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VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

3. A Complementary Brain and Thought Process

Friederici, Angela. Language in Our Brain: The Origins of a Uniquely Human Capacity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017. The MPI Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences neuroscientist director and MPI vice president surveys the past 35 years of her own work from MIT (her mentor/colleague Noam Chomsky writes a preface) and the full literature into 2010s as the cerebral nature of our unique linguistic abilities became clearly evident. Rather than a left side trait, as long held, it is lately realized that both complementary hemispheres are actively involved in speaking and hearing. As Dr. Friederici well conveys, it is now confirmed that an on-going interplay of a left syntactic, lexical, rapid frequency mode and prosodic, semantic, complex pitch right input achieves a whole, fast and slow, brain system. Her studies of infants and children reveal a holistic right side start which later transitions in the second year to a left side emphasis. Ontogeny and phylogeny parallels accrue by way of gestural, melodic evolutionary origins for animal and primate communications.

With the development of new neuroscientific methods, the relation between language and the brain could be observed in living persons while processing language. Today the language network can be described to consist of a number of cortical regions in the left and right hemispheres. These interact in time under the involvement of some subcortical structures that are not specific for language but may serve as a relational systems between the network and its sensory input systems and its output systems. In this book I primarily focus on the cortical regions of the neural language network, which I will discuss with respect to their particular function in the adult brain and the developing brain. (8)

Pitch information is crucial in linguistic prosody and emotional prosody, but also in processing music melody. In this section I reviewed the neuroscientific studies on prodessing prosody during speech perception and of music. The processing of prosodic information during speech comprehension crucially involves the right hemisphere, whereas syntax is processed in the left hemisphere. During speech the left and right hemisphere interact online to assign phrase boundaries as the borders of constituents. They do this via the corpus callosum – a white matter structure that connects the two sides. In sum these studies conclude that although pure pitch may be processed in the right superior temporal gyrus, the localization of higher pitch-related processes is dependent on the particular function that pitch conveys: lexical tone in the left hemisphere, linguistic prosody bilaterally with a leftward lateralization, and music with a rightward path. (81)

Friederici, Angela and Kai Alter. Lateralization of Auditory Language Functions: A Dynamic Dual Pathway Model. Brain and Language. 89/2, 2004. We refer in 2018 to a prior entry by MPI Cognitive Neuroscience neuropsychologists as an original posting of these now well documented left ventral and right dorsal areas and streams. Their popular What (separate detail - seeds, words), and Where/Why (integral field - forest, meaning) terms define another evidential way that human, and creaturely brains are distinguished by archetypal complements. See also The Language Network in Current Opinion in Neurobiology (23/250, 2013), and White Matter Pathways for Prosodic Structure Building in Brain and Language (183/1, 2018) which each have A. Friederici as a coauthor.

Spoken language comprehension requires the coordination of different subprocesses in time. After the initial acoustic analysis the system has to extract segmental information such as phonemes, syntactic elements and lexical-semantic elements as well as suprasegmental information such as accentuation and intonational phrases, i.e., prosody. According to the dynamic dual pathway model of auditory language comprehension syntactic and semantic information are primarily processed in a left hemispheric temporo-frontal pathway whereas sentence level prosody is processed in a right hemispheric temporo-frontal pathway. The observed interaction between syntactic and prosodic information during auditory sentence comprehension is attributed to dynamic interactions between the two hemispheres. (Abstract)

Funnell, Margaret. The Interpreting Hemispheres. Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia, et al, eds. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. A Dartmouth College neuropsychologist, and former doctoral student of Michael Gazzaniga, contributes a cogent chapter to this volume about his work. With Stephen Kosslyn below, and others, a new clarity is lately reached with regard to our dual but complementary brain. In this case, to prior proposals of a left side “interpreter” with a fine focus is added a right counterpart that importantly weighs in with a relational, contextual view.

Although the left hemisphere is clearly capable of sophisticated visual processing – after all, reading is predominantly a left-hemisphere function, we found that it represents spatial information relatively crudely compared to the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is vastly superior to the left in a variety of visuospatial tasks, including mirror image discrimination, simple perceptual discriminations, such as orientation, vernier-offset, and size discrimination, and in temporal discrimination. These studies led Paul Corballis to theorize a right-hemisphere interpreter that complements Mike Gazzaniga left-hemisphere interpreter. Whereas the left-hemisphere interpreter makes sense of the congnitive and linguistic world, the right-hemisphere interpreter makes sense of the visuospatial world, with both making inferences and filling missing information about their specialized domain. (74-75)

The right hemisphere, however, has its own, albeit different, interpretive capacity that the left hemisphere does not possess. The right hemisphere, but not the left, is able to fill in missing information and draw conclusions about visuospatial information. This right hemisphere capacity for interpretation in the visuospatial domain is likely based on its superior visuospatial processing abilities. In the intact brain, these two interpreters work together seamlessly to make sense of the world around us. (84-85)

Furtak, Marcin, et al. The Forest, the Trees, or Both? Hierarchy and Interactions between Gist and Object Processing during Perception of Real-world Scenes. Cognition. Vol. 221, April, 2022. Into this year, Polish Academy of Sciences and Tel Aviv University neuropsychologists can draw upon their own research along with a review of past 21st century work to an extent that they can presently reach a strong conclusion. Taken together, these studies join our results in supporting the global to local accounts, suggesting that gist (field) is processed more readily, and earlier, than objects. (5) As reported across the website, a temporal sequence appears to go on for both evolution and an entity. A sighted occasion is viewed by way of these dual archetypal modes, whereby a contextual scene is perceived first, after which item details are noticed and situated.

The global-to-local theories of perception assume that the gist of a scene is computed early and automatically, whereas recognition of objects occurs at a later stage, requires attentional resources, and is primed by the representation of whole. To test these views, we investigated the sequence of gist- and object-recognition. We generally found that backgrounds were classified more accurately than foreground objects, while wider fields influenced object recognition. Thus these findings support global-to-local theories, implying that gists are more readily seen than details, and at an earlier stage. (Abstract excerpt)

Gabora, Liane and Diederik Aerts. A Model of the Emergence and Evolution of Integrated Worldviews. Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 53/5, 2009. University of British Columbia, and Free University of Brussels, scientists provide another vista upon the ascendant passage of a cerebral complementarity from early, integral “associative” phases to a later “analytical” fine-focus. Not only do these archetypal modes grace our modern minds, their sequential heritage can be reconstructed and traced in similar fashion to ancient evolutionary origins. As noted below, “It is widely believed that there are two forms of thought,…” which, as found to pervade every corner and crux of space and time, they attest to, in a human genesis universe, the evidential occasion and consequence of its reciprocal genetic code. However today may its latest cultural manifestation be associated with, to beneficial advantage, our bilateral earthkind?

It is proposed that the ability of humans to flourish in diverse environments and evolve complex cultures reflects the following two underlying cognitive transitions. The transition from the coarse-grained associative memory of Homo habilis to the fine-grained memory of Homo erectus enabled limited representational redescription of perceptually similar episodes, abstraction, and analytic thought, the last of which is modeled as the formation of states and of lattices of properties and contexts for concepts. The transition to the modern mind of Homo sapiens is proposed to have resulted from onset of the capacity to spontaneously and temporarily shift to an associative mode of thought conducive to interaction amongst seemingly disparate concepts, modeled as the forging of conjunctions resulting in states of entanglement. The fruits of associative thought became ingredients for analytic thought, and vice versa. The ratio of associative pathways to concepts surpassed a percolation threshold resulting in the emergence of a self-modifying, integrated internal model of the world, or worldview. (Abstract, 434)

It is suggested that the transition from a mimetic to a modern form of cognition is what gave rise to the cultural transition of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic, and that this came about through onset of the capacity to subject different situations to different kinds of cognitive processing. It is widely believed that there are two forms of thought, or that thought varies along a continuum between two extremes. At one end of the continuum is an analytic mode of thought conducive to deduction and to describing and analyzing relationships of cause and effect. At the other end of the continuum is an intuitive, overinclusive, or associative mode of thought conducive to finding subtle relationships; i.e. connections between items that are correlated, but not necessarily causally related. (444)

Gazzaniga, Michael. Cerebral Specialization and Interhemispheric Communication. Brain. 123/7, 2000. The renowned neuroscientist, presently (2010) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, makes a case that a distinguishing trait of human cognition, in an evolutionary train, is a relatively larger corpus callosum, an interbridging bundle of fibers that serve to connect the left and right hemispheres.

Gibbon, Dafydd. The Future of Prosody: It’s About Time. arXiv:1804.09543. A posting of a keynote to the Speech Prosody 2018 conference in Ponzan, Poland, see below. The emeritus Bielefeld University, Germany linguist adds a temporal aspect which covers discourse, personal, social, historical, and evolutionary phases for this rhythmic complement to good communication. Into the 21st century it is being realized that along with syntax and grammar verbiage, another mutual mode of analog, gestural and facial (body language) is necessary for full, meaningful conveyance. See also Rhythm Zone Theory: Speech Rhythms are Physical After All by DG and Xuewei Lin at 1902.01267.

Prosody is usually defined in terms of the three distinct but interacting domains of pitch, intensity and duration patterning, or, more generally, as phonological and phonetic properties of 'suprasegmentals', speech segments which are larger than consonants and vowels. Rather than taking this approach, the concept of multiple time domains for prosody processing is taken up, and methods of time domain analysis are discussed: annotation mining with timing dispersion measures, time tree induction, oscillator models in phonology and phonetics, and finally the use of the Amplitude Envelope Modulation Spectrum (AEMS). While pitch tracking is a central issue in prosodic analysis, here amplitude envelope demodulation and frequency zones in the long time-domain spectra of the demodulated envelope are of interest. (Abstract)

Glatzeder, Britt. Two Modes of Thinking: Evidence from Cross-Cultural Psychology. Han, Shihui and Ernst Poppel, eds.. Culture and Neural Frames of Cognition and Communication. Berlin: Springer, 2011. The Parimenides Center philosopher and publication director notes dual process schools which join on an evolutionary scale an earlier holistic, slower mode with a later rapid, linguistic focus. A viewer may variously attend to either pond or fish. From a 2010 vista, history’s resolve then ought to be a palliative, vital individual and global complementarity.

The long history of the study of human thought is shaped by a dichotomy of two different views of the nature of thinking: the logical, analytical, rule-following thinking on the one hand, and the intuitive, and holistic, experiential thinking on the other. Recently, a lot of empirical evidence has been accumulated for the dual mode view of thinking. In this chapter, I shall highlight some of this evidence and interpret findings in cross-cultural research on thinking in order to better understand and train holistic thinking, which has been neglected in our logocentric Western culture. The underlying claim is that thinking draws on both modes and that, instead of prioritizing one of the two, we are challenged to develop both concerted expert analytical thinking and expert intuitive–holistic thinking and to master their interplay. (Abstract, 233)

Glezerman, Tatyana and Victoria Balkoski. Language, Thought and the Brain. New York: Kluwer Academic, 1999. Cognition and speech involve reciprocal activities of an analytic left side and a synthetic right, which is reflected in their neural substrates.

Modern anatomical data regarding cortical connections have tended to support the concept ‘two hemispheres - two cognitive styles.’ For example, in the right hemisphere the dendritic overlap among cortical columns is greater than in the left hemisphere, allowing for the possibility of more joint (synchronous) responses, which may correspond to a more ‘holistic processing’ style. The much greater center-center distance between columns in the left hemisphere is consistent with a better segregation of input and more independence in the left. (22)

Grimshaw, Gina. Integration and Interference in the Cerebral Hemispheres. Brain and Cognition. 36/2, 1998. A further contribution to confirm the characteristic left and right brain propensities.

…the left hemisphere performs computations that extract local features (or high spatial frequencies), while the right hemisphere performs computations on the stimuli that are relevant to global form (or low spatial frequencies). At some point, local and global analyses are integrated to produce a unified precept. (109)

Grossberg, Stephen. A Half Century of Progress Towards a Unified Neural Theory of Mind and Brain. Kozma, Robert, et al, eds. Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Neural Networks and Brain Computing. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, 2018. The veteran Boston University neuroscientist and original theorist of this whole BI and AI revolution reviews his 50 year project (search) to theoretically and conceptually explain how our bilaterally complex brains proceed to envision, quantify, consider, think, learn, and effectively act in dynamic social and natural environments. The invited chapter is fully available on the author’s publication page. See herein his major paper Towards Solving the Hard Problem of Consciousness a year earlier in Neural Networks (87/38, 2017), along with Iain McGilchrist 2019. We include 3 quotes to convey its essence and message.

This article surveys some of the main design principles, mechanisms, circuits, and architectures that have been discovered during a half century of systematic research aimed at developing a unified theory that links mind and brain, and shows how psychological functions arise as emergent properties of brain mechanisms. This project advanced in stages by way of revolutionary computational paradigms like Complementary Computing and Laminar Computing that constrain the kind of unified theory that can describe the autonomous adaptive intelligence that emerges from advanced brains. Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, is one of the core models that has been discovered in this way. ART is not, however, a “theory of everything” if only because, due to Complementary Computing, different matching and learning laws tend to support perception and cognition on the one hand, and spatial representation and action on the other. (Abstract excerpt)

Complementary Computing clarifies why there are multiple parallel processing streams in the brai to resolve computational uncertainties that cannot be overcome by just one processing stream or stage. Complementary Computing describes how the brain is organized into complementary parallel processing streams whose interactions generate biologically intelligent behaviors. A single cortical processing stream can individually compute some properties well, but cannot, by itself, process other computationally complementary properties. Pairs of complementary cortical processing streams interact to generate emergent properties that overcome their deficiencies to compute complete information with which to represent or control some faculty of intelligent behavior. (35)

The WHAT and WHERE cortical streams are complementary: The category learning, attention, recognition, and prediction circuits of the ventral, or What, cortical processing stream for perception and cognition are computationally complementary to those of the dorsal, or Where and How, cortical processing steam for spatial representation and action. One reason for this What - Where complementarity is that the What stream learns object recognition categories that are substantially invariant under changes in an object's view, size, and position. These invariant object categories enable our brains to recognize valued objects. They cannot, however, locate and act upon a desired object in space. Cortical Where stream spatial and motor representations can locate objects and trigger actions towards them, but cannot recognize them. By interacting together, the What and Where streams can recognize valued objects and direct appropriate goal-oriented actions towards them. (36-37)

Grossberg, Stephen. Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain: How Each Brain Makes a Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. The octogenarian Boston University poly-neuroscientist was often asked to write a summary work about his luminous studies (search). As a result, this large format, illustrated, 700 page volume proceeds to substantiate and explain his Complementary Computation theory of dynamic cerebral processes and cognitive features. As the quotes describe, into the 21st century and 2020s a vital finding can now be established. Our human neural facility, awareness and responsive behavior is distinguished by a double basis of opposite but reciprocal functions and qualities. One version is the What/Where model of object view and spatial place, which draws on dual cortical streams. Another instance, of course, is our hemispheric halves with their archetypal contrast of dot/connect, node/link, the litany goes all the way to male and female compete/cooperate aspects.

Malleable network topologies, as they serve to inform and communicate are noted to play a significant role. In further regard, as noted in an Introduction (7), Chapter 17 traces our emergent, personal brain/mind epitome deep down to the original complex dynamics of a physical source stage. Sections such as A Universal Developmental Code, Complementarity Biological and Physical Laws, A Universal Measurement Device of and in the World express how active neural cognizance can be found to self-organize in similar accord with physical principles and phenomena.

The work embodies a revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarifies how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, further insights emerge about shared law in living cells from primitive to complex and onto how networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. These novel brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance are then traced to the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. (Publisher)

A question concerns how the complementarity organization of our brains may be related to the complementary properties of the physical world. Here I will note that this occurrence was first proposed in the 1920s by the physicist Niels Bohr from quantum mechanics. The phenomena involves different aspects such as position and momentum for waves and particles. If the brain is a kind of universal measurement system of physical environs such as light, heat and pressure. This fact raises the question of whether brains may have assimilated basic physical principles throughout evolution. (7)

What and Where Cortical Processing Streams These two types of learning, perceptual/cognitive vs. spatial motor, to on in different brain systems. The ventral>/i> stream processes information that enables us to recognize objects. It is thus called the What version. Thedorsal phase provides information about where objects are in space and how to act upon them. It is accordingly called the Where and How mode. (28) I will suggest in Figure 1.19 how they obey “computationally complementary” laws. Complementarity implies the need to balance the capabilities of each version against those of the other. (aka herein as a Golden Mean). (28)

Complementary Processing Streams for Perception/cognition and Space/action. I have called this paradigm Complementary Computing because it describes how the brain is organized into complementary parallel processing streams whose interactions generate biologically intelligent behaviors. A singly cortical stream can compute some properties well, but cannot, by itself, process orther computationally complementary properties. Pairs of cortical streams interact, using multiple stages, to generat emergent features that overcome their complementary deficiencies to compute complete information with which to represent or control some intelligent faculty. (29)

Universal Design for Self=Organizing Measurements and Prediction Systems. Implicit in these conclusions is the fact that principles, mechanisms and architectures in this book are about fundament problems of measurement and how a self-organizing system and represent and predict outcomes in a changing world. Mind and brain are explained by these theories because they are natural computational embodiments of these occasions. (34)

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