Enculturated predictive processing : a philosophical framework for research on reading and its disorders
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Abstract
In the past few years there have been numerous attempts to account for the phylogenetic and ontogenetic trajectories of neuronal processing, embodied action, and socio-culturally shaped cognitive practices. These attempts have led to ongoing debates about the details of the neuronal realization of cognitive functions, the degree of embodiment that is required for certain cognitive abilities, and the influence of the socio-cultural environment on certain classes of cognitive processing routines. This PhD thesis makes decisive contributions to these current debates in philosophy of cognitive science.
The key idea is to deliver a new, integrative, and unifying framework for the conceptual and empirical investigation of cognitive processes that are characterized by the delicate interplay of neuronal, bodily, and socio-culturally shaped processes at multiple time scales. In particular, I argue on both conceptual and empirical grounds that the emerging predictive processing framework is complementary to cognitive integration and its approach to enculturation. The resulting integrative perspective – combined with in-depth considerations of cognitive niche construction models, neural reuse, and neural plasticity – provides the unique opportunity to investigate cognitive practices with new conceptual tools and empirically informed theoretical insights. I call this perspective enculturated predictive processing (EPP).
The emerging EPP framework is applied to reading, which I take to be a paradigm case of enculturated cognition. It is an ontogenetically acquired cognitive skill that significantly transforms the cognitive capacities of an individual. Reading is realized by the close dynamic interaction of neuronal and bodily (e.g., ocular-motor) sub-processes and constrained by a set of cognitive norms guiding the successful manipulation of tokens of an orthographic system. The investigation of this paradigm case yields two related advantages. On the one hand, the EPP perspective allows for a well-informed interpretation of empirical research on specific components of reading. On the other hand, the scrutiny of these components leads to a refinement, specification, and extension of the conceptual tools and hypotheses developed by EPP.
I also consider cases of reading disorders, namely developmental phonological dyslexia, high-functioning autism, and pure alexia. The reason is that reading disorders help specify the most important conditions of reading in both ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ cases. Furthermore, reading disorders are interesting in their own right, because they unveil the fragility of socio-culturally shaped cognitive processes. They also contribute to the discovery of the plethora of sub-personally initiated neuronal and bodily strategies to compensate for certain cognitive deficits. This equally applies to developmental disorders (i.e., cases of dysculturation) and acquired disorders (i.e., cases of deculturation on the EPP construal).
In summary, the EPP framework with its synergy of conceptual analysis and the interpretation of a vast array of empirical results leads to the development of new theses and hypotheses that are relevant to both philosophy and cognitive science.