Abstract
This chapter gives a brief introduction to studies on embodied cognition specifically on the relation between perceptual and sensomotoric processes and linguistic conceptualisations from the neuroscientific perspective to demonstrate the depth and approach of the challenge presented by the interactional expertise theory in Chap. 2. Both behavioural and neuroimaging studies reveal that linguistic activities are sustained by multimodal experiences. To that end, the linguification process is introduced in detail. Special emphasis is on in what sense the biological origin of cognition pervades the cognitive as exemplified by tacit processes since these may prove especially important to abstract knowledge acquisition. The chapter also touches upon the distinction between implicit and consciously controlled, phenomenally experienced knowledge. This dichotomy fits with and contrasts bottom-up and top-down processes, and the idea that bottom-up processes are often automatic and beyond control whereas top-down processes depend on directed attention often as a result of instruction by others is introduced. Additionally, the concept of ‘sub-activities’, ‘back doors’ and ‘linguistic handles’ are presented to conceptualise the complexity of the neural correlate sustaining linguistic knowledge, as well as to conceptualise the process of accessing neural correlates by stimulating fragments of the assembly.
Some of the ideas and arguments presented in this chapter have been covered in condensed form in Schilhab (2015c).
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Notes
- 1.
In the scientific literature, simulation theory is found in two separate variants. Though partly connected, one is concerned with mind-reading abilities and points to our ability to simulate the mind and perspectives of others, for example by activity of mirror neuron systems (see also Chap. 8). The other variant claims that simulation of percepts grounds conceptual understanding. Thus, the former could be viewed as a special case, that of understanding other minds, of a general ability to make sense of the world by simulation.
- 2.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) is a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting associated changes in blood flow.
- 3.
Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp.
- 4.
Obviously, abilities that enable a particular organism to cognitively cope are not fixed across species but rely on the history and life conditions (phylogenetic characteristics) of specific species. Godfrey-Smith elaborates (ibid.): “As the term ‘toolkit’ suggests we need not to find some single set of tools across all the organisms with cognitive capacities; different organisms have different collections of behaviour control devices, according to their circumstances and history”. See also Schilhab (2017a).
- 5.
The ideas developed in the following paragraphs on ‘linguification’ have been introduced in preliminary form in Schilhab (2013a; 2015a; b; c).
- 6.
In the technical formulation of Pulvermüller (2011), when a word form is articulated neural activity is sparked in the lower motor cortex. However, the resulting speech also sparks activity in the separate auditory area. The co-activation leads to strengthening of the neuronal links (p. 6):
“As the inferior-frontal and superior-temporal neuron populations—which, before learning, had either been controlling articulation movements or had specifically responded to the acoustic features—are being linked together by the learning process, the resulting connected assembly can be considered an action-perception-circuit, or APC, in which action-related and perceptual information is being merged or mixed”.For a neural study on the early linking of language perception and speech in infants, see for instance Imada et al. (2006).
- 7.
Correlates (or aggregates) refer to concurrent stimulations which couple linguistic, perceptual, and motor processing and which eventually integrate into a neural ensemble. Pulvermüller (2011) lists a number of descriptions for this phenomenon such as ‘cell assemblies’, ‘reverberatory synfire chains’, ‘cognits’, ‘large-scale neurocognitive networks’, and ‘neuronal assemblies’. Following Pulvermüller, I will use these notions interchangeably unless otherwise stated.
- 8.
The neural mechanism is known as Hebbian learning and involves repeated presynaptic activation that leads to increased postsynaptic activity that improves the synaptic strength between the implied cells (for relevance of Hebbian learning to complex neurophysiological mechanisms, see Garagnani et al., 2008; see also Meyer and Damasio (2009), for elaboration on the neural architecture corroborating re-experiences during recall).
- 9.
However, it is not unlikely that several interactions with someone eventually leads to characterising that person based on pattern recognition and implicit theories about the personality instead of particular behaviours associated with each singular incidence. When interacting abundantly with an individual, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate singular episodes unless they are particularly memorable.
- 10.
I use the term ’sub-activity’ for the different ‘classes’ of neural underpinnings that are recruited and eventually united by the linguification system. In the following bicycle-example of Barsalou (2009) the visual processing of a bicycle involves, for example, neurons that fire for edges and surfaces, whereas other neurons fire for colour, configural properties and motion. Analytically, neurons with similar functional characteristics belong to a particular class or ‘sub-activity’, whereas all classes or sub-activities represent the bicycle in vision. Sub-activities may be conceived of as components in the concrete manifestation of simulations.
- 11.
Barsalou et al. (2003) distinguish between simulators and simulations as a relation between type and token.
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Schilhab, T. (2017). Grounded Cognition. In: Derived Embodiment in Abstract Language. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56056-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56056-4_3
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