Re-Thinking NeuroConstructivism through Dynamic (neuro)-Enskilment

Mirko Farina Department of Cognitive Science mirko.farina@mq.edu.au

Cognitive Science Workshop, December 5th 2012

A larger project
Nativism/ Modularity / Neuroconstructivism / Enculturation Goal: attack weak forms of nativism (typically Marcus neo nativism) by suggesting a revision/radicalization of the framework proposed by standard neuroconstructivism In this short talk, however, I am going to be presenting only the material on standard neuroconstructivism and will just hint at how it bears on the nativism debate in a concluding slide at the very end of this talk

Todays Talk

In this paper I discuss two views - standard neuroconstructivism, and dynamic neuro-enskilment - that explain human cognitive and cortical development from slightly different standpoints I compare these views and critically analyse the links between them

The Main Goal of this Talk!

I do so to demonstrate that what I call standard neuroconstructivism, in order to fully account for recent empirical findings, needs to be updated and radicalized along the lines envisaged by the dynamic neuro-enskilment view

Standard Neuroconstructivism
(Karmiloff-Smith, Mareschal, Johnson, Westermann,
Elman, Thomas ...)
Framework for the study of cognition that draws on, and integrates, different views of brain and cognitive development such as: (1) probabilistic epigenesis which emphasizes the interactions between experience and gene expression (Gottlieb 2007) (2) neural constructivism which focuses on the experience-dependent elaboration of neural networks in the brain (Purves 1994; Quartz & Sejnowski 1997) (3) the interactive specialization view of brain development which focuses on the mutually constraining interactions of different brain regions in shaping the developing brain (Johnson 2001) (4) embodiment views that emphasize the importance of the body in cognitive development and processing (Clark 1999; Smith 2005) (5) Piagets constructivist approach to development that stresses the pro-active acquisition of knowledge by the child, and (6) approaches highlighting the role of the evolving social environment for the developing child (Westermann, Thomas, and Karmiloff-Smith 2010, p.724).

The impact of standard neuroconstructivism in philosophy Few Naggings

Much of the philosophical enthusiasm for the developmentally based work of Elman 1993, Karmiloff-Smith 1992, which culminated in the collaboration between Clark and Karmiloff-Smith (1993a,b), and more famously in the publication of Rethinking Innateness (Elman et al. 1996), hasnt been carried through to present days and neuroconstructivism, after receiving a lot of press from philosophers in the early 90s, has totally dropped off the philosophical radar since The Philosophers' Index database lists only three papers on neuroconstructivism in the 2000s... I find this rather odd!

In this paper, by returning (as a philosopher) to neuroconstructivism , I attempt to make it the centre of a fresh and new theoretical debate

The Dynamic Neuro-Enskilment View

The dynamic neuro-enskilment view retains a standard neuro-constructivist basis *BUT* integrates within it ideas about distributed enculturated cognition/cognitive ecologies (Roepstorff and Niewoehner [2010], Hutchins [2010]) and new work on neural plasticity in neuropsychology [Giedd 2009] and cultural neuroscience (Chiao [2009], Kitayama and Park [2010])

Theorizes a profound dependence of brain organization and cortical development on both patterned practices and cultural/social activities Emphasizes the power of brain plasticity, expertise, and rewiring throughout the entire lifespan. Crucial Tenet: adult entrenchment in different socio-cultural contexts can generate completely dissimilar neural responses, leading to structurally different, cognitively diverse, and deeply enculturated brains.

Standard neuroconstructivism is the theory that characterizes development as a trajectory that is shaped by multiple interacting biological and environmental constraints, in which complex representations develop based on earlier and simpler ones

This increase in representational complexity is realized through a progressive elaboration of functional cortical structures, which are not selected from a constrained juvenile stock but rather emerge in an experiencedependent way

Standard neuroconstructivism argues for progressive elaboration of neural structures with earlier structures forming the building blocks for later structures and describes development within a perspective of context-dependent learning Thus, standard neuroconstructivism calls for consistency between the neural and cognitive levels in characterizing developmental trajectories, posits the interrelatedness (on multiple timescales) of brain, body, and world, and argues that the interweaving of all these factors is crucial for cognitive development

How the Brain constructs Cognition

Human intelligence is not a state (i.e., not a collection of static, built-in modules that can be intact or impaired) but a process (i.e., the emergent property over developmental time of dynamic, multidirectional interactions between genes, brain, cognition, behavior, and environment) with domain-specific outcomes impossible without the process of development (Karmiloff-Smith 2009)

The brain is fundamental for cognitive development *BUT* no reductionist standpoint cognitive change not just neural adaptation

Rather cortical specialization is the result of a process in which constrained mental representations get reshaped via learning and experience dependent activities Thus, standard neuroconstructivists describe brain fine-tuning, its regional specialization, and gradual development as constrained by environmental exposure in the world

Standard Neuroconstructivism and Learning ...

Learning is a constructive process that is realized by means of continuous changes operated on constrained cortical structures that are moulded in early stages of infancy by experience dependent activities

Standard Neuroconstructivism and the Sensitive Window .

There is a sensitive period for learning for them then, in the sense that it is only if the early structures are in place that we can get the later structures since these build on what has occurred in early stages of life

This doesnt imply that the brain cant continue to change itself through learning at later stages but just that the ways in which it can change itself are severely constrained by experience-dependent activities undergone in infancy

Spot on! (with two concerns)

1) Is cognitive development severely constrained by experiences undertaken in early childhood? Unique Sensitive Window? 2) What is the role that expertise and experiencebased neuronal plasticity play in redirecting the developmental path in adulthood?

1. Rewiring Constraints...
Giedd and colleagues (2006, 2009) demonstrated the existence of a second period of synaptic plasticity in adolescence This second wave of synaptic overproduction (in all respects analogous to the one that takes place in early childhood) constitutes a second window of opportunity for the developing adolescence

What is most surprising is that you get a second wave of overproduction of gray matter, something that was thought to happen only in the first 18 months of life

Show that the belief that the brain has fully matured by the age of 8 or 12, with the truly crucial wiring complete as early as 3, is false. The brain is an ongoing construction site where development does not stop at age 3 or 10, but continues into the teen years and even the 20s

AREAS : corpus callosum amygdalae pre frontal cortex nucleus accumbens hippocampus "
The brain undergoes dynamic changes much later than we originally thought. Maturity is not simply a matter of slipping software (learning) into existing equipment. Instead, the hardware changes. Think of it as nature's way of giving us a second chance [see Sowell (UCLA) and Todd (Harvard/Utah)]

These results do not yet offer direct empirical evidence for the dynamic neuro-enskilment view, but question the idea of a unique phase-sensitive window of opportunity confined to childhood and so emphasize the possibility of completely rewiring already rewired and constrained cortical structures

2. Evidence for the Dynamic Neuro Enskilment view ..

Transcultural neuroimaging studies that have highlighted the intrinsically biosocial nature of the functional organization of the human brain

London Taxi Drivers (Maguire et al. 2000)

Relative to the hippocampi of matched control subjects [non taxi drivers and bus drivers], the hippocampi of the cab drivers showed a substantial enlargement in the posterior part This structural difference was related to cab driving and was reported to be proportional with the number of years of experience as a taxi driver

Jugglers (Draganski et al. 2004)

Draganski used MRI to visualize learning-induced plasticity in the brains of trained volunteers who have learned to juggle from scratch for approximately 60 seconds without dropping a ball over a period of three months

Relative to the brain of controlled subjects (non jugglers) the experimenters found out that there were significant changes involved in the volume of white matter in the brain of the jugglers

Canadian Mail Sorters (Polk and Farah 1998)

Polk and Farah (1998) designed an experiment to determine whether extensive socio-cultural activities undertaken in adulthood could have an effect on this dissociation They tested Canadian postal workers who spend days sorting mail by postal code

Results were fascinating: compared to fellow postal workers who do not sort mail, Canadian mail sorters, show significantly less behavioural evidence for segregated letter and digit processing

Jazz Musicians (Vuust et al. 2005 Vuust and Roepstorff 2008)

Jazz musicians react to rhythmic deviations more significantly and in a shorter period of time than nonmusicians This happens because jazz musicians are routinely engaged in musical practices that continually involve these deviations

Classic Musicians (Ohnishi et al. 2001)

Ohnishi and colleagues (2001) compared the brain activation of expert musicians with that of non-musicians

While listening to the same piece of music (namely Bachs Italian Concerto), musicians and non-musicians recruited different areas of their brains

Culture and Memory (Gutchess et al. 2006)

Gutchess and Park 2009 Cultural differences in neural function associated with object processing

Where do these findings leave us?

These results provide strong empirical evidence for the intimate dependence of human cognition (even in adulthood) on both sociocultural/technological environments and patterned practices

What Do We Learn?

We learn that the environments in which we live have a huge influence in initiating and orchestrating specific physiological processes as well as in organizing, both anatomically and functionally, our cognitive architectures We also learn that although the anatomical structures and the cognitive architectures that characterize our brains progress and develop through a common developmental path, they continually interact with each other and with their environments to change each other's functions

Re-Thinking Standard Neuroconstructivism? (Conclusions)

These results urge standard neuroconstructivists to stretch and liberalize the sixth dimension of their framework Approaches highlighting the role of evolving social environments in the developing child...

Substantial Revision of their framework? (Preliminary Conclusion)

OBJECTION! - The point about the sensitivity window is an empirical point in developmental neuroscience. But is it philosophically relevant to the standard neuro-constuctivist?

What is there in the theory or in the conclusions that are drawn from the theory that changes once we extend the sensitivity window? Doesnt it just require a tweak to the theory?

OK lets agree conclusions might be the same *BUT* the framework is not. The idea of development in the two accounts is very different. This difference becomes relevant when we look at a broader picture Modularity theorists (e.g. Marcus) have tried to appropriate constructivist ideas to account for the role of development. Unique Sensitive Windows = Maturation of Modules

How do nativists account for a second window of opportunity? Re-Maturation of already matured modules? Sounds like an ad hoc hypothesis.

So the empirical point we thought was not philosophically relevant to the neuroconstructivists turns out to be philosophically decisive. In other words, it is philosophically relevant to the neuroconstructivist because it is relevant to the nativists in the first place.

A Special Thanks to:

John Sutton Julian Kiverstein Richard Menary Andy Clark MacNaP Audience

Macquarie University You All