In his target paper Mathematical Cognition: A Case of Enculturation, Richard Menary investigates the conditions under which phylogenetically recent, socio-culturally shaped target phenomena within cognitive science such as mathematics, reading, and writing have emerged. Resting on his theory of cognitive integration (CI; e.g., Menary 2007a), he starts from the idea that these processes are fully continuous with phylogenetically older ones (evolutionary continuity). This type of continuity is justified by the assumption that the evolution of neuronal reuse mechanisms allows for the redeployment of cortical circuits for phylogenetically recent functions (Anderson 2010; Anderson & Finlay 2014). Ontogenetically, neuronal reuse is a precondition of learning driven plasticity (LDP), which “can result in both structural and functional changes in the brain” (Menary this collection, p. 8). That is, the human brain is assumed to be neuronally plastic so that its processing routines are altered as the individual acquires new cognitive abilities (Ansari 2012). However, the acquisition of new cognitive abilities takes place within
[…] a highly structured cognitive niche that contains not only physical artefacts, but also: representational systems that embody knowledge (writing systems, number systems, etc.); skills and methods for training and teaching new skills (Menary & Kirchhoff 2014); practices for manipulating tools and representations. (Menary this collection, p. 6)
It is this cognitive niche that provides the resources for scaffolded learning, which allows the individual to acquire new cognitive abilities through its ongoing embodied interaction with its socio-cultural environment. Together, LDP and scaffolded learning lead to cognitive transformations that augment the individual’s cognitive capacities through ontogenesis: “Cognitive transformations result from our evolved plasticity and scaffolded learning in the developmental niche” (Menary this collection, p. 8).[1] The result of cognitive transformation is the acquisition of a sufficient degree of expertise in performing a certain cognitive practice. Cognitive practices are normatively constrained to the extent that socio-culturally shaped procedures work in close interaction with the cognitive niche: They “[…] are culturally endowed (bodily) manipulations of informational structures” (Menary this collection, p. 4), such as manipulations of tokens of a representational writing system, and they serve to complete a cognitive task. In order to describe the transformational processes by which cognitive practices are acquired, Menary introduces the notion of enculturation: “Enculturation rests on the acquisition of cultural practices that are cognitive in nature” (ibid.). That is, enculturation refers to any cognitive transformation that is rendered possible by LDP and the individual’s ongoing interaction with its cognitive niche. As a proof of concept, Menary (this collection) deals with mathematical cognition and describes the ways in which individuals acquire expertise in manipulating a public, socio-culturally developed mathematical symbol system. Relying on a set of empirical results, he arrives at the conclusion that precise mathematical operations are rendered possible by the recruitment of a neuronal sub-system during ontogeny. In contrast to the evolved approximate number system (ANS), which allows for subitizing and is also present in other animals, the neuronal realization of the discrete number system (DNS) heavily depends on LDP, the individual’s immersion into its cognitive niche, and its active participation in scaffolded learning routines. Thus, the acquisition of mathematical skills is an important example of enculturation.
The purpose of this commentary is to enrich and refine the enculturated approach. First, I will propose that the predictive processing framework provides conceptual and explanatory tools for describing and explaining the neuronal and extracranial bodily mechanisms underlying cognitive practices and enculturation. Thus, I will accept the challenge to combine “[…] the dynamical nature of causal commerce between world, body, and brain and the inferential free energy principle that allows their unification in one account” (Hohwy this collection, p. 18). I will argue that a new integrative framework that views CI and predictive processing as complementary is able to meet this challenge. Second, I will illustrate this by presenting reading acquisition as a paradigmatic case of enculturated cognition. In particular, I will demonstrate that a position that combines the enculturated approach with predictive processing, which I call enculturated predictive processing, leads to a parsimonious and conceptually coherent account of reading acquisition that helps interpret and unify a vast array of recent empirical findings.