Using a model of cognition as extended and enactive, we examine the role of materiality in making minds as exemplified by lithics and writing, forms associated with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. We address ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause such change, and the spans of time required for neurofunctional reorganization. We also offer three hypotheses for investigating co-influence and change in cognition (...) and material culture. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793. (shrink)

Human cognition is extended and enacted. Drawing the boundaries of cognition to include the resources and attributes of the body and materiality allows an examination of how these components interact with the brain as a system, especially over cultural and evolutionary spans of time. Literacy and numeracy provide examples of multigenerational, incremental change in both psychological functioning and material forms. Though we think materiality, its central role in human cognition is often unappreciated, for reasons that include conceptual distribution over multiple (...) material forms, the unconscious transparency of cognitive activity in general, and the different temporalities of metaplastic change in neurons and cultural forms. (shrink)

Notations are cognitive systems involving distinctive psychological functions, behaviors, and material forms. Seen through this lens, two main types – semasiography and visible language – are fundamentally differentiated by their material prehistories, emphasis on iconography, and the centrality of language's combinatorial faculty. These fundamental differences suggest that key qualities (iconicity, expressiveness, concision) are difficult to conjoin in a single system.

Anthropological contributions are essential to understanding the evolution of writing and its potential variation. Although Stanislas Dehaene calls for a ‘neuro-anthropological perspective’, he neglects anthropological evidence, including the only indisputable case of independent invention of writing: the pre-Columbian systems of the Americas. Here I argue that anthropological and historical accounts of the cultural evolution of language suggest that ecological, technological, social and political factors have all influenced the ongoing development of writing systems, even in directions contrary to that predicted by (...) a model of increased neural efficiency. In addition, Pre-Columbian writing systems, not subject to a diffusionist confound because of their independent invention, caution that our research on diversity in writing may represent a small, systematically biased sample. To truly understand neuro-cognitive variation, we have to avoid both overly ambitious universalisms and radical cultural relativism. (shrink)