. Conversely, when context is unrelated to a given concrete concept, the activation pattern resembles more that of abstract conceptual processi...
AI Love You, 2019
Robots already assist humans in a wide spectrum of domains. As technology evolves, social interac... more Robots already assist humans in a wide spectrum of domains. As technology evolves, social interaction with robots will become more frequent and propagate into the most private social spheres. In his seminal book “Love and Sex with Robots”, Levy (Love and sex with robots. New York, NY: Harper; 2007) sets out his reasons for being optimistic about this development. His thought-provoking arguments have been opposed on feminist and ethical grounds. Feminists argue that sex robots reinforce gender inequalities. Ethical concerns centre around the outside and the inside of robots. First, it is argued that human autonomy is violated in human–robot relationships because robots cannot be part of reciprocal loving relationships. Second, it is worried that we will enter a “Slavery 2.0” if we program conscious beings according to our needs and preferences. I argue that with a certain conceptual understanding of the mind, these objections can be met. There will certainly be good reasons for resis...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2018
Child directed language has been characterized by exaggerated prosody which can serve multiple fu... more Child directed language has been characterized by exaggerated prosody which can serve multiple functions including highlighting properties of meaning via iconicity. Iconic prosody may help language acquisition by bringing properties of displaced or unknown referents to the language learner's "mind's eye" or facilitating the acquisition of abstract features such as "direction", or "speed". We investigate iconic prosody in semi-naturalistic caregiver-child interactions. 50 caregivers were asked to talk to their child (2-4 years) about a set of toys either known or unknown to the child, and either present or absent from the interaction. In a first analysis, we included instances of iconic prosody as subjectively coded. In a second analysis, we looked at acoustic modulations for a set of seed words. In both analyses, we found that caregivers made use of iconic prosody more when talking about unknown or displaced objects, pointing to a neglected role...