Gallese Vittorio
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisiologia, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, I-43100 Parma, Italy.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2003 Jul 29;358(1435):1231-40. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2003.1315.
Abstraction denotes the cognitive process by means of which general concepts are formed. The dominant view of abstraction considers it not only as a complex and sophisticated cognitive activity, but also as a distinctive hallmark of mankind. The distinctiveness of abstract thought has indeed been closely related to another feature peculiar to our species: language. Following this perspective, the possibility to entertain conceptual representations is thus precluded to animals devoid of full-blown language. I challenge this view and propose that the representational dynamic of the brain is conceivable as a type of self-organization, in which action plays a crucial part. My aim will be to investigate whether, and to what extent, conceptual knowledge can be attributed to non-linguistic animal species, with particular emphasis on nonhuman primates. I therefore introduce the notion of semantic content as a type of 'relational specification'. A review of recent neurophysiological data on the neural underpinnings of action end-states in the macaque monkey brain is presented. On the basis of this evidence, I propose that conceptual representations can be conceived as the expression of a coherent internal world model. This model decomposes the 'outer' space inhabited by things in a meaningful way only to the extent that it accords to biologically constrained, embodied invariance. Finally, I discuss how the 'comparative' neuroscientific approach to abstraction proposed here may shed some light on its nature and its evolutionary origin.
抽象指的是形成一般概念的认知过程。关于抽象的主流观点不仅将其视为一种复杂且精妙的认知活动，还将其视作人类的一个显著标志。抽象思维的独特性确实与我们这个物种的另一个特有特征紧密相关：语言。按照这种观点，对于缺乏成熟语言的动物来说，进行概念表征是不可能的。我对这一观点提出质疑，并认为大脑的表征动态可以被设想为一种自组织类型，其中行动起着关键作用。我的目的是研究概念知识是否以及在多大程度上可以归因于非语言动物物种，尤其侧重于非人类灵长类动物。因此，我引入语义内容的概念，将其作为一种“关系规范”。本文展示了对猕猴大脑中行动终态的神经基础的近期神经生理学数据的综述。基于这些证据，我提出概念表征可以被设想为一个连贯的内部世界模型的表达。这个模型仅在符合生物约束的、具身不变性的程度上，以一种有意义的方式分解事物所占据的“外部”空间。最后，我讨论了这里提出的关于抽象的“比较”神经科学方法如何可能揭示其本质及其进化起源。
