Osiurak François, Federico Giovanni, Fournel Arnaud, Gaujoux Vivien, Lamberton Franck, Ibarrola Danièle, Rossetti Yves, Lesourd Mathieu
Laboratoire d'Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, Université de Lyon, Bron, France.
Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
Elife. 2025 Apr 17;13:RP94578. doi: 10.7554/eLife.94578.
Our propensity to materiality, which consists in using, making, creating, and passing on technologies, has enabled us to shape the physical world according to our ends. To explain this proclivity, scientists have calibrated their lens to either low-level skills such as motor cognition or high-level skills such as language or social cognition. Yet, little has been said about the intermediate-level cognitive processes that are directly involved in mastering this materiality, that is, technical cognition. We aim to focus on this intermediate level for providing new insights into the neurocognitive bases of human materiality. Here, we show that a technical-reasoning process might be specifically at work in physical problem-solving situations. We found via two distinct neuroimaging studies that the area PF (parietal F) within the left parietal lobe is central for this reasoning process in both tool-use and non-tool-use physical problem-solving and can work along with social-cognitive skills to resolve day-to-day interactions that combine social and physical constraints. Our results demonstrate the existence of a specific cognitive module in the human brain dedicated to materiality, which might be the supporting pillar allowing the accumulation of technical knowledge over generations. Intensifying research on technical cognition could nurture a comprehensive framework that has been missing in fields interested in how early and modern humans have been interacting with the physical world through technology, and how this interaction has shaped our history and culture.
我们对物质性的倾向，包括使用、制造、创造和传承技术，使我们能够根据自己的目的塑造物质世界。为了解释这种倾向，科学家们将视角聚焦于低层次技能，如运动认知，或高层次技能，如语言或社会认知。然而，对于直接参与掌握这种物质性的中间层次认知过程，也就是技术认知，却很少有人提及。我们旨在关注这一中间层次，以便为人类物质性的神经认知基础提供新的见解。在此，我们表明技术推理过程可能在解决物理问题的情境中发挥着特殊作用。通过两项不同的神经成像研究，我们发现左顶叶内的PF（顶叶F区）在工具使用和非工具使用的物理问题解决中，对这一推理过程起着核心作用，并且能够与社会认知技能协同工作，以解决结合了社会和物理限制的日常互动。我们的研究结果证明，人类大脑中存在一个专门用于物质性的特定认知模块，它可能是使技术知识得以代代积累的支柱。加强对技术认知的研究可以培育出一个全面的框架，而在那些关注早期人类和现代人类如何通过技术与物质世界互动，以及这种互动如何塑造我们的历史和文化的领域，这样的框架一直是缺失的。
