{"id":1940,"date":"2009-07-23T13:42:18","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T11:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=1940"},"modified":"2024-02-24T10:53:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T09:53:57","slug":"is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Is deductive inference embedded in language?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forthcoming in PNAS: &#8220;The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference&#8221; by Martin M. Monti, Lawrence M. Parsons and Daniel N. Osherson.<\/p>\n<p>By way of introduction, here is how Martin Monti (who is a post-doc at \u00a0the\u00a0Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge UK) describes his interest in Language &amp; Thought: &#8220;Does language enable other higher cognitive functions? A signal characteristic of human cognition is its ability to construct an indefinite number of ideas by combining a finite set of elements in hierarchically structured sequences according to syntactic principles. This is most clearly displayed in language but not uniquely; for instance, reasoning, mental arithmetic and music are also structure-dependent. So, does the generative power of natural language provide a cognitive template for other types of structure-dependent cognition? What is the contribution of the neural substrate of linguistic competence in other aspects of &#8216;higher cognition&#8217;?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here is the abstract of the article that contribute to answering these questions:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Is human thought fully embedded in language, or do some forms of thought operate independently? To directly address this issue, we focus on inference-making, a central feature of human cognition. In a 3T fMRI study we compare logical inferences relying on sentential connectives (e.g., not, or, if &#8230; then) to linguistic inferences based on syntactic transformation of sentences involving ditransitive verbs (e.g., give, say, take). When contrasted with matched grammaticality judgments, logic inference alone recruited &#8220;core&#8221; regions of deduction [Brodmann area (BA) 10p and 8m], whereas linguistic inference alone recruited perisylvian regions of linguistic competence, among others (BA 21, 22, 37, 39, 44, and 45 and caudate). In addition, the two inferences commonly recruited a set of general &#8220;support&#8221; areas in frontoparietal cortex (BA 6, 7, 8, 40, and 47). The results indicate that logical inference is not embedded in natural language and confirm the relative modularity of linguistic processes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forthcoming in PNAS: &#8220;The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference&#8221; by Martin M. Monti, Lawrence M. Parsons and Daniel N. Osherson. By way of introduction, here is how Martin Monti (who is a post-doc at \u00a0the\u00a0Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge UK) describes his interest in Language &amp; Thought: &#8220;Does [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is deductive inference embedded in language? - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is deductive inference embedded in language? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Forthcoming in PNAS: &#8220;The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference&#8221; by Martin M. Monti, Lawrence M. Parsons and Daniel N. Osherson. By way of introduction, here is how Martin Monti (who is a post-doc at \u00a0the\u00a0Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge UK) describes his interest in Language &amp; Thought: &#8220;Does [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-23T11:42:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-24T09:53:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The ICCI Team\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/\",\"name\":\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/\",\"name\":\"Is deductive inference embedded in language? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-07-23T11:42:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-24T09:53:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/is-deductive-inference-embedded-in-language\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\",\"name\":\"The ICCI Team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cdc7166b2c4c44441b1c2c13cea716e8?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fcognitionandculture.local%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Fbelle%2Fuser.png&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The ICCI Team\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18791,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/18791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}