A neuroscientific grasp of concepts: from control to representation.
Abstraction denotes the cognitive process by means of which general concepts are formed. The dominant view of abstraction considers it not only as a complex and sophisticated cognitive activity, but also as a distinctive hallmark of mankind. The distinctiveness of abstract thought has indeed been closely related to another feature peculiar to our species: language. Following this perspective, the possibility to entertain conceptual representations is thus precluded to animals devoid of full-blown language. I challenge this view and propose that the representational dynamic of the brain is conceivable as a type of self-organization, in which action plays a crucial part. My aim will be to investigate whether, and to what extent, conceptual knowledge can be attributed to non-linguistic animal species, with particular emphasis on nonhuman primates. I therefore introduce the notion of semantic content as a type of 'relational specification'. A review of recent neurophysiological data on the neural underpinnings of action end-states in the macaque monkey brain is presented. On the basis of this evidence, I propose that conceptual representations can be conceived as the expression of a coherent internal world model. This model decomposes the 'outer' space inhabited by things in a meaningful way only to the extent that it accords to biologically constrained, embodied invariance. Finally, I discuss how the 'comparative' neuroscientific approach to abstraction proposed here may shed some light on its nature and its evolutionary origin.
Gallese
Vittorio
V
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisiologia, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, I-43100 Parma, Italy. vittorio.gallese@unipr.it
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition; D003210:Concept Formation; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000502:physiology; D009488:Neurosciences