Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 7, July 2022.

Why does symbolic communication in humans develop primarily in an oral medium, and how do theories of language origin explain this? Non-human primates, despite their ability to learn and use symbolic signs, do not develop symbols as in oral language. This partly owes to the lack of a direct cortico-motoneuron control of vocalizations in these species compared to humans. Yet such modality-related factors that can impinge on the rise of symbolic language are interpreted differently in two types of evolutionary storylines. (...) 1) Some theories posit that symbolic language originated in a gestural modality, as in “sign languages”. However, this overlooks work on emerging sign and spoken language showing that gestures and speech shape signs differently. 2) In modality-dependent theories, some emphasize the role of iconic sounds, though these lack the efficiency of arbitrary symbols. Other theorists suggest that ontogenesis serves to identify human-specific mechanisms underlying an evolutionary shift from pitch varying to orally-modulated vocalizations (babble). This shift creates numerous oral features that can support efficient symbolic associations. We illustrate this principle using a sound-picture association task with 40 learners who hear words in an unfamiliar language (Mandarin) with and without a filtering of oral features. Symbolic associations arise more rapidly and accurately for sounds containing oral features compared to sounds bearing only pitch features, an effect also reported in experiments with infants. The results imply that, beyond a competence to learn and use symbols, the rise of symbolic language rests on the types of signs that a modality of expression affords. (shrink)

The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life. The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinism in the philosophy of science and its usefulness in (...) understanding ecosystems, whilst the third section deals with its application in disciplines beyond the biological sciences, including evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, Darwinian morality and phylolinguistics. The final section addresses anti-Darwinism, the creationist view and issues around teaching evolution in secondary schools. The reader learns how current experimental biology is opening important perspectives on the sources of variation, and thus of the very power of natural selection. This work examines numerous examples of the extension of the principle of natural selection and provides the opportunity to critically reflect on a rich theory, on the methodological rigour that presides in its extensions and exportations, and on the necessity to measure its advantages and also its limits. Scholars interested in modern Darwinism and scientific research, its concepts, research programs and controversies will find this book an excellent read, and those considering how Darwinism might evolve, how it can apply to the human sciences and other disciplines beyond its origins will find it particularly valuable. Originally produced in French (Les Mondes Darwiniens), the scope and usefulness of the book have led to the production of this English text, to reach a wider audience. This book is a milestone in the impressive penetration by Francophone scholars into the world of Darwinian science, its historiography and philosophy over the last two decades. Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University Until now this useful and comprehensive handbook has only been available to francophones. Thanks to this invaluable new translation, this collection of insightful and original essays can reach the global audience it deserves. Tim Lewens, University of Cambridge. (shrink)

Poverty of the Stimulus Arguments have convinced many linguists and philosophers of language that a domain specific language acquisition device (LAD) is necessary to account for language learning. Here we review empirical evidence that casts doubt on the necessity of this domain specific device. We suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the early stages of language acquisition. Many seemingly innate language-related abilities have to be learned over the course of several months. Further, the language input contains rich (...) stochastic information that can be accessed by domain-general learning mechanisms. Computer simulation has shown how mechanisms that are not domain specific can exploit the information contained in language. We conclude that (i) Poverty of the Stimulus Arguments need to be conceptually clarified and (ii) more empirical research needs to be carried out before we can rule out that data driven general purpose mechanisms can account for language learning. (shrink)

This paper investigates the roles that abstraction and representation have in activities associated with language. Activities such as associative learning and counting require both the abilities to abstract from and accurately represent the environment. These activities are successfully carried out among vocal learners aside from humans, thereby suggesting that nonhuman animals share something like our capacity for abstraction and representation. The identification of these capabilities in other species provides additional insights into the development of language.

The evolution of human symbolic capacity must have been very rapid even in some intermediate stage (e.g. the proto-symbolic behavior of Homo erectus). Such a rapid process requires a runaway model. The type of very selective and hyperbolically growing self-organization called “hypercyle” by Eigen and Schuster could explain the rapidity and depth of the evolutionary process, whereas traditional runaway models of sexual selection seem to be rather implausible in the case of symbolic evolution. We assume two levels: at the first (...) level the species is adapted to ecological demands and accumulates the effects of this process in the genome. At the second level a kind of social/cultural knowledge is accumulated via a set of symbolic forms, one of which is language. Bühler’s model of three basic functions of signs can also be elaborated so that its cyclic structure becomes apparent. We assume that the hypercyclic process of semiosis and functional differentiation was triggered in 2 my BP (with the Homo erectus) and got more and more speed with the species Homo sapiens and later. The consequences for the evolutionary stratification of human languages will be drawn in the last section of the paper. The basic aim of the paper is to provide a semiotic (and not just a linguistic) explanation of the origin of language which can be linked to relevant models in evolutionary biology and which exploits the possibilities contained in self-organizing systems. (shrink)

Explaining the causal origins of what are taken to be uniquely human capacities for understanding the mind in the first years of life is a primary goal of social cognitive development research, which concerns so called “theory of mind” or “mindreading” skills. We review and discuss particular examples of this research in the context of its underlying evolutionary conceptual framework known as the neo-Darwinian modern synthesis. It is increasingly recognized that the modern synthesis is limited in its neglect of developmental (...) issues. A recent convergence of work from diverse sources, including but not limited to evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and developmental systems approaches, demonstrate the need for a developmental expansion of modern evolutionary theory. We attempt to show that not only are nativist explanations of early human social cognition vulnerable to the criticisms of this developmental shift in thinking, but that these criticisms also problematize the dominant and more mainstream theories in early social cognitive development research. We conclude by discussing the importance of developmental analysis in understanding the ontogeny of cognitive capacities in individuals as well as species. (shrink)

Why is language unique? How did language come about? When did this happen? These questions, although quite emblematic of the Western intellectual tradition since its ancient beginnings, so far have not found satisfying answers. Indeed, many still question the very possibility of addressing these basic problems of the origins of language with proper scientific rigor. However, an emerging consensus is that current research in the field of language evolution is in fact bearing fruit, making it at least possible to judge (...) in an informed manner which of these competing scenarios are far more or less probable. In what follows, I guide the reader through some of this research and some of these scenarios; for more details, I refer the reader to a recent book, which is the first monograph that presents this developing field of language evolution research to the Polish reader. (shrink)

In their 2002 seminal paper Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch hypothesize that recursion is the only human-specific and language-specific mechanism of the faculty of language. While debate focused primarily on the meaning of recursion in the hypothesis and on the human-specific and syntax-specific character of recursion, the present work focuses on the claim that recursion is language-specific. We argue that there are recursive structures in the domain of motor intentionality by way of extending John R. Searle’s analysis of intentional action. We (...) then discuss evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience supporting the claim that motor-intentional recursion is language-independent and suggest some explanatory hypotheses: linguistic recursion is embodied in sensory-motor processing; linguistic and motor-intentional recursions are distinct and mutually independent mechanisms. Finally, we propose some reflections about the epistemic status of HCF as presenting an empirically falsifiable hypothesis, and on the possibility of testing recursion in different cognitive domains. (shrink)

When thought overwhelms the mind, the mind uses the body and the world. Several studies reveal ways that people alone or together use gesture and marks on paper to structure and augment their thought for comprehension, inference, and discovery. The studies show that the mapping of thought to gesture or the page is more direct than the arbitrary mapping to language and suggest that these forms of visual/spatial/action representation are used to “translate” language into mental representations. It is argued that (...) actions in space create patterns in the world that reflect abstractions, that the actions are incorporated into gestures and the patterns into diagrams, a network that integrates gesture, action, the designed world, and abstraction dubbed spraction. (shrink)

When thought overwhelms the mind, the mind uses the body and the world. Several studies reveal ways that people alone or together use gesture and marks on paper to structure and augment their thought for comprehension, inference, and discovery. The studies show that the mapping of thought to gesture or the page is more direct than the arbitrary mapping to language and suggest that these forms of visual/spatial/action representation are used to “translate” language into mental representations. It is argued that (...) actions in space create patterns in the world that reflect abstractions, that the actions are incorporated into gestures and the patterns into diagrams, a network that integrates gesture, action, the designed world, and abstraction dubbed spraction. (shrink)

In the last few years, nativist, modular views of moral cognition have been influential. This paper shares the view that normative cognition develops robustly, and is probably an adaptation. But it develops an alternative view of the developmental basis of moral cognition, based on the idea that adults scaffold moral development by organising the learning environment of the next generation. In addition, I argue that the modular nativist picture has no plausible account of the role of explicit moral judgement, and (...) that no persuasive version of the ‘poverty of the stimulus' applies to moral cognition. (shrink)

“Faculty of Language: the ‘Assembly-Only Hypothesis’ and Domain Specificity”. The faculty of language was always considered as the paradigm of a cognitive capacity that illustrates the property of domain specificity. In the minimalist-biolinguistic approach, this property seems to blur. However, the reason usually cited, does not seem adequate from the point of view of the conceptual coherence of the notion of domain specificity. In this paper I will distinguish between a sense of specificity of domain that is interesting or useful (...) for cognitive research and another vacuous one. I will show that if the analysis of the notion of domain specificity is conceptually coherent and the available empirical evidence is accepted, then these constitute the reasons why domain specificity cannot be attributed to the faculty of language under the assembly-only hypothesis. (shrink)

Two of the main theoretical approaches to the evolution of language are biolinguistics and usage-based approaches. Both are often conceptualized as belonging to seemingly irreconcilable ‘camps.’ Biolinguistic approaches assume that the ability to acquire language is based on a language-specific genetic foundation. Usage-based approaches, on the other hand, stress the importance of domain-general cognitive capacities, social cognition, and interaction. However, there have been a number of recent developments in both paradigms which suggest that biolinguistic and usage-based approaches are actually moving (...) closing together. For example, theoretical advancements such as evo-devo and complex adaptive systems theory have gained traction in the language sciences, leading to changed conceptions of issues like the relative influence of “nature” and “nurture.” In this paper, we outline points of convergence between current minimalist biolinguistic and usage-based approaches regarding four contentious issues: a) modularity and domain-specificity, b) innateness and development, c) cultural and biological evolution, d) knowledge of language and its description. We show that across both paradigms, researchers have come to increasingly embrace more complex views of these issues. They also have come to appreciate the view that biological and cultural evolution are closely intertwined, which leads to an increased amount of common ground between minimalist biolinguistics and usage-based approaches. (shrink)

In our opinion, the discontinuity between extant human and nonhuman minds is much broader and deeper than most researchers admit. We are happy to report that Evans & Levinson's (E&L's) target article strongly corroborates our unpopular hypothesis, and that the comparative evidence, in turn, bolsters E&L's provocative argument. Both a Universal Grammar and the “mental continuity” between human and nonhuman minds turn out to be modern myths.

In this model consciousness is a form of memory. We are essentially “living in the past” as our experience, the qualia, is always of past events. Consciousness represents the storage of past events for use in future situations and it is altered by external experience of the organism. Psychological frameworks of conditioning and learning theory are used to explain this model along with recent neuropsychological research on synaesthesia and phantom limb pain. Consciousness results from the gradual evolutionary development of the (...) human information processing function. Language is hypothesised to have evolved at a pre-conscious stage of human development as a function of the need for ‘within-organism’ data storage. Communication with others may not have been the initial evolutionary advantage conferred by language. The later incidental use of language as a communication tool, which results in the reflecting back of one’s experience through others, is what has triggered a conscious experience. (shrink)

La cognición incorporada es antipresencialista y por lo mismo no sucumbe al externalismo objetual. Su naturaleza es archeológica y teleológica: en cuanto a la primera, todo conocer está encadenado al desarrollo de la especie, por lo mismo no se la entiende desde la sola dimensión antropológica. En cuanto a la segunda, es finalizada en comportamientos, representaciones, objetivaciones-cosistas. El conocer es incorporado porque es filogenético, entonces perteneciente a la especie; pero también es ontogenético, entonces perteneciente al individuo. El conocimiento del sujeto (...) individual es una consecuencia de la especie, en un ambiente particular, por ello es ontogenético. El eje articulante de toda la cognición nueva es, sobre todo, la neo-corteza, la cual es muy sensible a la periferia. (shrink)

Neste artigo argumenta-se que o programa biolinguístico de Noam Chomsky contém uma ontologia subjacente cuja implicação diz respeito a uma transformação radical da noção de sujeito e da categoria de identidade que lhe sustenta, assim como da noção kuhniana de ciência normal. De fato, um dos desafios de uma ontologia estruturalista da qual Chomsky é pessoalmente distante, mas formalmente próximo, é de transpor as teses sobre o real da questão do ser e do acontecimento para um realismo, campo que proporciona (...) as condições de criação de um sujeito diferencial e genérico pela geração de estruturas sintáticas elementares projetadas em séries de palavras. Desta forma, a capacidade linguística auxilia na produção e na criação da identidade. Argumenta-se que o programa biolinguístico é ainda revolucionário no sentido em que despertou e perpetuou uma nova figura subjetiva da ciência, isto é, uma figura emancipadora do sujeito pensado pela ciência em relação à qual uma ontologia fundamental só pode se adequar na base da multiplicidade, tal como tem feito Alain Badiou. (shrink)

Some methodological adaptationists hijacked the term “exaptation,” and took an occasion of Stephen Jay Gould’s misspeaking as confirmation that it possessed an evolutionarily “designed” function and was a version of an adaptation, something it was decidedly not. Others provided a standard of evidence for exaptation that was inappropriate, and based on an adaptationist worldview. This article is intended to serve as both an analysis of and correction to those situations. Gould and Elisabeth Vrba’s terms, “exaptation” and “aptation,” as originally introduced, (...) are very useful, unlike the faded adaptationist echo of “exaptation” devised by the methodological adaptationists, which has made the term incoherent. We will discuss how exaptation relates to function, to aptation, and to adaptation, both primary and secondary. These ideas have been rendered practically useless through their mistaken definitions and misapplications by evolutionary psychologists. (shrink)

This article presents results from simulations studying the hypothesis that mechanisms for landmark-based navigation could have served as preadaptations for compositional language. It is argued that sharing directions would significantly have helped bridge the gap between general and language-specific cognitive faculties. A number of different levels of navigational and communicative abilities are considered, resulting in a range of possible evolutionary paths. The selective pressures for, resp. against, increased complexity in either faculty are then evaluated for a range of environments. The (...) study aims specifically to identify whether there is a viable evolutionary path leading to compositional language, and if so, under what circumstances. The results show that environmental conditions can render a step towards more complex communication either desirable or harmul, and suggest that very specific initial conditions and changes in the environment, resp. the ecological niche occupied, would have been needed to select for compositional language. Subject to these conditions, a (proto)language using order, but no hierarchical structure could evolve. This represents a middle ground, which brings closer hypotheses about syntax that have so far appeared difficult to reconcile. (shrink)

In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the “narrow language faculty”) consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We argue that their characterization of the narrow language faculty is problematic for many reasons, including its dichotomization of cognitive capacities into those that are utterly unique and those (...) that are identical to nonlinguistic or nonhuman capacities, omitting capacities that may have been substantially modified during human evolution. We also question their dichotomy of the current utility versus original function of a trait, which omits traits that are adaptations for current use, and their dichotomy of humans and animals, which conflates similarity due to common function and similarity due to inheritance from a recent common ancestor. We show that recursion, though absent from other animals’ communications systems, is found in visual cognition, hence cannot be the sole evolutionary development that granted language to humans. Finally, we note that despite Fitch et al.’s denial, their view of language evolution is tied to Chomsky’s conception of language itself, which identifies combinatorial productivity with a core of “narrow syntax.” An alternative conception, in which combinatoriality is spread across words and constructions, has both empirical advantages and greater evolutionary plausibility. q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Evolutionary linguistics is methodologically inspired by evolutionary psychology and the neo-Darwinian, selectionist approach. Language is claimed to have evolved by means of natural selection. The focus therefore lies not on how language evolved, but on finding out why language evolved. This latter question is answered by identifying the functional benefits and adaptive status that language provides, from which in turn selective pressures are deduced. This article analyses five of the most commonly given pressures or reasons why presumably language evolved. I (...) demonstrate that these reasons depend on functional definitions of what language is. To undo this bias, I suggest that scholars move away from the ?why? and ?what for? questions of language evolution, and focus on how language actually evolved. The latter project inquires into the distinct evolutionary mechanisms enabling the evolution of the anatomical and sociocultural traits underlying linguistic behaviour. (shrink)

Grammar is now widely regarded as a substantially biological phenomenon, yet the problem of language evolution remains a matter of controversy among Linguists, Cognitive Scientists, and Evolutionary Theorists alike. In this paper, I present a new theoretical argument for one particular hypothesis—that a Language Acquisition Device of the sort first posited by Noam Chomsky might have evolved via the so-called Baldwin Effect . Close attention to the workings of that mechanism, I argue, helps to explain a previously mysterious feature of (...) the Language Acquisition Device—the sheer variety of languages it allows the child to learn—thereby revealing a far stronger case than adherents of the hypothesis have previously supposed. A further unheralded consequence of the hypothesis is a conceptual shift in the Chomskyan understanding of language, wherein the essentially public nature of language is freshly emphasised. This has the effect of bringing the Chomskyan view into closer accord with Saussurean accounts of language, as well as with recent trends in evolutionary theory. (shrink)

According to Chomsky and his followers, language as a biological phenomenon is a property of individual minds and brains; its status as a social phenomenon is merely epiphenomenal and not a proper object of scientific study. On a rival view, the individual's biological capacity for language cannot be properly understood in isolation from the linguistic environment, which it both depends on for its operation and—in collaboration with other speakers—builds and shapes for future generations. I argue here for the rival view (...) by demonstrating firstly its greater consonance with several themes in current biological theory, and secondly its ability to answer two well‐known philosophical challenges to generative linguistics due to Quine and Kripke. (shrink)

De acuerdo con la tradición dominante de la teoría generativa, la creatividad lingüística es la capacidad de producir infinitas oraciones a partir de un conjunto finito de instrucciones sintácticas. Aunque esta idea de creatividad ha sido aceptada y festejada, sólo se trata de manejar una secuencia de categorías y escoger en cada paso un miembro de cada categoría. En efecto, la así llamada creatividad generativa no es más que una operación secuencial que ofrece opciones para cada punto de la secuencia, (...) y esto es comparable a la operación secuencial en la que completamos la bandeja con la comida disponible en el comedor. De hecho, la creatividad generativa no puede dar cuenta de los procesos verdaderamente creativos, por ejemplo de la invención de palabras nuevas o nombres originales. Por el contrario, el enfoque neurocognitivo asumido por la teoría de redes relacionales sí puede dar cuenta estos procesos genuinamente creativos. En este trabajo se mostrará cómo es el proceso neurocognitivo gracias al cual se crean y se entienden nombres cuya originalidad se basa en la ambigüedad deliberada. (shrink)

Depuis un siècle et demi les linguistes s’abstiennent de questionner les processus d’émergence et d’évolution du langage humain et préfèrent poursuivre la reconstruction d’états anciens de langues actuelles par la méthode élaborée au 19e siècle de la grammaire historico-comparative. Mais depuis environ 1990 des chercheurs de différentes origines disciplinaires se sont emparés de cette question en essayant de combiner les outils conceptuels et instrumentaux de ces disciplines. Parmi ceux-ci les représentants des neurosciences ont joué un rôle décisif. Après avoir souligné (...) que l’origine des langues, de la grammaire et du langage humain constituent trois questionnements séparés, cette contribution énumère les disciplines intéressées conjointement par l’évolution du langage et évoque l’attrait du langage pour les biologistes évolutionnaires et documente l’apport des neurosciences évolutionnaire à l’étude de l’origine du langage. (shrink)

For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful “just so stories” about language origins. However, in the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language. I review some of this recent progress, focusing on the value of the comparative method, which uses data from animal species to draw inferences about (...) language evolution. Discussing speech first, I show how data concerning a wide variety of species, from monkeys to birds, can increase our understanding of the anatomical and neural mechanisms underlying human spoken language, and how bird and whale song provide insights into the ultimate evolutionary function of language. I discuss the “descended larynx” of humans, a peculiar adaptation for speech that has received much attention in the past, which despite earlier claims is not uniquely human. Then I will turn to the neural mechanisms underlying spoken language, pointing out the difficulties animals apparently experience in perceiving hierarchical structure in sounds, and stressing the importance of vocal imitation in the evolution of a spoken language. Turning to ultimate function, I suggest that communication among kin (especially between parents and offspring) played a crucial but neglected role in driving language evolution. Finally, I briefly discuss phylogeny, discussing hypotheses that offer plausible routes to human language from a non-linguistic chimp-like ancestor. I conclude that comparative data from living animals will be key to developing a richer, more interdisciplinary understanding of our most distinctively human trait: language. (shrink)

In this commentary on Berwick and Chomsky's “Why Only Us,” I discuss three key points. I first offer a brief critique of their scholarship, notably their often unjustified dismissal of previous thinking about language evolution. But my main focus concerns two arguments central to the book's thesis: the irrelevance of externalization to language evolution and the discontinuity between human conceptual representations and those of other animals. I argue against both stances, using cognitive data from nonhuman species to show that externalization (...) is not irrelevant to understanding the biology of language, and that many human conceptual structures have clear animal homologs. (shrink)

Our response takes advantage of the wide-ranging commentary to clarify some aspects of our original proposal and augment others. We argue against the generative critics of our coevolutionary program for the language sciences, defend the use of close-to-surface models as minimizing cross-linguistic data distortion, and stress the growing role of stochastic simulations in making generalized historical accounts testable. These methods lead the search for general principles away from idealized representations and towards selective processes. Putting cultural evolution central in understanding language (...) diversity makes learning fundamental in the cognition of language: increasingly powerful models of general learning, paired with channelled caregiver input, seem set to manage language acquisition without recourse to any innate “universal grammar.” Understanding why human language has no clear parallels in the animal world requires a cross-species perspective: crucial ingredients are vocal learning (for which there are clear non-primate parallels) and an intention-attributing cognitive infrastructure that provides a universal base for language evolution. We conclude by situating linguistic diversity within a broader trend towards understanding human cognition through the study of variation in, for example, human genetics, neurocognition, and psycholinguistic processing. (shrink)

Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the (...) universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of “universal,” we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition.Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills. (shrink)

This article, in its first part, summarizes Noam Chomsky’s ideas about human nature and their ethico-political consequences, language and its origin and the scope and limitations of experimental science. As a result, there will emerge the portrait of a great scientist without prejudices and a true and honest freethinker. Then, on the second part, and based on the author C. S. Lewis, a proposal will be made about the possible existence of an infused rational soul in humans and how it (...) could connect with the linguist’s ideas with respect to the origin of language. It will also serve to supply with some realism Chomsky’s too optimistic view about human nature. (shrink)

Chomsky's current Biolinguistic methodology is shown to comport with what might be called 'established' aspects of biological method, thereby raising, in the biolinguistic domain, issues concerning biological autonomy from the physical sciences. At least current irreducibility of biology, including biolinguistics, stems in at least some cases from the very nature of what I will claim is physiological, or inter-organ/inter-component, macro-levels of explanation which play a new and central explanatory role in Chomsky's inter-componential explanation of certain properties of the syntactic component (...) of Universal Grammar. Under this new mode of explanation, certain physiological functions of cognitive mental organs are hypothesized, in an attempt to explain aspects of their internal anatomy. Thus, the internal anatomy of the syntactic component exhibits features that enable it to effectively interface with other 'adjacent' organs, such as the Conceptual-Intensional system and the Sensory- Motor system. These two interface systems take as their inputs the assembled outputs of the syntactic component and, as a result of the very syntactic structure imposed by the syntax are then able to assign their sound and meaning interpretations. If this is an accurate characterization, Chomsky's long-standing postulation of mental organs, and I will argue, the advancement of new hypotheses concerning physiological inter-organ functions, has attained in current biolinguistic Minimalist method a significant unification with foundational aspects of physiological explanation in other areas of biology. (shrink)

Marr’s seminal distinction between computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels of analysis has inspired research in cognitive science for more than 30 years. According to a widely-used paradigm, the modelling of cognitive processes should mainly operate on the computational level and be targeted at the idealised competence, rather than the actual performance of cognisers in a specific domain. In this paper, we explore how this paradigm can be adopted and revised to understand mathematical problem solving. The computational-level approach applies methods from (...) computational complexity theory and focuses on optimal strategies for completing cognitive tasks. However, human cognitive capacities in mathematical problem solving are essentially characterised by processes that are computationally sub-optimal, because they initially add to the computational complexity of the solutions. Yet, these solutions can be optimal for human cognisers given the acquisition and enactment of mathematical practices. Here we present diagrams and the spatial manipulation of symbols as two examples of problem solving strategies that can be computationally sub-optimal but humanly optimal. These aspects need to be taken into account when analysing competence in mathematical problem solving. Empirically informed considerations on enculturation can help identify, explore, and model the cognitive processes involved in problem solving tasks. The enculturation account of mathematical problem solving strongly suggests that computational-level analyses need to be complemented by considerations on the algorithmic and implementational levels. The emerging research strategy can help develop algorithms that model what we call enculturated cognitive optimality in an empirically plausible and ecologically valid way. (shrink)