Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Flux: Fundamental or Frivolous? Lera Boroditsky ([email protected]) Department of Psychology, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 420 Stanford, CA, 94305-2130, USA Helen Neville and Christina Karns ([email protected], [email protected]) Brain Development Lab, University of Oregon Arthur B. Markman ([email protected]) Psychology, University of Texas at Austin Michael J. Spivey ([email protected]) Cognitive Science, University of California at Merced Symposium summary A broad range of findings across the cognitive sciences has emerged revealing surprising flexibility and dynamic flux in a large range of cognitive domains. These include exciting new discoveries of neuroplasticity well into adulthood, discoveries of great cognitive variability as a function of the statistical properties of one’s environment (from patterns in natural languages, to those in embodied experience), and discoveries of the surprisingly dynamic microstructure of cognition. Do such findings demonstrate that many fundamental aspects of cognition are indeed quite flexible? Or does finding that some aspect of cognition is flexible mean that it is therefore not fundamental? Or is flux the only truly fundamental thing about cognition in the first place? The talks in this symposium will speak to these questions from a variety of perspectives (incorporating ideas from development, neuroscience, computational insights, and cross-cultural approaches), and help us clarify our thinking about what such findings mean. Variability and Specificity in Human Neuroplasticity: Flux is Fundamental! Helen Neville and Christina Karns Brain Development Lab, University of Oregon The brain is in a state of constant change. In fact, one might argue that the reason some systems have such short critical periods is the constant pressure from competing systems in a rapidly changing brain. Different brain systems and related functions display markedly different degrees or 'profiles' of neuroplasticity in human development. Some systems are strongly determined and are not altered even when experience has been very different. Others are highly modifiable by experience and dependent on experience but only during particular time periods. There are several different such sensitive periods, even within a domain of processing. A third 'plasticity profile' is demonstrated by those neural systems that remain capable of change by experience throughout life. Neuroplasticity is a double- edged sword that permits both enhanceability and vulnerability. These findings contribute to a basic understanding of the nature, mechanisms and constraints of human brain plasticity, a fundamental player in all aspect of cognition. In addition, they can contribute information of practical significance in the design and implementation of educational programs. Flexibility does not imply flux Arthur B. Markman University of Texas Cognitive Science often focuses on the core aspects of cognitive processing that are common across individuals. Indeed, we often treat adaptability to context and variability across individuals as statistical error. Periodically, however, this variability comes into focus. This focus on variability is typically accompanied by calls for a fundamentally different way of characterizing cognitive processing such as dynamical systems, situated cognition, or embodied cognition. That is, there is an implicit assumption that the fluidity of cognitive processing is somehow incompatible with many of the core explanatory constructs in the field. I argue that variability and flexibility in cognitive processing is crucial for us to understand, but that they are explicable without having to give up most of the traditional representational and processing assumptions of cognitive science. I illustrate this point with examples from analogical reasoning, decision making, and motivation.
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2769218129