Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Human Learning and Cognition

Fall 2003

Questions - Week 12 Terry, Chapter 10 and Fauconnier Chapter 4

Terry (2000) Chapter 10 - Storage and Retrieval

1. How long is the long-term memory and what is the nature of storage? (Kim, Ki-woong)

Not all memory is good and not all forgetting is bad. Then ,What is forgetting?

It is construed as either the actual loss of information from storage or a loss of access to information that is still in storage. However, the latter is support by the contemporary views. Then ,what causes forgetting to occur? Time of decay and Interference play a part. In other words, memory weakens and fade overtime and proactive interference and retroactive interference affects memory loss. Proactive interference is memories preceding the target memory affects and retroactive interference means memories formed after the target memory affects. There are counter-evidence on the time effect. Say, according to Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924), sleeping enhances memory.

Duration of memory is also important issue here. Ebbinghaus's curve & other researches focuses on rapid forgetting. However, Inability to recall is not a loss of memory? There is still memory trace! For instance, material that could not be recalled could be relearned quicker. Concerning long-term memory for naturalistically learned material, Bahrick(1975) quoted repeated exposure and spaced repetition as important variables. There are some controlled studies to support this.In the study of fifty years of memories for high school classmates, name-face matching showed no loss of information out to 14 years post-graduation. Bahrick's cross-sectional approach on people that graduated different number of years on Spanish and Algibra showed initial level of acquisition is primary determination. For the study of memory for TV shows, recent TV shows got correct responses o f 70%, while 8 to 15 years TV shows 55to 60%. Permanent memory hypothesis supported by Loftus and Loftus(1980)'s survey shows 80% everything we learn is permanently stored in mind. Penfield's simulated patients with electrode in the temporal lobe like video playing. However the limitation is that some successful stories cannot tell all

The second issue to be discussed here is In what form memory is stored or models

According to psychological models of semantic memory, items are organized hierarchically linked together. Basic assumption is that general knowledge in semantic memory is common among individuals sharing the knowledge and personal memory is idiosyncratic. Based on this, two models are followed ,traditional hierarchical model and Alternative model falls into this category. Another point of view is neuro-psychological disassociations. In other words changes in the activity at the synapses between neurons acffect memory stores and retrieval.

According to the Semantic network theories, items are interconnected via association, relationship, pathways and Connections can be strong or weak in the distance of node and spreading activation is involved. According to Collins & Quillian Model, general item at a higher level and restricted & limited items are placed at a subordination. Its organization is based on T-F responding time and forming trees. In alternative model, items are distanced depending on frequency and contiguity in experience with verification and it is not hierarchical. In this process, the activation or priming manipulation is happening. Say, before present the target word(collie) is represented, this sting of letters a word is verified and the word of the dog primes the word accelerate this verifying process as prming stimulus. Gender sterotype is a good example. The word doctor helps presenting the target pronoun of he. However , there is a limitation that activation weakens across the networks and fan effects. Fan effects are happening in which an item with fewer associations will have its activation less divided and so the connected items will be more strongly primed. Say ,forgetting familiar and well-known names. Cross-fan effect is interference when the same factors are shared by several individuals

According to the idea of neurological dissociations, there are modular approaches in which there are hypothetically separate memory modules in the brain, each underlying different sorts of knowledge(Shalice 1988). Semantic memory may have separate memory modules for words of different grammatical classes such as nouns and verbs.

In Caramazza and Hillis studied the patient response. For the sentence of there was a crack in the mirror, he could read it. However, he could not read the sentence of Do not crack the nuts in here

2. What are some factors that influence retrieval and what makes a good retrieval cue? (Yoon, Songwon)

Much more is learned than is typically recalled. At this point, we can distinguish between the available memories that are in storage and the accessible memories that we can actually recall. According to Tulving and Pearlstone (1966), some of the "forgetting during the initial attempt to recall" was due to memories that existed but could not be retrieved. The idea of retrieval failure suggests an interpretation of forgetting that differs from a theory that memories spontaneously decay and disappear from storage. The three main factors that affect retrieval are: the distinctiveness of the memory, practice at retrieving the memory, and the presence of effective retrieval cues.

Distinctiveness:

Events that are distinctive, flashbulb memories are well recalled and in the isolation effect, an item that differs from the remaining items in a list is better recalled. Why are distinctive events better retrieved? One explanation is that their retrieval cues uniquely target a single memory. By contrast, a retrieval cue might be too broad, potentially retrieving many items.

Practice at retrieving the memory, Testing effects:

Retrieval is facilitated by previous retrieval. Taking a test shortly after studying is better retrieved than to test retention some time later like studying the week later. This is called testing effects. The additional study primarily benefits information that is not recalled after 1^st studying. The effects of prior testing are greater if the same test is given both times. Semb and colleagues (1993) had students take an end of course exam after completing a psychology course, one for 4 months later and the other 11 months later, the 11 months later test score was 10 percent higher and more difficult prior testing is also more effective. Glover (1989) found an initial free-recall test produced better retrieval later than did an initial cued recall test, which in turn was better than an initial recognition test. More recall on the retest given later is more effective. Hypermnesia means remembering that actually improves over successive attempts at reproduction of the studied material and this is the opposite of the forgetting that we expect to occur over time or amnesia. Erdely and Kleinbard (1978) tested 60 object line drawings for study 20 times over the following week. Whereas just over 26 items were recalled on the first test, 38 were recalled on the final tests. Bahrick and Hall (1993) reported hypermnesia occurred for other test materials including recall of general information, foreign-language vocabulary, and names. From one test to another, some items are indeed forgotten but the number of recovered items on successive test exceeded the number lost, leaving hypermnesia as a net gain. Why would people remember more and not less across successive tests? First additional test provide more time to retrieve and second during free recall they prompt their memories with subjective or self generated cues. People think of one thing or another to help themselves remember because everything is interconnected in the brain. Self-prompting cues vary across successive tests. Different things come to mind at different times so the later cues tap items that were not adequately cued on the earlier tests. The capacity for additional recall of material across a series of test has implications for eyewitness testimony. The assumption that the first recall is the most valid and anything remembered later is suspect is not right because additional accurate information can be elicited through repeated recall attempts.

The presence of effective retrieval cues-What makes a good retrieval cue?:

There are two kinds of cues: Cues that have strong preexisting associations to the target memory and Cues that were encoded along with the to be recalled item when it entered into memory

Associations: cues that are connected to the target by strong associations and have strong preexisting associations to the target memory, e.g. target word-sky, blue-strong association, clear-weak association. Classifying, grouping, collocation and semantic meaning like antonyms and synonyms are important to make strong association and retrieve better when we learn lexical items.

Encoding specificity: Cues encoded along with to be recalled item when it entered into memory. The best retrieval cues are those that were also present and encoded with the target. Recall is facilitated when encoding and retrieval condition are matched. Matching cues between encoding and retrieval are called Thlving's encoding specificity principle. Tulving and Thompson (1973) varied cues present at the time of studying and at testing. The target word was "light" and the cue was "head" that is weak associated to the target word and at the test "head and light" was better retrieved than "dark and light" even though they are strongly associated. Why? Target words had been studied earlier. "Light" had initially been encoded in the context of "head" rather than of "dark". Why then did Bahrick find strong associates were better than weak? That's because in the absence of an explicit context the participants spontaneously encoded the targets. Such findings show the reversal of the usual superiority of recognition over recall test, for example, recognition test such as multiple-choice answer with cues vs. free recall such as an essay question superiority without cues.

Contextual learning: Remembering will be better if the cues present at encoding are also available at retrieval. Contextual cues are sometimes overshadowed by more explicit retrieval cues and interaction of the context with the to be remembered items may be required. Contextual cues of time and place, for example, English learning only in the classroom and English use out of class and taking the same seat in the class.

State-dependent learning: State-dependent learning refers to better recall when testing occurs in the same drug-influenced state was present during learning. A drug-state-dependency effect: Recall was better in the two groups in which the drug conditions at testing matched those present while studying.

Mood-dependent recall: Stimuli arise from moods and emotional states, and that these mood stimuli can enter into associations. Mood-specific recall can have implications for depression and other affective disorders. Being depressed may lead to the retrieval of mostly sad memories, which only perpetuates the depressive mood.

The encoding-retrieval paradigm suggests that memory can be present but not always accessible to recall. We should not overemphasize the magnitude of these effects for several reasons. First a number of studies have failed to find state dependent or context-dependent effects. Second, state-dependent effects are more often found on recall test but not on recognition test, or not with tests presenting explicit retrieval cues. The contextual cues are helpful when memory is poorly integrated and the participant therefore has few spontaneously produced retrieval cues to access the memory. Third, contextual stimuli need to become connected to the target material or they will not facilitate retrieval. Not all contextual cues, moods, or drug-induced states necessarily become associated with the target. Passive contextual stimuli and active stimuli interact with the target information during encoding.

Additional notes from Anderson, J. R. (2000) Learning and memory: An integrated approach. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The retrieval process logically follows the acquisition and retention processes. Retrieval is perhaps the most critical process in that often information can be in memory and yet not retrieved. People may never truly forget memories but rather may just lose access to them. Anderson (2000) reviews the three main approaches to how memories can be unavailable for recall in one situation and yet show their influences in another situation. People's memory performance depends on the type of memory test and its relationship to the conditions at study. Research on the relationship between explicit measures of memory was an important topic in the 1960s and 1970s, to be replaced by research on interactions between study and test in the 1970s and 1980s, and in turn to be replaced by research on implicit memories in the 1980s and 1990s. As understanding of one topic was reached, attention shifted to the next topic.

The relationship among Explicit Measures of Recall

Although memory is inherently variable, some ways of testing it are more sensitive than others. The most common example of this situation is the different performance people display on recognition versus recall tests. For instance, students almost always claim that multiple-choice questions are easier than fill-in-the blank questions.

Much of memory failure can be attributed to loss of access to appropriate retrieval cues. In list memory, both the word and the list context are available as retrieval cues in a recognition test, whereas only the list context is available in a free recall test. The generate-recognize theory of free recall assumes that subjects use various strategies for generating words and then try to recognize words that they generate. The pegword method and the method of loci facilitate recall by helping to generate candidates for recognition. Recall tests can produce better memory performance than recognition tests when they provide better cues for retrieval.

To sum up, recognition is better than recall. Although this phenomenon could be attributed to the greater number of cues a recognition memory test usually provides, there are complications. For instance, subjects can use mnemonic strategies to generate additional cues and so improve their performance in free recall. Just how well a subject does on a recognition test depends on the context cues in which the test is given and the difficulty of the distractors. Thus, the exact level of performance in recall and recognition tests can depend on many factors.

Interactions between Study and Test

How well people perform on a test of memory depends not only on the conditions of test but also on the relationship of these conditions to the conditions of learning. Being placed back in the context in which these memories were learned makes them available again. Such interactions may underlie some of forgetting in that with the passage of time people may lose access to cues that had allowed them to recall their memories.

When people integrate the context with their memories, they show enhanced recall if they are put back in that context. Subjects can show better memory when their mental states at study and at test match. Subjects show better memory when their mood at test matches the mood elements they have integrated into their memories. Memory is better when the cue at test is processed in the same way in which the memory was processed at study. People's ability to reconstruct what they have studied is facilitated if they have processed the material in an appropriate meaningful way. As part of memory reconstruction, subjects infer and recall information that was not actually studied.

On conclusion, many of the results about study-test interactions are captured by Tulving's encoding-specificity theory and Bransford's transfer-appropriate processing theory. The encoding-specificity theory emphasizes the overlap among the elements at study and at test. Transfer-appropriate processing emphasizes the overlap in processes. An additional dimension of complexity concerns semantic processing. Generally, focusing on meaningful elements or meaningful processing produces more potent results, partly because subjects can better reconstruct their memories at test form meaningfully elaborated memory fragments.

Implicit Measures of Memory

People know many things of which they are quite unaware. If explicitly asked about these things they may draw a blank, but in an appropriate circumstance they give evidence of what they know. Explicit memories are that subjects are consciously aware of when they retrieve them. Much recent research has been concerned with displaying that subjects can show evidence of memories for experiences they cannot consciously retrieve. Such memories are called implicit memories.

People can be aware that they know something without being able to recall what they know. (Feeling of knowing) People sometimes respond to the raw familiarity of an item without determining the source of that familiarity. Access to information can be facilitated by experiences that do not result in explicit memories. Elaborative processing facilitates explicit memory but not implicit memory. Damage to the temporal lobe and related structures can result in both retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia. Humans with hippocampal lesions have selective deficits in learning new declarative information.

One way to review the research is to consider its implications for good memory performance. Suppose you are trying to remember some past memories. Given that they are in the past, there is nothing you can do to better encode these memories or retain them. Worrying about these factors would be worrying about spilled milk. What can you do to help retrieve those old memories? People enjoy better memory if they can recreate the elements that were associated with the memory. If you are trying to retrieve a former acquaintance's name, it might help to recreate in your mind past experiences and contexts in which you used that name. This note reviewed the importance of inferential memory for reconstructing what can no longer be recalled. Suppose that you are trying to remember where you placed an object. You might try to reconstruct where you might have put it, perhaps retracing your steps and so on. People have implicit memories of which they are not consciously aware. This implies that we should try to engage in some task that might involve the information and see if our task performance does not have the critical knowledge embedded in it. It is sometimes possible to recall additional information by utilizing knowledge about different conditions of retrieval.

Additional summary from Klein, S. B. (2002) Learning: Principles and applications. NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

According to Underwood, a memory contains a collection of different types of information, called memory attributes. A memory attribute can decrease interference by providing a basis for distinguishing memories. When one aspect of an event is reexperienced, the attribute of that event prompts the recall of the entire memory.

The acoustic attribute stores information about the auditory properties of an event. The physical characteristics of an event are contained in the orthographic attribute. In the frequency attribute, the memory stores a record of the number of times an event is experienced. The time that an event occurred is recorded in the temporal attribute, and the place where it occurred is contained in the spatial attribute of the memory. The modality attribute provides information about the sensory modality through which the human or nonhuman animal experienced the event.

The background in which an event took place is stored in the context attribute. The affective attribute of a memory provides information about the emotional condition surrounding an event. The affective attribute can be viewed as an internal contextual attribute: it registers internal changes in affect, changes that may either be natural reactions to the event or may be drug-induced.

The associates of verbal items are also attributes of a memory. There are two types of verbal associative attributes: parallel attributes (antonyms, synonyms, and functional associates of the verbal item). The transformational attribute contains information about how to decode items that were coded during learning. The three types of transformational attributes are images, natural language mediators, and order transformations.

One cause of the failure to remember is the absence of a stimulus associated with memory. Another cause of forgetting is decay. Memories decay when the physiological changes that took place during memory formation, and that represent the record of the event, diminish with time.

Interference is the third cause of forgetting. Interference occurs when the memory of one experience prevents the retrieval of the memory of another event. There are two types of interference: proactive interference is the inability to recall recent events because of the memory of a past experience; retroactive interference is the inability to remember distant events because of the memory of recent events.

Melton and Irwin's two-factor theory assumes that interference is caused by competition and unlearning. According to Melton and Irwin, competition among memories produces both proactive and retroactive interference, whereas unlearning, or the temporary suppression of distant memories during current learning, causes only retroactive interference. As the effect of unlearning diminishes, competition alone determines which type of interference occurs.

According to Underwood, the failure to distinguish memories is one cause of interference. Postman suggests that generalized competition, a "set" to continue to respond in the manner most recently learned, is another source of interference.

The memory of an experience is not always accurate. Sometimes details of an event are forgotten, creating an imperfect memory. To produce a logical realistic memory of an event, people add information to the memory during recall. If an experience does not make sense, some information may be deleted, new information may be added, or both, to establish a memory of an event that is consistent with the individual's perception of the world. Misleading information or questions can alter a person's recollection of a witnessed event. The original memory is not erased altogether, but the person cannot discriminate between the real and suggested events.

Some psychologists believe that individuals can repress extremely disturbing childhood memories. Other psychologists argue that suggestions create a false memory of childhood experiences that did not really occur.

Humans and nonhuman animals can be directed to forget an event. The presentation of a "forget gue" following a stimulus leads the subject to forget that stimulus. Encoding or retrieval failure are thought to contribute to directed forgetting. Repression may result in voluntary forgetting, with therapy or some other process later retrieving the memory of the event. Or a recovered memory may reflect memory alteration that leads to the "remembrance" of an event that never happened.

The hippocampus has been shown to govern memory retrieval. Hippocampal damage leads to amnesia because of an inability to retrieve stored memories. Memories are retrieved by the hippocampus and then routed to the frontal lobes, which act to guide behavior.

3. What are metamemory and retrieval failure? What are their characteristics and implications in learning? (Kang, Seung-man)

Metamemory and retrieval failures

The Definition of Metamemory

Metamemory refers to people's knowledge, awareness, and control of their memory. Simply put it, metamemory means knowing what you know, knowing how your memory works, and being able to assess your own memory. Metamemory is a developmental occurrence: as we get older, we get better at remembering, and we also improve our abilities for developing strategies to assist our memories (Bruning, et. al., 1999). We often discover that certain strategies must be developed to improve memory. For example, list making, mnemonics, post-it notes, memo pads, sensory associations, and many other strategies serve to establish cues that will assist in the processing of larger chunks of information, thereby making retrieval easier. Metamemory skills provide the student with awareness of strategies for recalling information as well as the ability to use their repertoire of strategies. It is assumed that a sophisticated learner knows a number of strategies or processing rules, such as the following:

a. Single Item Repetition: Repeating material over and over, one item at a time.

b. Cumulative Rehearsal: Repeating material over and over in a cumulative fashion, rehearsing old items along with new ones (e.g., Flavell, 1970).

c. Meaningful Organization: Looking for meaningful, semantic relationships among items. (e.g., Moely, 1977).

d. Hierarchical Allocation: Studying information in order of its importance, with more important information studied first (e.g., Brown & Smiley, 1978).

e. Differential Effort Allocations: Expending more effort to study the material that is not yet learned (e.g., Brown & Smiley, 1978).

f. Imagery Elaboration: Making up interactive images that include the to-be-learned items (e.g., Pressley, 1977).

g. Verbal Elaboration: Making up a story to include the to-be-remembered items (e.g., Rohwer, 1973).

h. Keyword Method: Transforming unfamiliar items (e.g., foreign words) to more familiar ones (e.g., sound-alike English words) and then putting them into relational images with other information (e.g., Pressley, Levin, & Delaney, 1982).

i. SQ3R: Surveying what is to be learned; questioning oneself; reading the material; reciting it; reviewing all important information (e.g., Robinson, 1961).

Retrieval failures

Sometimes we fail to retrieve information that we know we have. Retrieval failure is the idea that people can have information in memory that they cannot retrieve at the present time. Retrieval failure is explained as the result of a difference between memories being available and accessible. All the experiences that you have ever had may have been encoded in your memory, and if they were, they would be part of your available memories. At any time, however, you can only retrieve a small part of those memories, and that small part is the memories that you have accessible. The way to prevent retrieval failure is to increase the accessibility of a particular memory. One way to increase the accessibility of a particular memory is to duplicate the context in which the memory was encoded. The typical retrieval failures are feeling of knowing (FOK) and Tip-of-the tongue (TOT) phenomena. TOT means the state in which information is available but not accessible from memory. In TOT, usually parts of the information are accessible, but not enough to warrant a response. Retrieval blocking and incomplete activation are some reasonable explanation of TOT states. Retrieval blocking explains that activation of items in memory that are similar to the target compete with the target during a memory search. Thus, the retrieval of the target is suppressed and related words serve to block retrieval. Incomplete activation says an initial memory cue may not activate a target word or name enough for retrieval of target and related words facilitate eventual retrieval TOT states can be resolved by using various search strategies, rather than sticking to a single strategy.

False memory(retrieval)

A false memory is a memory that is a distortion of an actual experience, or a confabulation of an imagined one. Many false memories involve confusing or mixing fragments of memory events, some of which may have happened at different times but which are remembered as occurring together. The cause of false memory: The more associates there are in the list, the more likely false retrieval becomes.

Fauconnier (1997) Chapter 4 - Analogical Counterfactuals

4. What is analogy and how does it work to tie language to reasoning?

Fauconnier makes a sweeping statement in the beginning of this chapter in which he directly links the system he is expounding to cognition. He makes the strong claim that language and cognition are not only one in the same but that they also based on the same basic ideas or principles. The great link between language and cognition is analogy. Fauconnier, and this is not really his idea, claims that analogy is the very basis of our cognition. He states that really there is no such thing as creative thought. Human beings are not really able to come up with totally new ideas on their own. All human cognition is based on taking what we already know and simply extending it through analogy. Based on this we need to then quickly decide what analogy really is.

Analogy is a process by which some of the features of a host (A) are transposed or associated with a different entity (B). In doing this we are creating a new and extended meaning for B. As Fauconnier and others have claimed analogy takes place everywhere. It is only in more strongly metaphorical cases that we even really know analogy is taking place. Simply put, analogy is everywhere as shown in the sentences below.

A. This book is crap.

B. That song sounds like hell.

C. This ice cream tastes like heaven.

From these examples we can really see the power that analogy has. It is simple to imagine analogy as the basis of our cognition but we consider the simple fact that the comparisons and contrasts we make every day on a constant basis are made on the basis of analogy. Comparison is analogy in its most basic form. Contrast, obviously, would work in the same way: a sort of negative analogy, but analogy just the same. This is where we see everything tie in. Analogy is the result of how things are stored in a brain. It is a cognitive feat that we are able to do based on our brains and how they work. It is therefore not surprising that we would see analogy so heavily represented in language. This follows from the belief that language is simply an outward manifestation of our cognitive capabilities at some point actually become synonymous with cognition.

Taking this one step further and looking at what we have learned this semester about memory and compared to what we learned last semester in linguistics class about the mental lexicon (unfortunately we spent very little time on this) we can see how analogy also fits in to the basic construction of utterances. Analogy is a basic type of association. One reform and analogy before the association between two elements which really have no natural right to be associated, or to be associated in that particular way. Now, we are both free and able to create new analogies and associations all the time, but it is also clear that some of these analogies become entrenched or encoded in a brain as permanent. Following what we have learned it would seem obvious that this occurs through frequency as well as distinctiveness. A distinctive analogy is going to stick in your brain and you will use it because it appeals to you on some level. Now depending on how deeply encoded these analogies become they take the shape of all of minimally collocations and maximally Lakoff's idealized cultural models. Be mentioned, albeit briefly, in linguistics class that from a lexical point of view collocations seem to form the very basis of language. Once more, collocations cannot be explained by standard linguistic theory and therefore have been basically ignored. Looking at what we now know about the memory and how to brain works in addition to knowledge we have now recently acquired (and probably don't really understand fully yet) about analogy we can begin to fine-tune our theory of how language might actually develop. Analogies the basis of collocations, which are made based on associations which become encoded in the brain. Once these associations become encoded and form open can call more or less free collocations to begin to go through changes where the level of entrenchment in the brain may become much deeper and widespread. Again the end result of such development would be an association, born initially out of analogy, which become something like an idealized cultural model; for example, the much cited anger is heat. Following this simple analysis we can see how analogy through language has a reciprocal effect on how we actually think and perceive the world. Analogy is the base.

To cap off the argument let me just give you one example from the real world which is not necessarily related to language and which I will try to use to explain how analogy really is everywhere. Think that the movies you've seen and here I want you to really think about maybe science-fiction movies and particularly movies with aliens in them. How do the aliens really look in these movies? Well, the creation of the aliens in this movies is based on analogy, in fact it couldn't be based on anything else. We as humans are limited to analogy. Think about it. The aliens always either are formed from a human base or often from a bug or insect base. It's a simple type of counterfactual analogy: we are forming analogy by mapping features from the real world onto things in an imaginary world and therefore making them real. Obviously, and is really shows when we analyze aliens in movies, there are very heavy limitations on this. There seemed to the limits on how far how much we can map because of comprehension. We only seem to be able to take things a short step further. The net result being the aliens in movies print much look like earthly creatures. They usually have two eyes and two arms and two legs. The differences are actually rather small, compared to the unlimited amount of potential differences. Based in this example I hope it is clear that the real world forms the basis (and a very strict one) for the unreal world. These limitations seem to coincide with what we have been mentioning about learning and clutter theory. When we learn new things we can only extend our knowledge one small point at a time. Likewise, the knowledge has to be extended out from some real world.

In language learning this real world is the L-1. The unreal world is the L2, at least initially. Once we have enough knowledge about the L2 then it (the L2) can form a world of its own and the extensions of the knowledge can emerge from that L2 base. I hope you can see where ongoing with this.

5. What are counterfactuals and how do they contribute to mental space building?

In his book Fauconnier has been paying (much to your annoyance I'm sure) a tremendous amount of attention on counterfactuals. There are a couple reasons for this one of which we have worried discussed. The first reason he gives us is that counterfactuals have really not been well described by standard semantic approaches and theoretical linguistics. This is a valid point and the system which Fauconnier is giving us does handle counterfactuals quite well. The second point about counterfactuals which underscores their importance and the treaty now talk about is that counterfactuals are based in analogy. Without analogy there would be no counterfactuals. Basically what is happening in a counterfactual is that we're setting up an analogy between a real situation, situation which does exist in the real world and an unreal situation. So, some of the features from the real world are then transposed onto the unreal world. This is a basic type of associative analogy. This will hopefully now make it easier for you to understand what is really happening in a counterfactual situation. Counterfactuals are tricky because only certain features from the real world are mapped onto an unreal world, and as we diverted discussed the scope of these mappings also very conversation the conversation based on the other variables. But the thing to remember here really is that counterfactuals is just a type of analogy and one in which we are taking features a real world and putting them into an unreal world: simple comparison contrast between what is real and unreal.

6. How are fictitious and missing elements used in Fauconnier`s system?

The answer to this question is simple. Again, the answer comes from analogy in this is what is truly amazing. What Fauconnier is suggesting here is that there are analogies which actually occur between missing or invisible elements in a piece of discourse. The repercussions of this suggestion is that we really do need to have the kind of mappings and framework in the brain which Fauconnier is suggesting in order to form these types of analogies. In order to form analogies between invisible elements, as in presuppositions, we need to have some sort of framework in the brain. Interestingly, but we're reading next week in Terry chapter 11 serves to support this viewpoint. Look forward to it.