cs.AISep 12, 2026

Map Users and Mapmakers: The Scope of Cognitive Attribution from Acquired Representations

Authors: Yiling Wu

Organizations: BridgeM, Inc.

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Abstract

An acquired representation can enlarge a system's cognitive repertoire without transferring the capacities exercised in producing that representation. This paper develops a framework for specifying that enlargement and its limits. Its central contribution is a five-part attribution table distinguishing effective tracking, application of acquired structures, acquisition from explicit specifications, acquisition from identifying observations, and retention and reuse. Each entry identifies a positive capacity commitment and a further claim requiring additional support. The argument deliberately grants meaningful content, causal efficacy, and productive inference, so that its conclusion does not depend on treating representations as inert encodings. Map and category examples show why even complete application competence leaves acquisition capacity undetermined, and why acquiring a criterion from its description differs from finding it in examples. Short formal proofs appear in an appendix. The framework is applied to Andrew Ng's world-model interpretation of Othello-GPT and to the specific indicators discussed in contemporary accounts of machine concepts. It preserves demonstrated recognition, classification, inference, and qualified acquisition while specifying what remains unestablished about criterion discovery and accumulation. The result concerns the scope of cognitive attribution rather than the constitutive conditions of concept possession: cognitive achievements deserve credit for the capacities they establish, without silently importing a broader repertoire through the labels attached to them.

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