Beyond the Platonic Brain: facing the challenge of individual differences in function-structure mapping
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Beyond the Platonic Brain: facing the challenge of individual differences in function-structure mapping Marco Viola1 Received: 20 November 2019 / Accepted: 14 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In their attempt to connect the workings of the human mind with their neural realizers, cognitive neuroscientists often bracket out individual differences to build a single, abstract model that purportedly represents (almost) every human being’s brain. In this paper I first examine the rationale behind this model, which I call ‘Platonic Brain Model’. Then I argue that it is to be surpassed in favor of multiple models allowing for patterned inter-individual differences. I introduce the debate on legitimate (and illegitimate) ways of mapping neural structures and cognitive functions, endorsing a view according to which function-structure mapping is context-sensitive. Building on the discussion of the ongoing debate on the function(s) of the so-called Fusiform “Face” Area, I show the necessity of indexing function-structure mappings to some populations of subjects, clustered on the basis of factors such as their expertise in a given domain. Keywords Neuroscience · Cognitive ontology · Individual differences · Functional specialization · Fusiform face area · Contextualism
1 Cognitive neuroscience and the Platonic Brain Cognitive neuroscience handbooks often contain sentences such as: “Cognitive neuroscientists attempt to understand the relationship between the brain and mind” (Banich and Compton 2018: p. 3). Other handbooks recount “how mental processes such as thoughts, memories and perceptions are organized and implemented by the brain” (J. Ward 2015: p. 1) and introduce the methods to investigate such processes. An early step in many neuroscientific enterprises is functional localization: the ascription of a psychological label to some neural structure based on its purported involvement
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Marco Viola [email protected] Department of Philosophy and Education, University of Turin, via Sant’Ottavio 20, Turin, Italy
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in some behavioral task. In most cases, functional ascriptions are a matter of sharp contention. However, a few functional ascriptions are taken as received wisdom. Take the striate cortex, also known as V1. Indeed, almost everybody agrees that V1 is in the business of processing visual information—hence its alias primary visual cortex. This is unsurprising, given that V1 receives afferents fibers from the geniculate nucleus, which in turn receives fibers from the retina. It would thus be safe to say that V1 deals with visual information in most cases. But what functional role does this primary visual cortex play in blind subjects? Since they do not process any visual information, were brain areas rigidly ‘tied’ to their functional destiny, we would expect that V1 simply does nothing. However, this seems not to be the case. In fact, fMRI scans reveal activity in blind subjects’ V1 (and in other cortices) when they read Braille; and impairment in their performance may be obtained by p
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