Because too much data can cause “cognitive clutter”, individuals need a system to enable them to rank available data in terms of its immediate importance. The majority of the available data will be of minor importance. Some elements, the salient elements, will be the most important and require attention. Jump to: navigation, search DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) was established in 2002 by Bono (Paul Hewson) of the Rock band U2, and Bobby Shiver, along with activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign, as an organisaton focused on Justice, not charity. ... Cognitive The scientific study of how people obtain, retrieve, store and manipulate information. ...

Discussion

Human senses make a vast quantity of data available to the mind so the first question is to consider how the individual's internal mental organisation is configured to react. How does the mind interpret the data stream to filter out the irrelevant and leave only the salient signs? In semiotics, the process of converting signs into meaning is called semiosis. This is a metacognitive process working through schema that constitute a model of the world. Such schema are created through, and monitored using, a range of skills including pattern matching, analysis, and synthesis. In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... Semiotics - also known as semiology - is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, and includes the study of how meaning is transmitted and understood. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Semiosis is a term introduced by Charles Peirce. ... In psychology and cognitive science, a schema is a mental structure that represents some aspect of the world. ... A mental model is an explanation in someones thought process for how something works in the real world. ...

Meaning can be described as the “…system of mental representations of an object or phenomenon, its properties and associations with other objects and/or phenomena. In the consciousness of an individual, meaning is reflected in the form of sensory information, images and concepts.” (Bedny & Karwowsky, 2004). It is either denotative or connotative but the sign system for transmitting meanings can be uncertain in its operation or conditions may disrupt the communication and prevent accurate meanings from being decoded. As used in philosophy, object is a thing, an entity, or a being. ... A phenomenon (plural: phenomena) is an observable event, especially something special (literally something that can be seen from the Greek word phainomenon = observable). ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... In common usage, an image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical object or a person. ... A concept is an abstract, universal idea, notion, or entity that serves to designate a category or class of entities, events, or relations. ... In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. ... In semiotics, connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of the community. ...

Further, meaning is socially constructed and dynamic as the culture evolves. This is problematic because an individual’s frame of reference and experience may produce some divergence from some of the prevailing social norms. So the salience of data will be determined by both situational and emotional elements in a combination relatively unique to each individual. For example, a person with an interest in botany may allocate greater salience to visual data involving plants, whereas a person training as an architect may scan buildings to identify features of interest. A person's world view or Weltanschauung may predispose salience to data matching those views. Because people live for many years, responses become conventional. At a group or community level, the conventional levels of significance or salience are slowly embedded in the sign systems and culture, and they cannot arbitrarily be changed. Look up Culture on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikinews has news related to this article: Culture and entertainment Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Cultural Development in Antiquity Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Culture and Civilization in Modern Times Classificatory system for cultures and civilizations, by Dr. Sam Vaknin... The word norm coming from the latin word norma which means angle measure or (lawlike) rule, has a number of meanings: A social or sociological norm; see norm (sociology). ... Botany is the scientific study of plant life. ... Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect, also known as a building designer, is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction, whose role is to guide decisions affecting those building aspects that are of aesthetic, cultural or social concern. ... A world view, (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung meaning look onto the world. It implies a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. ... Convention has at least two very distinct but related meanings. ...

References

Bedny, G. & Karwowski, W. (2004) Meaning and sense in activity theory and their role in the study of human performance. International Journal of Ergonomics and Human Factors. (26:2, 121-140.)