**Chapter 9 139**

Computational Model for the Construction of Cognitive Maps *by Larisa Yu. Ismailova, Sergey V. Kosikov and Viacheslav E. Wolfengagen* Preface

In *Cognitive and Intermedial Semiotics*, we offer a window into applied cognitive semiotics with different examples of meaning production studies. Thus, in the following chapters we will find examples of the different approaches, methods, and

Cognitive semiotics is the interdisciplinary study of meaning, and it combines concepts and methods from developmental, evolutionary, and cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, narratology, and neuroscience with the idea that cognition is embodied, dynamic, and distributed. Cognitive semiotics investigates fundamental notions such as metaphors, blends, and narratives, how we communicate through semiotic systems such as language, representations, and gestures, how these have evolved, how they are learned, and how they are

To undertake the challenge of understanding the emergence of meaning we have to appeal to a field of diffuse and permeable limits that allows us to consider other discourses such as biosemiotics or the study of signs and meaning in living organisms and systems. Connected with this is the study of gestural languages, artistic and communicative expressions, and also the narrative discourse in which we situate ourselves in our own story in relation to the stories of the world, acknowledging in turn the stories of others and the social narrative in which we all live. Thus, cognitive semiotics underlines the importance of placing meaning-making into the broader context of cognitive, social, and neurobiological

The mind is embodied and situated, and bodies are not only physiological entities but also social and emotional entities. Emotions are a major factor in the interaction between environmental conditions and decision processes. Thus, the field of cognitive semiotics aims not only to understand culture and communication on a large scale but also to study the most elemental processes of the thinking and

The manifestations of meaning should be studied and analyzed as they occur, either experimentally or historically, and not created ad hoc to illustrate theories. Our book tries to present extensively this goal. Several semiotic multimodal aspects are discussed in the different chapters, where we will find studies on: the important interactions between cognitive neuroscience of language and brain and semiotic principles; digital technology and free will; the use of narrative analysis and biosemiotic techniques in decoding animal behavior; the cognitive maps students create when interacting in their university campuses; digital communication and its effect on politics; fairy tales, science fiction books, and fantasy films as new sources of computer metaphors used to design visualization systems based on virtual reality; the comparison of iconicity and phonesthemes in English and Berber; a computational model to create cognitive maps; and a case study on a

theories that cognitive semiotics offers as an interdisciplinary field.

shared socially.

processes.

feeling mind.

cognitive blend within a literary text.
