Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:49:24.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neural Redundancy and Its Relation to Neural Reuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John Zerilli
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Evidence of the pervasiveness of neural reuse in the human brain has forced a revision of the standard conception of modularity in the cognitive sciences. One persistent line of argument against such revision, however, cites the evidence of cognitive dissociations. While this article takes the dissociations seriously, it contends that the traditional modular account is not the best explanation. The key to the puzzle is neural redundancy. The article offers both a philosophical analysis of the relation between reuse and redundancy as well as a plausible solution to the problem of dissociations.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1191 - 1201
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I gratefully acknowledge the suggestions of those who either read or heard this article, in particular Kim Sterelny, Andy Barron, and Richard Menary.

References

Anderson, Michael L. 2010. “Neural Reuse: A Fundamental Organizational Principle of the Brain.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 245–66.; discussion 266–313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Michael L.. 2014. After Phrenology: Neural Reuse and the Interactive Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, H. Clark. 2006. “Modularity and Design Reincarnation.” In The Innate Mind, Vol. 2, Culture and Cognition, ed. Carruthers, Peter, Laurence, Stephen, and Stich, Stephen P., 199–217. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barrett, H. Clark, and Kurzban, Robert. 2006. “Modularity in Cognition: Framing the Debate.” Psychological Review 113 (3): 628–47..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergeron, Vincent. 2007. “Anatomical and Functional Modularity in Cognitive Science: Shifting the Focus.” Philosophical Psychology 20 (2): 175–95..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2002. On Nature and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, Morten H., and Chater, Nick. 2016. Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coltheart, Max. 2011. “Methods for Modular Modelling: Additive Factors and Cognitive Neuropsychology.” Cognitive Neuropsychology 28 (3–4): 224–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edelman, Gerald M., and Gally, Joseph A.. 2001. “Degeneracy and Complexity in Biological Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 98 (24): 13763–68..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fedorenko, Evelina, Behr, Michael K., and Kanwisher, Nancy. 2011. “Functional Specificity for High-Level Linguistic Processing in the Human Brain.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 108 (39): 16428–33..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fodor, Jerry A. 1983. The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friston, Karl J., and Price, Cathy J.. 2003. “Degeneracy and Redundancy in Cognitive Anatomy.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (4): 151–52..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guida, Alessandro, Campitelli, Guillermo, and Gobet, Fernand. 2016. “Becoming an Expert: Ontogeny of Expertise as an Example of Neural Reuse.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39:13–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iriki, Atsushi, and Taoka, Miki. 2012. “Triadic (Ecological, Neural, Cognitive) Niche Construction: A Scenario of Human Brain Evolution Extrapolating Tool Use and Language from the Control of Reaching Actions.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367:10–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jungé, Justin A., and Dennett, Daniel C.. 2010. “Multi-Use and Constraints from Original Use.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 277–78..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, Annette. 1992. Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Plaut, David C. 1995. “Double Dissociation without Modularity: Evidence from Connectionist Neuropsychology.” Journal of Clinical and Experimental Psychology 17 (2): 291–321..Google ScholarPubMed
Poeppel, David. 2001. “Pure Word Deafness and the Bilateral Processing of the Speech Code.” Cognitive Science 21 (5): 679–93..Google Scholar
Pulvermüller, Friedmann, and Fadiga, Luciano. 2010. “Active Perception: Sensorimotor Circuits as a Cortical Basis for Language.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11:351–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sternberg, Saul. 2011. “Modular Processes in Mind and Brain.” Cognitive Neuropsychology 28 (3–4): 156–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiteacre, James M. 2010. “Degeneracy: A Link between Evolvability, Robustness and Complexity in Biological Systems.” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 7 (6): 1–17..Google Scholar
Zerilli, John. 2017. “Against the ‘System’ Module.” Philosophical Psychology 30 (3): 235–50..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zerilli, John. 2019. “Multiple Realization and the Commensurability of Taxonomies.” Synthese 196 (8): 3337–53..CrossRefGoogle Scholar