The complementarity hypothesis says that language functions to enhance the intrinsic abilities of the biological mind (c.f. the ‘extended mind hypothesis’). The difference from Fodor’s account is clear; the difference from accounts like Barsalou’s ‘perceptual symbol system’ less obvious.

The difference isn’t an enormous one. Barsalou might say (on one interpretation) that language once it has evoked its internal perceptual effect can be discarded, Clark would prefer to make it clear that constraints of language can be constraints of thought, and that (for example) conjoining descriptors can organize and structure perception and cognition. This may not be something Barsalou would complain about terribly, but it is a useful perspective to raise.

A few examples are useful to advance the hypothesis. First, Clark raises the familiar one of chimpanzees who can perform second-order difference detection when equipped with physical symbols, but who are otherwise unable to.

He also makes use of children being able to distinguish and recall hiding locations for toys just in the case that they have linguistic abilities advanced enough to conjoin terms (‘behind the low blue wall’) but not otherwise. (This reminded me of Luria’s experiments with conjunction of more abstract terms in slightly older children, showing similar results – an inability to conjoin behavior isometric to linguistic abilities.)

To me, this suggests a way out of the linguistic relativity dichotomy. Language structures thought in an online fashion that is internalized because language is a means of extending the range of cognition.

What is the relation between the material, conventional symbol structures that we encounter in the spoken and written word, and human thought? A common assumption, that structures a wide variety of otherwise competing views, is that the way in which these material, conventional symbol-structures do their work is by being translated into some kind of content-matching inner code. One alternative to this view is the tempting but thoroughly elusive idea that we somehow think in some natural language (such as English). In the present treatment I explore a third option, which I shall call the ‘‘complementarity’’ view of language. According to this third view the actual symbol structures of a given language add cognitive value by complementing (without being replicated by) the more basic modes of operation and representation endemic to the biological brain. The ‘‘cognitive bonus’’ that language brings is, on this model, not to be cashed out either via the ultimately mysterious notion of ‘‘thinking in a given natural language’’ or via some process of exhaustive translation into another inner code. Instead, we should try to think in terms of a kind of coordination dynamics in which the forms and structures of a language qua material symbol system play a key and irreducible role. Understanding language as a complementary cognitive resource is, I argue, an important part of the much larger project (sometimes glossed in terms of the ‘‘extended mind’’) of understanding human cognition as essentially and multiply hybrid: as involving a complex interplay between internal biological resources and external non-biological resources.

Clark, A. “Material symbols.” Philosophical Psychology 19.3 (2006): 291–307. Web. 16 Dec. 2011.

The difference then between self-knowledge and other-knowledge lies only in the sensory information it has access to. Self-knowledge may have a larger number of inputs (eg, internal speech) but is otherwise identical in character. The intuition that one’s self-knowledge is veridical, he says, is a habit and arises from the mind’s ability to ‘short-circuit’ counter-evidence, where when considering the behaviors of others, a greater chance of error is assumed. In short, we don’t see self-error because it’s hard to get in the habit of looking for it.

This latter explanation (as I understand it) seems a bit simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. If the system works, the brain is not likely to take time to examine it. And the data he marshals is tidy; this is the sort of large-scale reinterpretation that makes many outlying results (eg, in metacognitive ability studies, studies about autism, cognitive dissonance) fall into line.

It’s also reminiscent of the Buddhism of your choice, which centers around the difficulty of learning to observe one’s own thoughts. It’d be interesting to see if Carruthers has done any work with Buddhist meditators.

Dehaene’s model is that consciousness of an experience is created when modular brain regions synchronize, and that global working memory (and the PFC as an organ linked throughout the brain) is the key to consciousness. The potential role of language here is clear: symbolic referents to brain configurations are a cheap way to stabilize them and maintain them in working memory.

That is a cheap way, not the only way. Consciousness without symbols as an organizing system would be, one imagines, much more difficult, but still possible.

Edge In Paris: SIGNATURES OF CONSCIOUSNESS — A TALK BY STANISLAS DEHAENE.

Time has been considered a crucial factor in distinguishing between two levels of self-awareness: the ‘‘core,’’ or ‘‘minimal self,’’ and the ‘‘extended,’’ or ‘‘narrative self.’’ Herein, I focus on this last concept of the self and, in particular, on the relationship between the narrative self and language. In opposition to the claim that the narrative self is a linguistic construction, my idea is that it is created by the functioning of mental time travel, that is, the faculty of human beings to project themselves mentally backwards in time to relive, or forward to anticipate, events. Moreover, I propose that narrative language itself should be considered a product of a core brain network that includes mechanisms, such as mental time travel, mindreading, and visuo-spatial systems.

Cosentino, Erica. 2011 – Consciousness & Cognition
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21212002

Cosentino argues with Dennet’s claim that language creates the self as a ‘narrative center of gravity’. Rather, she says, it is the ability to mentally project oneself into irrealis states that is central.

She goes on to say that episodic memory does not primarily function as a record of one’s life; rather, it’s an archive for generating recombinatorial predictions.

While the author notes that many other species have some cognitive ability to project (aka ‘mental time travel’, MTT), such as corvidae, primates, etc, I think more could be made of the point that this is (perhaps?) not enough for a self. I tend to think that symbolic labels serve as a focus for attention (cf Gentner) for the repeated element – aka the ‘self’ – in these projected/MTT episodes. The ability to create a symbol for this repeated element directs the attention and guides the ability to use these states.

I’ll analogize to Nicaraguan sign language, where signers of a pidgin sign gained significant skill at theory-of-mind tasks after the introduction of signs for conditionals. While theory of mind is doubtless within the range of human (and non-human) cognitive abilities, having a symbol to guide attention to them made the skill much more readily at hand.

Thinking about past or future events can literally move us: Engaging in mental time travel (a.k.a. chronesthesia) results in physical movement corresponding to the direction of time. Volunteers who thought about past events swayed backwards while volunteers imagining future events swayed forward. These findings suggest that chronesthesia may be grounded in processes that link spatial and temporal metaphors (e.g., future= forward, past=backward) to our systems of perception and action.

Lynden K. Miles, Louise K. Nind, and C. Neil Macrae
Psychological Science
Moving Through Time — PDF.

Everyone has recounted a story or joke to someone only to experience a nagging feeling that they may already have told this person this information. Remembering to whom one has told what, an ability that we term destination memory, has been overlooked by researchers despite its important social ramifications. Using a novel paradigm, we demonstrate that destination memory is more fallible than source memory—remembering the person from whom one has received information (Experiment 1). In Experiments 2 and 3, we increased and decreased self-focus, obtaining support for a theoretical framework that explains relatively poor destination memory performance as being the result of focusing attention on oneself and on the processes required to transmit information. Along with source memory, destination memory is an important component of episodic memory that plays a critical role in social interactions.

PDF link.