Lundh 1983 Mind and meaning Towards a theory of the human mind considered as a system of meaning structures (original) (raw)

Lundh, L.-G., 1983. Mind and meaning. Towards a theory of the human mind considered as a system of meaning structures. Acta Univ. Ups. Studia Psychologica Upsaliensia 10, 205 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-1487-7. Various theoretical approaches to the psychological problem of meaning are analysed and criticized, and a theory of meaning structures is introduced and successively elaborated. A person's meaning structures are said to constitute his or her world-the world as it has meaning for the person. The system of meaning structures has a structural orga,1ization, but also a quantitative, affective aspect. Structurally, it has extension and intension. "Extension" refers to the world as it is differentiated and categorized by the person's meaning structures; "intension" refers to these structures considered as mental structures, involving a temporal integration of events, e.g. in the form of expectations. The quantitative, affective aspect is seen in the fact that an object or action may have more or less meaning for the person. "Memory" refers either to the meaning structures as such ("semantic memory"), or to a reactivation of the constellation of meaning structures which were activated at the time of the original event ("episodic memory"), or to the time during which activated meaning structures remain in an active state ("short-term memory"). It is argued that there are various kinds of short-term memory-various levets of activation. One such levet is the conscious level-the levet of selective attention, with its limited capacity. It is argued that meaning structures develop prior to conscious awareness, and that the activation of meaning structures goes on continuously at a preattentive levet. Conscious perception and conscious thought are the result of selectively attending to some portion of what goes on at this preattentive levet. The development of conscious attention makes possible a conceptualization of the person's meaning structures, whereby the extension is transformed into conceptual structures, and the intension into propositional structures. A person's concep tual structures define his "logical space", i.e. the thoughts which he is capable of having. A person's propositional structures represent his habitual ways of thinking-certain "paths" in his logical space. Finally, some methodological implications of the theory are discussed.