Display and Interface Design

A Meaning Processing Approach 17
modern linguistics, which in turn had a strong influence on the science of
cognitive psychology. He framed the semiotic problem as a relation between
the signifier (e.g., symbolic language) and the signified (e.g., mental concepts).
The semiotic problem was framed as the study of the nature of the various
possible mappings between language and thought or in the context of medicine
between symptoms and categories of diseases.
This framework fits well with the computer metaphor for the mind. In
this context, thinking is framed as a symbolic computation linking input
(e.g., symptoms in the medical context) with an internal classification via
rules. In this sense, semiotics is an exploration of the types of mappings or
rules that are possible between the signifier (data) and the signified (internal
concept).
Saussure’s framework seemed to fit well with the goals of linguistics and
computer science (i.e., matching symbols to concepts), but with respect to
the medical diagnosis problem something is missing. This framework does
not seem to include any consideration of the actual state or health of the
patient (beyond her symptoms). To what extent do the medical community’s
categories of disease correspond to the actual states of the patient’s health?
Further, to what extent do the treatments associated with the categories actually
affect that health?
What is missing from Saussure’s framework is any basis for connecting
the concepts of medicine to the actual health of the patient (e.g., a basis that
could help differentiate between the semiotic system of the traveling medicine
show charlatan and the well-trained physician). Saussure’s semiotics is
framed in terms of the relation between the sensory surfaces of an observer
and the internal concepts in her mind. This framework fails to close the loop
through the object of action: the patient (or, more generally, the ecology). This
can be a potential problem for conventional approaches to both interface
design and cognition. In the conventional approaches, cognition is almost
completely divorced from situations; the only connection is the “scraps of
data” at the sensory surfaces. In other words, cognition is disembodied (e.g.,
Clark 1997). Connections via action tend to be ignored or trivialized.
2.2.2 The Triadic Paradigm
A contemporary of Saussure independently framed an alternative triadic
model for semiotics. The work of Charles Peirce (1839–1914), which had a
strong influence on William James and early functionalist approaches to psychology,
has been largely ignored by conventional approaches to cognitive
science. However, appreciation for Peirce’s work is rapidly growing. Peirce
(1931–1935a, 1931–1935b) framed his semiotics in the context of the logical
links between the objects of experience and the objects of the world. Peirce’s
semiotics resulted from his struggles with the processes by which the objects
of experience could guide successful interactions with a physical world. How
could the physician’s knowledge guide successful treatment of disease?
© 2011 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC