Beller, Sieghard

Bender, Andrea

Bennardo, Giovanni

Boster, James S.

Majid, Asifa

Medin, Douglas L.

eScholarship - University of California

UC MercedProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science SocietyTitleBridging the Gap: From Cognitive Anthropology to Cognitive SciencePermalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4hc5f9x5JournalProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 32(32)ISSN1069-7977AuthorsBender, AndreaBeller, SieghardBennardo, Giovanniet al.Publication Date2010 Peer reviewedeScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of California.,onn,e,-aroryrsorfe-n-anni-r,ofcesV-itsaysh-recytsda-Bridging the Gap: From Cognitive Anthropology to Cognitive ScienceOrganizersAndrea Bender (bender@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de)Sieghard Beller (beller@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de)Department of PsychologyUniversity of Freiburg, GermanyPresentersGiovanni Bennardo (bennardo@niu.edu)Department of AnthropologyNorthern Illinois University, USAJames S. Boster (jboster@cognition.clas.uconn.edu)Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Connecticut, USAAsifa Majid (Asifa.Majid@mpi.nl)Max Planck Institute for PsycholinguisticsNijmegen, The NetherlandsDouglas L. Medin (medin@northwestern.edu)Department of PsychologyNorthwestern University, USAAlthough cognitive anthropology once was a pioneer in thecognitive revolution and a founding member of the cognitivescience, over the years its participation and influence havediminished—to the detriment of both cognitive anthropologyand cognitive science more generally. Meanwhile, though,interactions between culture and cognition are increasinglyrecognized as being of prime interest for cognitive science.Among the most important issues that call for anthropologi-cal expertise is the question of cognitive and/or linguisticuniversals (Evans & Levinson, 2009; Henrich, Heine &Norenzayan, in press; Norenzayan & Heine, 2005). Anthro-pology, with its expertise in culture and language, thus be-comes an invaluable partner for respective research. But onlyrecently, initiatives have been launched to re-calibrate the re-lationship among the subfields of cognitive science (Bender,Hutchins & Medin, in press).This symposium is intended as one step in this direction,bringing together scholars from different disciplinary back-grounds (e.g., anthropology, linguistics, and psychology) topresent what they regard as the main strengths of theirrespective disciplines and why and how this could be usefulfor each other.The symposium is co-organized by an anthropologist anda psychologist who will give an introduction to the sympo-sium’s topic by summarizing some of the evidence for thecultural constitution of cognition (e.g., Beller & Bender,2008; Beller, Bender & Song, 2009). The presenters areamong the leading scientists in their fields. Besides strivingfor the re-integration of anthropology into cognitive sci-ences, each of them has contributed considerably to ourexpanding knowledge on the cultural constitution of cogni-tion (for instance, in comprehensive monographs or articlesin high ranking journals):• Giovanni Bennardo of Northern Illinois University, hav-ing a background in anthropology, linguistics, andcognitive science, seeks to model cognitive conceptual-izations for various cultural domains (e.g., Bennardo,2009; Bennardo & Read, 2007).• Anthropologist and ethnolinguist James Boster of theUniversity of Connecticut is an expert on methodologyin cultural research and on intracultural variation (e.gBoster, 1999, in press) and has published extensivelysemantic categories (e.g., Majid, Boster & Bowerma2008).• Asifa Majid from the MPI for Psycholinguistics inNijmegen combines approaches from cognitive sciencpsychology, linguistics, and anthropology for her research into the semantic categorization of so funquestioned domains as body categorization or sensexperiences (e.g., Majid, 2006; Majid et al., 2008).• And Douglas Medin, being one of the leading scholaon categorization, learning, and decision making, has fmany years now scrutinized the cultural constitution ocognition (e.g., Atran & Medin, 2008; Medin & Atran,2004; Medin, Bennis & Chandler, in press).Based on own cross-cultural (and often interdisciplinary) rsearch, each presenter in this symposium will argue why athropology is necessary for cognitive science and how it ccontribute to a more comprehensive understanding of cogtion (cf., d’Andrade, 1995; Hutchins, 1995). In particulathey will address the question of universals, from the levelsyntax through semantic categories and sensory experiento the relationship between human and nature.Word order and a cultural model:From universal mind to cultural mindGiovanni BennardoGoldin-Meadow et al. (2008, p. 9167) suggest that SO(subject – object – verb) is the “natural [mental] order for humans” and that “as a language community grows andfunctions become more complex, additional pressures mexert their influence on language form, in some cases puing the linguistic order away from the semantically cleaArPA (actor, patient, action or SOV) order”. Tongan (inPolynesia) is typically regarded as a Verb-Initial languagand specifically a VSO language. In this talk, a frequenanalysis will be presented of a good number of Tonga texthat partially challenges this assumption. Besides, a foun2767dun-:n---d.sin.eg-.if-eyel-r-tional cultural model ‘radiality’ (Bennardo, 2009) in Tongancognition will be proposed as the engine that might be re-sponsible for the move from ‘natural’ SOV to Tongan V-ini-tial.Are translation equivalentsreferential equivalents?James S. BosterSets of translation equivalent emotion terms were identifiedin Polish and English. These terms (and others) were used intwo tasks, one naming the emotion expressed in facial ges-tures of emotion, the other naming the emotions elicited byaffectively evocative scenarios. In neither case were thetranslation equivalent terms referentially equivalent. Howev-er, treating the question as one requiring a yes/no answerdoes not do it justice. This paper measures degrees of trans-lation and referential equivalence and compares those mea-sures.The senses in mind and cultureAsifa MajidThe cognitive sciences aim to understand the human mindbut too often fall prey to unwarranted generalizations from anarrow subset of the population: Western, Educated, Indus-trialized, Rich, Democratic societies. Anthropologists pro-vide one kind of corrective to this bias, providingethnographies of many alternative ways of thinking. But westill struggle to grasp what is common across culturalgroups, and what truly exceptional. I propose that large-scalecross-cultural comparison can bridge this gap between thefields. For example, it has been assumed that sensory experi-ences are differentially accessible to language. That is, it iseasier to describe distal senses (vision, audition) than proxi-mal senses (olfaction, taste). Current theories assume this tobe an established fact on the basis of English data alone. In alarge-scale collaborative project, involving 25 researchersand 22 languages, we have found the codability of the sensesis culturally-relative. This is a challenge to existing theories.Cognition in context: Why anthropology andthe rest of cognitive sciences need each otherDouglas L. Medin,Megan Bang, Ananda Marin & Sandra WaxmanThere is a great deal to be said about the lack of interactionbetween Anthropology and the other cognitive sciences.Such analyses can be constructive. Our present focus leavesthe abstract issues behind to focus on a set of empirical is-sues linked to psychological distance and how humans areconceptualized in relation to the rest of nature. Native-Amer-ican and European-American perspectives are contrasted.The research we report begins with ethnographic observa-tions and interviews and then shifts to an analysis of culturalartifacts (children’s books). We show how these data can beused in conjunction with the Trope and Liberman (2003)temporal construal theory to predict a number of related cul-tural differences. The punch line is that Anthropology anthe other cognitive sciences need each other if we are toderstand cognition in context.ReferencesAtran, S., & Medin, D.L. (2008).The native mind and the cul-tural construction of nature. Boston: MIT Press.Beller, S., & Bender, A. (2008). The limits of countingNumerical cognition between evolution and culture.Sci-ence, 319, 213-215.Beller, S., & Bender, A., & Song, J. (2009). Weighing upphysical causes: Effects of culture, linguistic cues, and cotent.Journal of Cognition and Culture, 9,347-365.Bender, A., Hutchins, E., & Medin, D.L. (in press). Anthropology in cognitive science.Topics in Cognitive Science.Bennardo, G. (2009).Language, space, and social relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Bennardo, G., & Read, D.W. (2007). Cognition, algebra, anculture in the Tongan kinship terminology.Journal of Cog-nition and Culture, 7, 49-88.Boster, J. S. (1999). Cultural variation. In R.A. Wilson & F.CKeil (Eds), MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Science(pp. 217-218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Boster, J.S. (in press). Data, method, and interpretationcognitive anthropology. In D. Kronenfeld, G. Bennardo, VC. de Munck, & M. Fischer (Eds.),The Blackwell compan-ion to cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Blackwell.d’Andrade, R.G. (1995).The development of cognitiveanthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressEvans, N., & Levinson, S.L. (2009). The myth of languaguniversals: Language diversity and its importance for conitive science.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32,429-492.Goldin-Meadow, S., So, W.C., Özyürek, A., & Mylander, C(2008). The natural order of events: How speakers of dferent languages represent events nonverbally.PNAS, 105,9163-9168.Henrich, J., Heine, S.J., & Norenzayan, A. (in press). Thweirdest people in the world?Behavioral and Brain Sci-ences.Hutchins, E. (1995).Cognition in the wild.Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.Majid, A. (2006). Body part categorisation in Punjabi.Lan-guage Sciences, 28, 241-261.Majid, A., Boster, J.S., & Bowerman, M. (2008). Thecrosslinguistic categorization of everyday events: A studof cutting and breaking.Cognition, 109, 424-441.Medin, D. L., & Atran, S. (2004). The native mind: Biologi-cal categorization, reasoning and decision making in devopment across cultures.Psychological Review, 111,960-983.Medin, D.L., Bennis, W., & Chandler, M. (in press). Cultureand the home-field disadvantage.Perspectives on Psycho-logical Science.Norenzayan, A., & Heine, S.J. (2005). Psychological univesals: What are they and how can we know?PsychologicalBulletin, 131, 763-784.Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal.Psy-chological Review, 110, 403-421.2768

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Bridging the Gap: From Cognitive Anthropology to Cognitive Science

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