symbolic representations
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It’s not over our heads: Why human language needs a body
n the ‘orthodox’ view, cognition has been seen as manipulation of symbolic, mental representations, separate from the body. This dualist Cartesian approach characterised much of twentieth-century thought and is still taken for granted by many people today. Language, too, has for a long time been treated across scientific domains as a system operating largely independently from perception, action, and the body (articulatory-perceptual organs notwithstanding). This could lead one into believing that to emulate linguistic behaviour, it would suffice to develop ‘software’ operating on abstract representations that would work on any computational machine. Yet the brain is not the sole problem-solving resource we have at our disposal. The disembodied picture is inaccurate for numerous reasons, which will be presented addressing the issue of the indissoluble link between cognition, language, body, and environment in understanding and learning. The talk will conclude with implications and suggestions for pedagogy, relevant for disciplines as diverse as instruction in language, mathematics, and sports.
The Brain’s Constraints on Human Number Concepts
Although animals can estimate numerical quantities, true counting and arithmetic abilities are unique to humans and are inextricably linked to symbolic competence. However, our unprecedented numerical skills are deeply rooted in our neuronal heritage as primates and vertebrates. I argue that numerical competence in humans is the result of three neural constraints. First, I propose that the neuronal mechanisms of quantity estimation are part of our evolutionary heritage and can be witnessed across primate and vertebrate phylogeny. Second, I suggest that a basic understanding of number, what numerical quantity means, is innately wired into the brain and gives rise to an intuitive number sense, or number instinct. Third and finally, I argue that symbolic counting and arithmetic in humans is rooted in an evolutionarily and ontogenetically primeval neural system for non-symbolic number representations. These three neural constraints jointly determine the basic processing of number concepts in the human mind.
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