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“Neural reuse” refers to the exaptation of established and relatively fixed neural circuits without loss of original function/use. Reuse arises over the course of normal development and evolution. The evidence of this phenomenon speaks most loudly against the idea of strict domain-specificity. It seems that no area of the brain is exempt from redeployment, with areas of the brain traditionally considered to be among the most domain-specific (such as sensory areas) also contributing their computational/structural resources to other domains, including those involving language. The evidence supporting reuse takes many forms, among them evolutionary and developmental considerations, computational considerations, and the neuroimaging and biobehavioral literature.

There seems to be no language module, no elementary linguistic unit, no hardwired language organ. Language was probably assembled from older sensory-motor and nonlinguistic materials. Neuroimaging, biobehavioral, computational, and evolutionary considerations all point to the same conclusion. Such linguistic adaptations as there have been have been coopted in many other domains of cognition. The sort of cultural environment in which language exists is too unstable to provide the conditions for typical selection scenarios in which robust phenotypes can emerge, and the brain anyway negotiates energetic constraints by repurposing existing resources to meet new challenges. Language acquisition frequently does seem effortless on the child’s part, and exhibits a degree of developmental robustness. But the ease of acquisition has probably been exaggerated, and the child’s environment is not so impoverished as was once assumed. In any case, such ease of acquisition can be explained other than by postulating exotic and impossible-to-evolve circuitry. Language has been shaped by the brain far more than the brain has been shaped by language. Cultural evolution is a powerful factor in human history, and is more than sufficient to explain why languages seem to run so well with the grain of the human mind. It is true that language dissociates from other cognitive skills, at least in some respects, but the Redundancy Model puts this sort of modularization in its proper context.

The previous chapter argued that we ought to regard dissociability as the sine qua non of modularity. As for what in the brain meets this standard of modularity, the only likely candidate will be something resembling a cortical column. But this is not guaranteed. The effects of the neural network context may so compromise a region’s ability to maintain a set of stable input–output relations that it cannot be considered a genuine module. The brain’s network structure poses particular difficulties for modularity, since even if we were to treat nodes as modules, still we could be missing the point—the key to networks lies not in their nodes, but in the structure of their interactions, and these interactions make pinning down what any single node “does” a fraught enterprise. The chapter includes a table of specificity for brain regions.

This chapter maps out a range of embodied cognition (EC) theories, starting with ‘weak EC’, which focuses on body-formatted representations and the neural reuse hypothesis, and remains close to traditional cognitivist conceptions of the mind. This approach to EC is then contrasted to functionalist proposals for extended mind, to a biological model of EC, and finally to enactivist proposals. Each section includes discussions of the empirical evidence for these approaches. The chapter concludes by arguing that weak EC’s representationalist conception of brain function is not compatible with the more radical conceptions of EC, which suggest that we rethink how the brain works within a dynamical brain–body–environment system.

This chapter discusses a method for understanding embodied cognition which involves bodily representational codes and evidence regarding cognitive processes that the brain reuses. It offers a philosophical definition of the concept of embodied cognition, as well as empirical evidence of human cognition, not all but mostly, being embodied. It initially examines the relationship between embodiment and bodily representational codes, followed by an analysis of the Massive Redeployment Hypothesis or “neural reuse.” The chapter also explains the interrelationship between perception and embodied cognition through examining a research study conducted by Dennis Proffitt, a vision scientist who maintains that an individual's body is the measure of all things.

The modularity of mind has been understood in various ways, amended as evidence from neuroscience has forced the theory to shed various structural assumptions. Neuroplasticity has, for better or worse, challenged many of the orthodox conceptions of the mind that originally led cognitive scientists to postulate mental modules. Similarly, rapidly accumulating neuroscientific evidence of the reuse or redeployment of neural circuits, revealing the integrated and interactive structure of brain regions, has upset basic assumptions about the relationship of function to structure upon which modularity—not to say neuroscience itself—originally depended. These movements, developments, and cross-currents are the subject of this book. This chapter outlines the basic argument of the book and its motivation.

The chapter will address the notion of embodiment from a neuroscientific perspective, by emphasizing the crucial role played by bodily relations and sociality on the evolution and development of distinctive features of human cognition. The neurophysiological level of description is here accounted for in terms of bodily-formatted representations and discussed by replying to criticisms recently raised against this notion. The neuroscientific approach here proposed is critically framed and discussed against the background of the Evo-Devo focus on a little explored feature of human beings in relation to social cognition: their neotenic character. Neoteny refers to the slowed or delayed physiological and/or somatic development of an individual. Such development is largely dependent on the quantity and quality of interpersonal relationships the individual is able to establish with her/his adult peers. It is proposed that human neoteny further supports the crucial role played by embodiment, here spelled out by adopting the explanatory framework of embodied simulation, in allowing humans to engage in social relations, and make sense of others’ behaviors.This approach can fruitfully be used to shed new light onto non propositional forms of communication and social understanding and onto distinctive human forms of meaning making, like the experience of man-made fictional worlds.

No one denies the brain’s intricacy of structure and function. The debate has always been over what form this complexity takes. The most influential answer to this question for over 60 years—and the most controversial for almost 40—is that the mind is composed of modules. This book offers a clearer, cleaner and far more realistic picture of what that means. It is respectful of advances in psychology and philosophy over the past half century, but is anchored firmly in the neurobiological evidence. It attempts to strike an ideal balance between different approaches to the investigation of the mind/brain.

It should by now be clear that modules are sensitive with respect to such experiences as learning, injury, and sensory deprivation, regardless of how young or mature the organism happens to be. And yet this is not the full story. The brain’s plasticity is definitely constrained. While plasticity is an intrinsic and crucial feature of the nervous system, it is important to emphasize that the brain is not open-endedly plastic. Furthermore, a brain region can be innate in a relatively strong sense and yet fail to reach the threshold characteristics of a genuine module. A bias, after all, is not a specialization.

This chapter reviews some of the fundamentals of evolution, particularly adaptations and exaptations. Adaptations are physical or behavioral features that through natural selection aided survival and reproduction. Exaptations are physical or behavioral features that have been co-opted from their initial adaptive functions and subsequently enhanced fitness. The reuse, recycling, or redeployment of brain neurons for purposes other than their original adaption may be considered a central organizing principle of the brain. The chapter reviews the beginnings of life and presents a timeline of life through the evolution of hominins. The term hominin refers to all current and extinct relatives and ancestors of Homo sapiens, including the australopithecines and habilines, within about the last 6 million years. The chapter introduces the hypothesis that Homo sapiens survived and flourished, instead of Neandertals, Denisovans, and other hominins, because of brain shape differences, which created cognitive differences that enhanced the evolutionary fitness of Homo sapiens.