Embodying Culture: Integrated Cognitive Systems and Cultural Evolution

Richard Menary and Alexander James Gillett1

Forthcoming in Julian Kiverstein ed. Routledge Handbook of Social Mind. Please do not

quote without permission.

Abstract:

If cognitive systems are hybrid, composed of heterogeneous components spread out over

brain, body and environment, then how are they integrated into coherent functioning

systems? Rather than take a synchronic view of integration, this chapter will investigate the

evolutionary history of integrated systems and ask: how did such systems evolve? The

answer lies in the unique evolutionary history of humans and the important roles of niche

construction and cultural inheritance in driving the evolution of hybrid and integrated

cognitive systems.

Introduction

The Cognitive Integration (henceforth CI) framework posits the existence of integrated

cognitive systems (henceforth ICS). In this chapter we outline the nature of ICS and their

phylogenetic history. We shall argue that phylogenetically earlier forms of cognition are built

upon by more recent cultural innovations. Many of the phylogenetically earlier components

are forms of sensory-motor interactions with the environment (Menary 2007a, 2010a, 2016).

1The chapter is jointly authored. Both authors are based at the department of Philosophy, Macquarie University
Sydney. Research for this article was supported by the Australian Research Council, Future Fellowship FT
130100960.

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These sensory-motor interactions are redeployed (or retrained) to service more recent cultural

innovations (Dehaene & Cohen 2007). Take, for example, a rudimentary ability for tool use,

that is refined and then built upon by innovations over many generations. The same refined

sensory-motor skills for manipulating tools can be redeployed to recent cultural innovations

for writing with stylus, brush or pencil (Menary 2015). Redeployment happens after a process

of learning or training and the cultural innovations are inherited and spread out across

groups.2 This process depends upon both high fidelity cultural inheritance and a high degree

of plasticity (Sterelny 2012), which in humans is a specialised form of learning driven

plasticity (Menary 2014). Learning driven plasticity (henceforth LDP) is the capacity for

functional changes that are acquired from (usually) scaffolded learning in a highly structured

social niche. This results in a multi-layered system with heterogeneous components,

dynamically interwoven into a complex arrangement of processes and states in an integrated

cognitive system. The co-ordination dynamics of the system are, at least in part, understood

in terms of the physical dynamics of brain–body–niche interactions in real-time.

One of the key ingredients of ICS is the social/cultural practices, which we call normative

patterned practices (henceforth NPP), that govern the dynamics of brain-body-niche

interactions. NPPs operate at both social levels and individual, even sub-personal, levels.

They originate as patterns of activity spread out over a population of agents (Roepstorff et al

2010); consequently they should be understood primarily as public systems of activity and/or

representation that are susceptible to innovative alteration, expansion, and even contraction

over time. They are transmitted horizontally across generational groups and vertically from

one generation to the next. At the individual level they are acquired, most often by learning

and training, (hence the importance of LDP) and they manifest themselves as changes in the

2 This is what Menary (2012, 2015) calls a process of enculturation.

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ways in which individuals think, but also the ways that they act (intentionally) and the ways

in which they interact with other members of their social group(s) and the local environment.

NPPs, therefore, operate at different levels (groups and individuals) and over different time-

scales (intergenerationally and in the here- and-now).

The main aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the CI framework in terms of

phylogenetically ancient embodied interactions with the environment and the more recent

culturally evolved practices that redeploy our primitive capacities for sensorimotor

interactions and manipulations of tools, objects, and in a very recent innovation, public

systems of representation. In doing so, we provide a case for the enculturation of our bodies

and brains.

In the first section we outline the role of brain-body-niche interactions in ICS. In the

second section we place these interactions into the context of an inherited cognitive niche. In

the third section we lay out the fundamentals of the process of enculturation and in the final

section we outline the enculturation of our basic abilities for mathematical cognition as an

example of the enculturation process.

1. ICS and Embodied Engagements

The CI framework explains how we learn to be active cognitive agents who think by

manipulating their environments and by interacting with one another in social groups. One of

the key theses of CI is that body and environment coordinate, such that the environment is a

resource available to the organism for acting, thinking and communicating. In particular we

look at the role of body-environment coordination in the assembly of ICS. The co-ordination

dynamics of the system are understood in terms of the physical dynamics of brain–body–

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niche interactions in real-time3. However, the interactions that matter are those that are

governed by NPPs.

The primary form of NPPs that we shall consider are cognitive practices (CPs) (Menary

2007a, 2010a). Cognitive practices are enacted by creating and manipulating informational

structures in public space. For example, by creating shared linguistic content and developing

it through dialogue, inference and narrative; or it can be by actively creating and

manipulating environmental structures, which might take the form of tools or public and

shared representations (or a combination of both).

How do individuals embody CPs? They do so by a process of transformation of body

schemas or motor programmes (Menary 2007a, 2010b, Farne et al. 2007). Motor programmes

are acquired through learning and training, but existing programmes may also be extended

during training. Learning to catch, write, type, or flake a hand axe are examples of acquired

motor programmes. Cognition or thought is accomplished through the co-ordination of body

and environment and is, therefore, governed both by body schemas and by biological and

cultural norms. The latter will draw on many learned skills.

A clear way to understand the nature of the CPs at work is the manipulation thesis.

The manipulation thesis (Rowlands 1999, 2010, Menary 2007a, 2010a) concerns our

embodied engagements with the world, but it is not simply a causal relation. Bodily

manipulations are also normative—they are embodied practices developed through learning

and training (in ontogeny). We outline six different classes of bodily manipulation of the

environment, with the general label of Cognitive Practices4, they are:

3 Coordination dynamics are the interactions between the components of the system – both processes and
structures (see Menary 2013 for more details).

4 This refines Menary’s earlier analysis of cognitive practices in terms of Biological coupling, Epistemic
actions, Self-correcting actions and Cognitive practices. (Menary 2007a, 2010a, 2010b) The term cognitive
practices is now more all-encompassing for all these other kinds of cognitive manipulations.

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 1. Biological interactions

2. Corrective Practices

3. Epistemic Practices

4. Epistemic Tools and Representational Systems

- 4a. Epistemic Tools

- 4b. Representational Systems

5. Blended Practices

1. Biological interactions are direct sensorimotor interactions with the environment. An

obvious example are sensorimotor contingencies (O’Regan and Noë 2001); a direct example

of low-level, embodied interactions with the environment. One might think of simple

perception-action cycles, where direct perceptual input from the environment reciprocally

causes action, which then directly feeds into further behavior. For example, Ballard and

colleagues study (1995) details how participants in a memory-taxing pattern-copying task

offload these cognitive demands through exploratory saccadic eye movements. Dewey

anticipated such a model in his discussion of the reflex arc (see Menary 2016)5.

2. Corrective practices are a form of exploratory inference and are clearly present early in

early cognitive development. The main feature of this form of practice is action looping

through the environment to correct future action (e.g. instructional nudges (Sutton 2007)).

This might be done verbally, or it might be done by a form of epistemic updating, testing a

hypothesis through action. A classic example from Vygotsky helps to illustrate: A four-and-a-

5 Althoughinteractions of this kind aren’t obviously practice like, they are often influenced by cultural practice.
Sensori-motor capacities that underlie our capacities for various skills, such as driving and writing are good
examples of how we embody cultural practices.

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half-year-old girl was asked to get candy from a cupboard with a stool and a stick as tools.

The experiment was described by Levina in the following way (his descriptions are in

parentheses, the girls speech is in quotation marks):

(Stands on a stool, quietly looking, feeling along a shelf with stick). “On the

stool.” (Glances at experimenter. Puts stick in other hand) “Is that really the

candy?” (Hesitates) “I can get it from that other stool, stand and get it.” (Gets second stool)

“No that doesn’t get it. I could use the stick.” (Takes stick, knocks at the candy) “It will move

now.” (knocks candy) “It moved, I couldn’t get it with the stool, but the, but the stick

worked.” (Vygotsky 1978, p.25)

The child uses speech as a corrective tool, “that didn’t work, so I’ll try this.” Speech as a

corrective tool is a medium through which the child can correct her activity in the process of

achieving the desired result. It may be that hypothesis formulation and test through action is

early developing in children. Indeed there is good developmental evidence for exploratory

behaviour in neonates (Menary 2016). However, the dialogical nature of the self-corrective

practice in this example is likely to have been developed via verbal interactions with

caregivers (and possibly peers)6.

3. Epistemic practices: a classic example is Kirsch and Maglio’s (1994) example of

epistemic action in expert Tetris players. Experts would often perform actions that did not

directly result in a pragmatic goal7. The actions were designed to simplify cognitive

processing. Other examples include, the epistemic probing of an environment and epistemic

6 The exposition here aims for brevity. Menary (2007a, 2016) provides a detailed account of the developmental
aspects of corrective practices.

7These actions are direct manipulations of the task structure in the environment rather than internal
representations. And although experts do perform more physical acts, their performance is faster and more
accurate than novices who rely more heavily on internal resources.

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diligence – maintaining the quality of information stored in the environment (Menary 2012).

Epistemic diligence can take quite sophisticated forms, a simple form would be keeping the

physical environment organised in such a way that it simplifies visual search (Kirsh 1995,

Heersmink 2013). However, more complicated forms of epistemic diligence include updating

written information in a notebook or computer file, organising it and adding information as it

becomes available.

4. Epistemic Tools and Representational Systems

4.a Epistemic Tools: many tools aid in the completion of cognitive tasks, from rulers to

calculators, pen and paper to computers. Manipulating the tools as part of our completion of

cognitive tasks is something that we learn, often as part of a problem-solving task. So, more

complicated forms of tool use are built upon simpler forms of sensorimotor interactions with

the environment and innovations allow for continual improvement of technique. Some tools

are more obviously designed to produce physical ends; however, other tools are designed to

measure, observe, record, and extend our senses (Humphreys 2004). These are more

obviously epistemic tools and the way that we manipulate these tools is distinct from how we

deploy, for example, the hammer. Yet, the same sensorimotor programmes for physical tool

use, can be redeployed as the biological basis for epistemic tool use. However, without

sophisticated cognitive practices and public systems of representation, epistemic tools would

be as useless to us as they are to cats.

4.b Representational systems: behaviourally modern humans display an incredible facility

for innovating new forms of representational system. They also display a general capacity for

learning how to create, maintain and deploy representations. Alphabets, numerals, diagrams

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and many other forms of representation are often deployed as part of the processing cycle that

leads directly to the completion of a cognitive task (Menary 2015). Without public systems of

representation, cognitive practices of the most sophisticated kind would be impossible.

Therefore, it is important to have an account of what the nature of these representations is 8.

5. Blended interactions: complex cognitive tasks may involve combinations of practices

in cycles of cognitive processing. This seems likely given the hierarchical nature of ICS,

where more recent practices are built upon the more ancient. All levels of processing can be

deployed at once depending upon the nature of the task. As we shall see in section three,

mathematical cognition may call upon the manipulation of tools in conjunction with mastery

of public numeral systems and algorithms for manipulating those numerals.

1.1 Learning Driven Plasticity and Cognitive Practices

The acquisition of CPs depends upon our capacity to learn and a capacity to learn is in

turn dependent upon neural plasticity (Menary 2014). We can think of neural plasticity in

three broad ways the first is structural plasticity – actual changes to the structure of the brain,

the second is functional plasticity – actual changes to the function of the brain and finally

learning driven plasticity (Menary 2014, pp. 293-294). The important thing to note about

LDP is that it is not a matter of competitive learning in a neural network with randomized

initial weights. Whilst the brain may be constrained or biased to producing certain kinds of

functions in ontogeny, the learning environment of humans is highly structured and

controlled and not simply the location of undifferentiated input. Even when learning is

exploratory it still takes place in a highly structured and informationally rich environment.

8 For such an account see Menary (2007a) chapters 4-6.

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The scaffolding of culture and education makes an important contribution to the way that the

brain develops in children. Learning is a situated activity immersed within a suite of

patterned practices. It results in transformational effects on developmentally plastic brains, in

the sense that our brains get sculpted by the patterns of practices in our niche. The niche in

question, is the cultural niche and it contains practices, representations, tools, artefacts,

experts, teaching methods, and so on. As we shall see in section three, neural circuitry can be

redeployed via LDP such that phylogenetically older circuitry can be redeployed for new

cultural functions (such as, learning to read, learning to recognise Arabic numerals and so on

(see Dehaene and Cohen 2007)). We turn next to the evolution of plasticity and the cultural

inheritance of structured developmental niches.

2. ICS and Niche Construction

We are all familiar with the idea of natural selection, derived from the modern synthesis,

of environmental selection pressures that influence populations of phenotypes and the

inheritance of genetic material from the previous generation. The relationship between

environment and organism is asymmetric in the modern synthesis. An extension of the

modern synthesis (it should be noted that this is not a replacement) involves not seeing

evolution as an asymmetric relationship of selective pressures from environments to

organisms, but as a symmetrical relationship (Godfrey-Smith 1996) where organisms (and

phenotypic traits) and environments co-evolve.

The traditional model of evolution only recognises one line of inheritance of traits from

genes. More recently, biologists interested in niche construction (Odling-Smee, Laland and

Feldman 2003) have proposed that there is another line of inheritance: ecological inheritance.

Niche construction involves modifications to the ancestral environment that are bequeathed

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to the next generation. This encompasses physical alterations, such as living in mounds or

constructing hives, as well as cultural artefacts, practices and institutions. Niche construction

is a process by which organisms modify the selective environment such that there are new

selection pressures acting on generations over long periods of time. The modifications change

selective pressures which in turn modify traits. This occurs over long periods of evolutionary

time (potentially millions of years)9.

Humans are cultural “niche constructors par excellence”, however they don’t just

physically alter the environment they also epistemically or cognitively engineer the

environment (Sterelny 2003, 2012). Humans are born into a highly structured cognitive niche

that contains not only physical artefacts, but also representational systems that embody

knowledge (writing systems, number systems, etc.), and skills and methods for training and

teaching new skills (Menary and Kirchhoff 2014). Following Sterelny (2012) we term this

“cognitive capital”. These highly structured socio-cultural niches have had profound

evolutionary consequences in the hominin lineage. The primary consequence is phenotypic

and developmental plasticity. We have evolved to be a very behaviourally plastic species

(Sterelny 2012). Rather than thinking of humans as adapted for Pleistocene hunting and

gathering environments, we should think of human behavioural and developmental plasticity

as an adaptive response to the variability and contingency of the local environment

(Finlayson 2009, Potts 2012, Sterelny 2003, 2012). Modern humans are capable of

developing a wide range of skills that allow them to cope with a wide variety of

environments. This cognitive flexibility, requires an extended period of cognitive

development, much more so even than our nearest relatives such as the different species of

great apes.

9 See Turner (2000) for plentiful examples.

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 What’s the importance of the cognitive niche? The main innovations are to add an extra

line of inheritance to the single genetic line of inheritance whereby an ecological niche, as

well as, genetic material is inherited by the next generation (Odling-Smee, Laland and

Feldman 2003). Organisms are born into niches that they inherit from the previous

generation. These niches have been acted upon by previous generations often structuring and

organising it in ways that would not otherwise occur. The constructed niche places selective

pressure onto phenotypes, which in turn result in further modifications of the niche leading to

a reciprocal relationship between organism and niche. Over time the reciprocal relationship

can result in evolutionary cascades, which can have profound effects on phenotypes,

including morphological and behavioural changes (Sterelny 2005).

“Humans are niche constructors par excellence” (Sterelny 2012). To understand the

nature of human niche construction we must introduce a third line of inheritance, cultural

inheritance.10 Cultural inheritance includes tools, artefacts and so on, but also more

intangible products of human cultures such as, knowledge, narratives, skills and

representational systems, systems of pedagogy and a large variety of practices. The cultural

niche is a rich milieu in which human children learn and develop. The crucial change for

behaviourally modern humans is the capacity for cumulative cultural inheritance “Which was

ultimately to transform Homo sapiens into the richly cultural species we are today” (Whiten

et al. 2011, p. 942).

The standard interpretation of the archaeological record indicates that there was a

revolution approximately 60,000-40,000 years ago – the Upper Palaeolithic revolution – in

10 Or we might blend the ecological and cultural into a single line of inheritance. Odling-Smee (2007) has
expressed skepticism about the need for a third line of inheritance. He argues that separating the ecological and
the cultural is ad hoc and complicated and outweighs the benefits of treating them separately. Irrespective,
cultural inheritance matters for understanding human niche construction; and there does seem to be a prima
facie qualitative difference between cultural inheritance and physical engineering.

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which there was a real explosion of novelty and the advent of behaviourally modern humans.

However, there is evidence that many of these traits, including symbolic activity, could

precede the Upper Palaeolithic revolution and could have appeared and vanished irregularly

over the last 150,000 years or so (see Sterelny 2012 for an overview). For instance d’Errico

and colleagues (2001) propose that there is evidence of symbolic activity on bone fragments

70,000 years ago. Sterelny argues that this transient appearance of precursors of behavioural

modernity implies that behavioural modernity is a cultural achievement premised on multiple

factors rather than a single genetic change or cultural innovation. This suggests that

establishing the successful retention of cultural innovations is difficult, but once it can be

transmitted in a stable manner that cultural niche construction escalates – what Tomasello

(1999) calls the “cultural ratchet effect”11.

This fits nicely with the emphasis on cognitive niche construction proposed by the CI

position. The explosion of cultural and behavioural diversity that accelerates from the Upper

Palaeolithic is dependent on a range of factors coming together: inherited cultural capital,

phenotypic and LDP, complex social relations and language. In this period we see increasing

genuine novelty in tool production and use; art, including jewellery, paintings, sculpture, and

musical activity; fishing and a wider range of cooperative hunting and foraging; burial

practices; cultural diversification; and the first signs of proto-numerical and writing systems

as novel representational innovations such as tally notch systems (see Conard 2006 for an

overview). These could have been for keeping track of economic exchanges, lunar calendars,

or hunting tallies (d’Errico & Caucho 1994).

The tools themselves, but also the skills necessary to make, maintain and deploy the tools

must be inherited from the previous generation. Tool creation and use requires very refined

11 See section 3 for more discussion of Tomasello.

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sensory-motor skills (Stout et al. 2008),12 which must be learned. Basic sensory-motor skills

are being retrained and extended during the acquisition process. Here is where LDP really

makes a difference, without LDP the acquisition of the skills required for creating,

maintaining and manipulating tools would be very difficult.

Social learning in highly scaffolded niches and LDP are co-constraining. Without a

sufficient degree of neural plasticity social learning is attenuated, but without structured and

stable learning environments functional redeployment of neural circuitry cannot happen

through learning. This construction accounts for the structuring of the environment and its

inheritance by future generations. LDP accounts for how our brains can acquire novel

culturally derived cognitive functions. Putting the two together explains how we have

evolved to be the cultural creatures that we are. The next section explores the process of

enculturation.

3. Enculturation

Tomasello (1999, 2009) has pointed out that although other animals have culture, in

humans it is both quantitatively and qualitatively unique. Human culture is quantitatively

unique due to the extraordinary amount of techniques and tools and accompanying NPPs

which novices must necessarily learn in order to survive. But Tomasello also identifies two

senses in which human culture is qualitatively unique: cultural ratcheting (accumulative

downstream niche construction); and social institutions (“sets of behavioural practices

governed by various kinds of mutually recognised norms and rules” (2009, p. xi)) – what we

have termed NPPs. Both of these profoundly change the nature of human cognition. Learning

12 This is evident even in Homo habilis and the Erectines and is another example of a biological interaction.

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NPPs in a developmental niche transforms a human agent’s cognitive capacities so that they

can tackle cognitive tasks that were previously impossible or inconceivable.

A broad range of theorists have advanced enculturated cognitive positions (see

Hutchins 2011; Lende & Downey et al 2012; Nisbet et al 2001; Roepstorff et al 2010;

Tomasello 1999; Vygotsky 1978). Here we develop the position advanced by Menary (2007a,

b, 2010a, b, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015) which argues that humans construct and inhabit

cognitive niches in which our minds become enculturated and transformed through the

learning and mastering of NPPs that govern the manipulation of environmental resources and

interactions of social groups. The key factors of the enculturated cognitive position of CI can

be summarised as follows: [1] NPPs governing the embodied manipulations of physical tools;

which operate in [2] highly structured and cooperative shared cognitive niches, importantly

including a developmental component with implicit and explicit teaching through which

NPPs are acquired; and this process in is turn dependent on [3] general phenotypic plasticity

– especially neural plasticity – that allows for the transformative effects of the learning and

enculturating processes to take place. This transformation relies on the recycling or

redeploying of older cortical structures to newer cultural acquisitions (Anderson 2010,

Dehaene & Cohen 2007). As Tomasello (1999, p. 7) puts it:

“enculturation processes do not…create new cognitive skills out of nothing, but

rather they took existing individually based cognitive skills – such as those

possessed by most primates for dealing with space, objects, tools, quantities,

categories, social relationships, communication, and social learning – and

transformed them into new, culturally based cognitive skills with a social-collective

dimension.” (emphasis added)

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 Importantly, this quote highlights that enculturation is the exaptation or redeployment of

pre-existing cortical structures to newer culturally generated functions. But Tomasello also

points out that enculturation is both an ancient and ongoing process occurring at three distinct

timescales (Tomasello 1999). Firstly, over phylogenetic timescales – the evolution of the human

primate; Laland et al. (2010) have collected a wide range of evidence that cultural practices

have affected the human genome. Secondly, over historical timescales – this is the accumulation

of cognitive capital with the high fidelity transmission of skilled practices and cultural

knowledge both horizontally and vertically and downstream epistemic engineering in a

specific cognitive-cultural niche (Sterelny 2003, 2012). The veridicality of communication

and learning channels within the niche allows for the retention of improvements – what

Tomasello (1999) calls “cultural ratcheting”. Hutchins (2001) refers to this process as the

distribution of cognition across time, whereby cognitive tasks are successfully tackled inter-

generationally through the collaborative and distributed effort of multiple agents building and

refining shared mediums and tools that are accumulated and refined to manage recurring

everyday cognitive tasks. This changes the informational profile of the epistemic niche over

time and alters the nature of the cognitive tasks as well.

Lastly, enculturation takes place over ontogenetic timescales – this is the inculcation of

specific agents in developmental niches (Stotz 2010). Humans have an incredibly high

propensity for teaching and learning (Dean et al 2012, Keil 2011). A key element of human

learning is the functionally correct deployment of tools and perceiving of task-salient

affordances of the environment (see Vaesen 2012, p. 206). By learning to master NPPs that

govern the cognitive resources that have been accumulated by previous generations, agents

are able to engage in cognitive tasks that would otherwise be incredibly difficult, impossible,

or potentially inconceivable. This is the transformative aspect of enculturation (Menary

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2007a)13. LDP and the high degree of plasticity make humans highly susceptible to

enculturation processes and acquiring cultural practices and skills. Older cortical structures

are redeployed into newer diverse cultural functions which have transformative effects on

both neuronal architecture and physiological structure of the body. It also enhances the

functional performance of cognitive tasks enabling agents to tackle novel cognitive tasks.

This is supported by an abundance of empirical evidence in a range of experimental

paradigms to support enculturation: in cognitive domains such as attention (Ketay et al 2009),

perception and motor processes (Nisbet et al 2001; Draganski et al 2004); music (Gaser &

Schlaug 2003); literacy and language (Castro-Caldas et al 1999); moral reasoning, social

cognition and emotions (Henrich et al 2010); categorisation, judgment, reasoning, problem

solving and decision making (Henrich et al 2005, 2010, Nisbet et al 2001); memory and

navigation (Maguire et al 2000); and tool use (Farne et al 2007). Downey & Lende (2012)

provide a very useful overview of this evidence (and for more critical assessments of some of

this research see Roepstorff et al. 2010; Reynolds Losin et al. 2010). In the next section we

will outline the practice of mathematics as a case of the transformative effects of

enculturation, and also as partially constitutive of cognitive processes in hybrid ICS

encompassing brain-body-niche interactions.

Before we do so, it is important to clarify a few key aspects of the transformation thesis.

Firstly, to recap: Menary (2014) argues that the convergent evidence of a late developing

cortex; an extended developmental stage in humans; evidence of continuing plasticity in

adults; diverse and hostile environments in our hominin evolutionary history; and complex

social situations all drive the need for LDP. In developmental niches this allows for the

transformation of the agent’s functional capacities through the redeployment of neural

13 This has been discussed in a number of places: Menary (2007b, 2010a, 2010b, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).

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circuits to enable the bodily manipulation of external representational vehicles and thus the

acquisition of new skills (Menary 2015, p. 9). In turn, this allows the scaffolded agent to both

[a] tackle cognitive tasks in new ways and [b] tackle cognitive tasks that could have been

previously inconceivable (also see De Cruz & De Smedt 2013, Kirsh 2010, and Nieder &

Dehaene 2009).

Menary (2015) goes further in clarifying this. He postulates that external material

symbols and tools provide “novel” functions (p. 10) – i.e. functional aspects that could not be

done merely in the head – and it was these novel factors that lead to their proliferation. As

such, Menary argues that a wide range of human cognitive abilities are partially constituted

by the learnt NPPs that agents must master in order to tackle novel cognitive problems using

shared public symbols and other cognitive resources (also see Dutilh Novaes 2012, 2013).

These environmental resources and the NPPs that govern their usage are part of particular

cultural-cognitive niches that are definitive of human cognition as ICS. As Nersessian puts it:

culture is not something additional to human cognition, “culture is what makes human

cognition what it is” (2005, pp. 31-32).

It is also important to clarify that the transformative effects of deploying cognitive

artefacts is often misconstrued as simply “amplifying” or “augmenting” the cognitive

capacities of the agent (for example see Bruner et al 1966). Cole & Griffin (1980) have

rightly observed that the use of epistemic tools does not straightforwardly amplify cognition

in the way that a physical tool amplifies our physical prowess. For instance, a spade may

improve an agent’s digging abilities and a loudhailer amplifies the volume of someone’s

voice, but it is not strictly true that the manipulation of physical public symbol systems on a

page or in a calculator amplify an agent’s capacities. Instead, it is more accurate to see their

manipulation as the alteration of the cognitive task or functional capacities to form a

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cognitive system that has different and “unique” sets of cognitive properties that are not

present in the agent considered in isolation (Hutchins 2006; Norman 1991). This shows that

when we consider the transformative effects of enculturation processes we must be careful to

discern the level of analysis (Norman 1991). Additionally, the fact that hybrid integrated

cognitive systems have properties not reducible to the individual indicates the need for a shift

in the unit of analysis to necessarily incorporate the cognitive niche in order to properly

understand human cognition as essentially enculturated (Hutchins 2011; Menary 2012, 2013,

2015).

4. Mathematical Cognition as a Process of Enculturation

Experiments with animals (Ansari 2008), young children (Dehaene 1997), bilingual

adults (Dehaene et al 1999), and adults from cultures without discrete number words

(Dehaene 2007) in a range of experimental paradigms are highly suggestive of an ‘ancient

number system’ (ANS). This system is proposed to be amodal14 (Cantlon et al 2009, Dehaene

et al 1998, 2004) and displays characteristics which render it approximate and fuzzy –

distance effects (whereby the error rates in quantity comparison tasks increase as the distance

separating the two quantities decreases) and magnitude effects (error rates increase as the

absolute totals of the quantities involved in the tasks increase) (see Dehaene 1997 for an

overview). On the basis of a large body of evidence, the ANS is postulated to be

evolutionarily ancient. The notion being that a basic capacity for discerning and

discriminating quantity is evolutionarily advantageous: whether one can detect larger benefits

and avoid larger dangers is something that improves the survival of an organism (Ansari

2008, Dehaene 1997).

14 Or perhaps multi-modal, since the ANS appears to be sensitive to multiple sensory modalities.

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 In humans, numerous neuroimaging studies and neuropathology studies indicate that

the neural basis for the ANS is in the intraparietal sulcus and surrounding regions (Dehaene

1997, 2007 and colleagues 1999). But in addition to making approximate judgments about

quantities, humans can also perform discrete computations with a ‘discrete number

system’ (DNS). A wide range of neuroimaging and behavioural studies indicates that the

DNS and ANS share neural correlates (See Lyons et al 2012 for an extensive list of

corroborating studies). The neural basis of a mental number line and ANS involves number-

detecting neurons. These neurons were postulated to fire approximately with fat tails: e.g. a

number detector that fires for 6 will also partially fire for 5 and 7. This then explains the

distance effect because for any value, multiple neurons will fire at differing degrees and this

causes a degree of fuzziness for judgments of largest or smallest, etc. Neural net models have

been made of the distance and magnitude effects (Dehaene 2007, Verguts & Fias 2004) and

these were supported by evidence of single-neuron studies on rhesus monkeys (Nieder et al

2006, see Ansari 2008, and Nieder & Dehaene 2009 for discussion). The tuning curves of

these number detecting cells overlap in a manner that is consistent with what one would

expect with the distance effects.

Importantly, rather than undermining the enculturated cognitive position as some have

argued (see Zahidi & Myin forthcoming), the transition from the ANS to the DNS is perhaps

one of the best examples of enculturation. The two effects and approximate nature of the

ANS combine to give the mental number line a logarithmic structure. Dehaene (2007) has

argued that the acquisition of symbolic representations in development alters the structure of

the mental number line to a more precise linear format. Learning how to manipulate public

symbolic notation – cultural practices – has a transformative effect on both cognitive

functional performance and also on neural architecture. Numerous sources of evidence lead

!19
to this view: [1] longitudinal studies of brain activity in 8-19 year olds shows decreasing

activity in the PFC during mathematical tasks suggestive of automatization, but also shows

increasing activity in the left parietal cortex (the postulated neural substrate of the mental

number line); [2] young children asked to space the numbers 1 to a 100 evenly on a page

place ‘10’ at the halfway point and bunch all the larger numbers up at one end, this behaviour

is absent in adults but is present in some illiterate adults of traditional communities (e.g. the

Munduruku of the Amazon) that do not have discrete number words; and [3] there is a mixed

response to number tasks by bilinguals that is indicative of the participants switching into

their native tongue to carry out the calculation of symbolic tasks (see Dehaene et al 1999;

Lyons et al 2012; Piazza et al 2013; Viarouge et al 2010).

This is clear evidence not just of enculturation, but also of the truly transformative

effects that learning cultural practices can have on human cognition. Culturally new

capacities exapt and recycle older phylogenetic functional regions to newer culturally

generated purposes (Dehaene & Cohen 2007). Dehaene further argues that the older

phylogenetic functional basis constrain the extent to which it can be recycled/redeployed and

shifted into a new function. In this particular case the evidence suggests that an ancient

primate or core neural system integrates symbolic numerical representations and that this

both transforms mathematical cognitive functional capacities and alters neurological

architecture. Additionally, Cantlon and colleagues (2009) present evidence that young

children use the same network of brain regions to tackle both symbolic and non-symbolic

notations and that this is therefore an abstract, notation-independent appreciation of number.

This large body of evidence lends credence to the notion that the evolutionarily new

use and manipulation of symbolic mediums recycles an evolutionarily older mechanism. And

the experiments by Lyons and colleagues (2012) also lend support to the claim that the

!20
number line is altered by enculturation. These experiments reveal a disjunction between

symbolic to symbolic processing and symbolic to non-symbolic processing – this matches the

“rupture” noted by Radford (2003) in the development of mathematical abilities from pre-

symbolic to symbolic manipulations (also see Deacon 1997, Nieder 2009). And this also fits

with the wider body of evidence that shows increased PFC activity in novices diminishes as

they become expert in modern mathematical cognitive practices. Finally, these learning

driven neuroplastic changes reach their peak in expert mathematicians who have

macroscopically altered regions that are involved in both arithmetic and also the visuospatial

imagery necessary for the manipulation of complex objects required for advanced

mathematics (Aydin et al. 2007).15

If modern mathematical abilities involve the redeployment of older cortical structures

to newer functions, we would expect to find both diversity and constraints in how humans

from different cognitive-cultural backgrounds perform in mathematical cognitive tasks. And

indeed this is what has been found. An experiment by Tang and colleagues (2006)

demonstrates that the differing NPPs of different cultural-cognitive niches can have effects on

both neuronal architecture and function, and behavioural performance. Tang and colleagues

compared two groups of students – English speakers and Chinese speakers – and found that

the former had neural correlates in the perisylvian language regions whereas the latter had

correlates in the premotor cortex. Additionally, although of comparative intelligence, the

Chinese students outperformed their English counterparts. In a review, Cantlon & Brannon

15 Potentially, the enculturated cognitive approach offers an interesting perspective on a perennial topic in the
psychology of mathematics: the prevalence of the folk-metaphysical belief in Platonism amongst practicing
mathematicians. A precursor to this was formulated by the mathematician Keith Devlin (2008). We can rephrase
his claim in the following manner: a possible explanation for why Platonism is the default folk-belief system of
mathematical practitioners is that by redeploying cortical circuits whose original function was spatial navigation
and patterns, these neural circuits bring ‘baggage’ with them – namely, that they are directed at real entities out
there in the world. And the prevalence of spatial language in discussions of mathematical entities may be
indicative of this.

!21
(2006) observed that there were many factors from the cognitive-cultural niche that could

account for such differences: abacus use; differences in writing styles; differing styles of

number words (Chinese number words are much less demanding on working memory);

preferred cognitive strategies; and overall education systems (also see Butterworth 1999; cf.

Reynolds Losin et al 2010).

This example shows the importance of the cognitive niche for how agents approach

cognitive tasks. Differing sets of tools, techniques and NPPs alter how cognitive tasks are

performed. The importance of the brain-body-niche interactions in mathematical cognition is

further demonstrated by a range of behavioural studies. A series of experiments by Zhang and

colleagues (1997, Zhang & Norman 1994) have shown that if the structure of the external

representations used for a cognitive task instantiate salient features of the abstract task

properties they facilitate cognitive offloading and reduce the information load on working

memory and improve overall task performance. Zhang & Norman (1995) supported these

findings with an analytic comparison of various notational systems to show that the

prevalence of Hindu-Arabic and general cultural invasiveness is due to the formal structure of

the material symbols which makes them far superior to Roman numerals for calculations. The

structure of the external representation separates out the base and power dimensions in a

perceptually convenient manner. For example, four-hundred and forty-seven in Arabic

numerals is 447 = 4x10(2) x 4x10(1) x 7x10(0), and the shape is the base and position is the

power. In Roman numerals it is CDXLVII and as such position does not correspond to power

and the shape does not correspond to base.

In another set of experiments, Landy & Goldstone (2007) subtly modified seemingly non-

task specific perceptual groupings around algebraic equations in a series of experiments. This

included increasing or decreasing the size of gaps between terms in the equations; adding in

!22
shaded areas in the backgrounds of the equations that created perceptual groups; and

reordering terms to be either cognisant or contradictory to the FOIL order of operations (also

see Dutlih Novaes 2012 for discussion). As in Zhang and colleagues work, these

modifications of the structure of the external representations either aided or hindered task

performance dependent on whether they were congruent to the order of operations in the

equations or not. Crucially, these modifications had an effect even when participants knew

they were being influenced; indicating that “perceptual groupings” play a larger role in

abstract mathematical thinking than is normally acknowledged.

We can interpret the work of a wide range of theorists from different fields (Alibali &

DiRusso 1999, Landy et al 2014, Nemirovsky et al 2013, Radford 2009, Sato et al 2007) as

all broadly arguing that embodied manipulations of cognitive tools – looping brain-body-

niche interactions – are incredibly important in mathematical cognition; not just for pedagogy

and learning, but also for high level expert problem solving (Marghetis & Nunez 2012).

Building on this we can argue that accumulative downstream cognitive niches constrain and

enable how mathematical cognitive tasks are tackled. Along similar lines De Cruz & De

Smedt (2013) have argued that symbols (and other external representational vehicles such as

body parts, gestures, number words and tally systems – see De Cruz 2008) act as “material

anchors” and are “epistemic actions” – whereby the physical manipulations of the

environment are not just physical movements but are themselves also movements in an

abstract problem space towards a cognitive task (Kirsh & Maglio 1994, also see Hutchins

2005). De Cruz & De Smedt demonstrate their position through a number of historical case

studies: zero (0); imaginary (i) and subsequent complex numbers (a+bi); negative numbers (-

n); and algebra (x, y, z, etc.). In each case, they show that the material sign played a role in

discovery by facilitating the cementation (stability) of vague ideas which aids the creative

!23
effort. For example, in the case of negative numbers, the minus sign was already used as an

operator before the drive for closure enabled the invention of numbers “below” or “beyond”

zero. This allowed the possibility of conceiving of a task that was previous inconceivable. De

Cruz & De Smedt nicely demonstrate this by juxtaposing the seemingly mundane nature of

the task in the modern era with a quote from a prominent mathematician Masères from the

17th century: “‘3 – 8 is an impossibility; it requires you take from 3 more than there is in 3,

which is absurd’” (2013, p. 13). As Menary (2010b, 2015) has argued, it is the learning and

deploying of NPPs which govern the embodied manipulations of these cognitive artefacts and

which transforms the cognitive abilities of the wider integrated cognitive system. As such, the

agent trained in the manipulation of mathematical notation is able to tackle cognitive tasks in

a superior manner, and also able to comprehend tasks that would otherwise be impossible.

Conclusion

Cognitive integration is a framework which allows us to explain how cognition is

enculturated. It does so by providing a dual account of the cultural evolution of cognition and

learning. It uniquely provides an account of how we embody culture and how culture

provides new cognitive functions that redeploy our basic sensory-motor interactions with the

environment. These looping interactions and cognitive practices are a form of cognitive niche

construction whereby brain-body-niche interactions alter not only the physical environment

but also the inherited informational profile in which future generations are enculturated, and

transforms the nature of the cognitive tasks that they face. The process of enculturation

hinges on the plasticity of our brains and our capacity for flexible redeployment of existing

cognitive capacities to innovative cultural functions. It also requires openness to learning in

highly scaffolded and social learning environments. The importance of enculturation lies in

!24
the acquisition of new capacities, allowing us to perform tasks that we should otherwise be

unable to.

Culture permeates our physical and mental lives, but it does so through our inherited

cognitive capital and the plasticity of our existing cognitive circuitry.

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