Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Temporality and metaplasticity. Facing extension and incorporation through material engagement theory

  • Published:
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In our everyday life, we have the genuine feeling that when something we use works very well, we forget that we are doing something that is mediated by something else. It happens when we read through our glasses, or when we drive home, or when we play guitar. In all those cases, it can be said that the device becomes an extension of our body, or that we have incorporated it. In this paper I want to discuss the extension/incorporation dichotomy as presented in contemporary cognitive sciences. I will present the state of the art in the debate in order to promote a methodological shift, namely to adopt two concept borrowed from Material Engagement Theory (MET) developed by Lambros Malafouris (2013). By advocating the concepts of temporality and metaplasticity, I will argue for two different but related things: 1) extension and incorporation don’t have to be conceived only spatially, but temporally. This shift leads to two distinctive implications: first, the sooner two entities establish a prosthetic contact, the higher the chances to reach incorporation; second, extension temporally precedes incorporation; the former being an early-staged phenomenon of – a condition of possibility for – the latter. 2) Such a temporal perspective is at the base of metaplasticity, which describes, in the context of MET, the constant, co-constitutive loop between humans and things: metaplasticity deflates the privileged role traditionally attributed to the subject in the making of phenomenal experience. Finally, I will discuss extension and incorporation in media theory, relying on the concept of radical mediation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In an unpublished test presented at a TEDTalk by Eagleman (goo.gl/gXii7z), a man wearing the VEST received vibrating inputs directly conveyed from the stock market. He was asked to simply make a choice by tapping a tablet which showed two possible alternatives (red or green), whose choice was apparently randomly based upon the vibrations. The author wanted to test the possibility that an emerging meaning could arise from the vibrating patterns, thanks to the ability of the brain of assigning a value to the chaotic and unintelligible set of sensory stimulation (for a detailed explanation of skin’s achievable throughput see Novich and Eagleman 2015).

References

  • Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2001). The bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 14(1), 43–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2008). The bounds of cognition. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amedi, A., Raz, N., Pianka, P., Malach, R., & Zohary, E. (2003). Early ‘visual’cortex activation correlates with superior verbal memory performance in the blind. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 758–766.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auvray, M., & Myin, E. (2009). Perception with compensatory devices: From sensory substitution to sensorimotor extension. Cognitive Science, 33(6), 1036–1058.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baccarini, M., Martel, M., Cardinali, L., Sillan, O., Farnè, A., & Roy, A. C. (2014). Tool use imagery triggers tool incorporation in the body schema. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bach-y-Rita, P., & W Kercel, S. (2003). Sensory substitution and the human–machine interface. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(12), 541–546.

  • Bach-y-Rita, P., Collins, C. C., Saunders, F. A., White, B., & Scadden, L. (1969). Vision substitution by tactile image projection. Nature, 221, 963–964.

  • Bateson, G. (1972). Step to an ecology of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berti, A., & Frassinetti, F. (2000). When far becomes near: Remapping of space by tool use. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(3), 415–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands “feel” touch that eyes see. Nature, 391, 756.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cardinali, L., Brozzoli, C., & Farnè, A. (2009a). Peripersonal space and body schema: Two labels for the same concept? Brain Topography, 21(3–4), 252–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cardinali, L., Frassinetti, F., Brozzoli, C., Urquizar, C., Roy, A. C., & Farnè, A. (2009b). Tool-use induces morphological updating of the body schema. Current Biology, 19(12), R478–R479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cardinali, L., Brozzoli, C., Finos, L., Roy, A. C., & Farnè, A. (2016). The rules of tool incorporation: Tool morpho-functional & sensori-motor constraints. Cognition, 149(C), 1–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • d’Errico, F., Henshilwood, C., Vanhaeren, M., & van Niekerk, K. (2005). Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos cave: Evidence for symbolic behaviour in the middle stone age. Journal of Human Evolution, 48, 3–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Preester, H. (2010). Technology and the body: The (im)possibilities of re-embodiment. Foundations of Science, 16(2–3), 119–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Preester, H. (2012). Equipment and existential spatiality: Heidegger, cognitive science and the prosthetic subject. In J. Kiverstein & M. Wheeler (Eds.), Heidegger and cognitive science (pp. 276–308). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • De Preester, H., & Tsakiris, M. (2009). Body-extension versus body-incorporation: Is there a need for a body-model? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), 307–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vignemont, F. (2011). Embodiment, ownership and disownership. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(1), 82–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vignemont, F. (2017). Agency and bodily ownership: the bodyguard hypothesis. In F. De Vignemont & A. J. T. Smith (Eds.), The subject’s matter. Self-consciousness and the body (pp. 217–236). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • De Vignemont, F., & Farnè, A. (2010). Widening the body to rubber hands and tools: what's the difference? Revue de Neuropsychologie, 2(3), 203–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vignemont, F., & Smith, A. J. T. (2017). The subject’s matter. Self-consciousness and the body. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deroy, O., & Auvray, M. (2012). Reading the world through the skin and ears: A new perspective on sensory substitution. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagleman, D. (2015). The brain. The story of you. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagleman, D., & Novich, S. (2017). Providing information to a user through somatosensory feedback. US Patent, 9, 626,845.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrsson, H. H. (2009). How many arms make a pair? Perceptual illusion of having an additional limb. Perception, 38(2), 310–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrsson, H. H., Spence, C., & Passingham, R. E. (2004). That's my hand! Activity in premotor cortex reflects feeling of ownership of a limb. Science, 305(5685), 875–877.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, T. (2018). Ecology of the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fusaroli, R., & Paolucci, C. (2011). The external mind: An introduction. VERSUS, 112-113, 3–31.

  • Gallagher, S. (2000). Philosophical conceptions of the self: Implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 14–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. (2017). Enactivist interventions. Rethinking the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, S. F., & Epel, D. (2015). Ecological developmental biology. The environmental regulation of development, health, and evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press pages in the text it. trans. Padua: Piccin 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, S. F., Bosch, T. C. G., & Ledón-Rettig, C. (2015). Eco-Evo-Devo: Developmental symbiosis and developmental plasticity as evolutionary agents. Nature Reviews Genetics, 16, 611–622.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gosden, C., & Malafouris, L. (2015). Process archaeology (P-arch). World Archaeology, 47(5), 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths, P. E., & Gray, R. D. (2004). The developmental systems perspective: Organism–environment systems as units of evolution. In K. Preston & M. Pigliucci (Eds.), The evolutionary biology of complex phenotypes (pp. 409–431). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grusin, R. (2015a). The nonhuman turn. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grusin, R. (2015b). Radical mediation. Critical Inquiry, 42(1), 124–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Anchor.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2013). Radicalizing enactivism. Basic minds without content. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2017). Evolving enactivism. Basic minds meet content. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D. (1979). Technics and praxis. Dordrecht. In Boston. London: Reidel Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D. (1993). Postphenomenology. Essays in the postmodern context. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D. (2009). Postphenomenology and technoscience. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D., & Malafouris, L. (2018). Homo faber revisited: Postphenomenology and material engagement theory. Philosophy & Technology, 1–20.

  • Iliopoulos, A., & Malafouris, L. (2014). Cognitive archaeology. In Encyclopedia of global archaeology (pp. 1522–1530). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Iriki, A., Tanaka, M., & Iwamura, Y. (1996). Coding of modified body schema during tool use by macaque postcentral neurones. Neuroreport, 7(14), 2325–2330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makin, T. R., De Vignemont, F., & Faisal, A. A. (2017). Neurocognitive barriers to the embodiment of technology. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 1, 0014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2004). The cognitive basis of material engagement: Where brain, body and culture conflate. In E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden, & C. Renfrew (Eds.), Rethinking materiality: The engagement of mind with the material world (pp. 53–62). Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2007). Before and beyond representation: Towards an enactive conception of the Palaeolithic image. In C. Renfrew & I. Morley (Eds.), Image and imagination: A global history of figurative representation (pp. 289–302). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2008a). Between brains, bodies and things: Tecnoetic awareness and the extended self. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 363(1499), 1993–2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2008b). Beads for a plastic mind: The “blind man's stick” (BMS) hypothesis and the active nature of material culture. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18(03), 401–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2008c). At the Potter’s wheel: An argument for material agency. In C. Knappett & L. Malafouris (Eds.), Material agency: Towards a non-anthropocentric perspective (pp. 19–36). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2009). ‘Neuroarchaeology’: Exploring the links between neural and cultural plasticity. Progress in Brain Research, 178, 251–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2010a). Metaplasticity and the human becoming: Principles of neuroarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 88, 49–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2010b). Knapping intentions and the marks of the mental. In L. Malafouris & C. Renfrew (Eds.), The Cognitive Life of Things: Recasting the boundaries of the mind (pp. 13–22). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2010c). Grasping the concept of number: how did the sapient mind move beyond approximation. In C. Renfrew & I. Morley (Eds.), The archaeology of measurement: comprehending heaven, earth and time in ancient societies (pp. 35–42). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2012). Prosthetic gestures: How the tool shapes the mind. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 28–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2014). Creative thinging: The feeling of and for clay. Pragmatics & Cognition, 22(1), 140–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2015). Metaplasticity and the primacy of material engagement. Time and Mind, 8(4), 351–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malafouris, L. (2016). On human becoming and incompleteness: A material engagement approach to the study of embodiment in evolution and culture. In G. Etzelmüller & C. Tewes (Eds.), Embodiment in evolution and culture (pp. 289–305). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manzotti, R. (2017a). Consciousness and object. A mind-object identity physicalist theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Manzotti, R. (2017b). The spread mind. New York: OR Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maravita, A., & Iriki, A. (2004). Tools for the body (schema). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(2), 79–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martel, M., Cardinali, L., Roy, A. C., & Farné, A. (2017). Tool use unravels body morphology representation in the brain. In F. De Vignemont & A. J. T. Smith (Eds.), The Subject’s matter. Self-consciousness and the body (pp. 51–74). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media. The extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLuhan, M., & Fiore, Q. (1967). The Medium is the Massage. Corte Madera: Gingko Press 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melzack, R., Israel, R., Lacroix, R., & Schultz, G. (1997). Phantom limbs in people with congenital limb deficiency or amputation in early childhood. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 120(9), 1603–1620.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Menary, R. (2010a). The extended mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Menary, R. (2010b). Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 459–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phenomenology of Perception. London and New York: Routledge 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, R., & Rochat, P. (1997). Intermodal calibration of the body in early infancy. Ecological Psychology, 9, 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Müller, G. B. (1989). Ancestral patterns in bird limb development: A new look at Hampé's experiment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2(1), 31–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, C. D. (2004). An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the embodiment of artificial limbs. Disability and Rehabilitation, 26(16), 963–973.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Noë, A. (2004). Action in perception. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noë, A. (2009). Out of our heads. New York: Hill and Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Novich, S. D., & Eagleman, D. M. (2015). Using space and time to encode vibrotactile information: Toward an estimate of the skin’s achievable throughput. Experimental Brain Research, 233(10), 2777–2788.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Odling-Smee, F. J., Laland, K. N., & Feldman, M. (2003). Niche construction. The neglected process in evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Regan, J. K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 24(05), 939–973.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parisi, F. (2018). Enacting visualization. Mental imagery and the role of pictures. In A. Scarinzi (Ed.), Recasting aesthetic experience: Emotions and the "continuity principle". Springer.

  • Parravicini, A., & Pievani, T. (2016). Multi-level human evolution: Ecological patterns in hominin phylogeny. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 94, 167–182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascual-Leone, A., Amedi, A., Fregni, F., & Merabet, L. B. (2005). The plastic human brain cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience (Palo Alto, CA), 28, 377–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pazzaglia, M., & Molinari, M. (2016). The embodiment of assistive devices—From wheelchair to exoskeleton. Physics of Life Reviews, 16(C), 163–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Povinelli, D. J., Reaux, J. E., & Frey, S. H. (2010). Chimpanzees’ context-dependent tool use provides evidence for separable representations of hand and tool even during active use within peripersonal space. Neuropsychologia, 48(1), 243–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renfrew, C., & Zubrow, E. B. W. (1994). The ancient mind. Elements of cognitive archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rizzolatti, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (1997). The space around us. Science, 277(5323), 190–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowlands, M. (2010). The new science of the mind. From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rupert, R. D. (2009). Cognitive systems and the extended mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schumann, F., & O’Regan, J. K. (2017). Sensory augmentation: Integration of an auditory compass signal into human perception of space. Scientific Reports, 7, 42197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shaviro, S. (2016). Discognition. London: Repeater.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slijper, E. J. (1942). Biologic-anatomical investigations on the bipedal gait and upright posture in mammals, with special reference to a little goat, born without forelegs. I Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 45, 288–295.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stout, D., & Chaminade, T. (2011). Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1585), 75–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, T. (2010). The artificial ape: How technology changed the course of human evolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsakiris, M. (2010). My body in the brain: A neurocognitive model of body-ownership. Neuropsychologia, 48(3), 703–712.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsakiris, M., & Haggard, P. (2005). The rubber hand illusion revisited: Visuotactile integration and self-attribution. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(1), 80–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weser, V., Finotti, G., Costantini, M., & Proffitt, D. R. (2017). Multisensory integration induces body ownership of a handtool, but not any handtool. Consciousness and Cognition, 56, 150–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West-Eberhard, M. J. (2003). Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • West-Eberhard, M. J. (2005). Phenotypic accommodation: Adaptive innovation due to developmental plasticity. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution, 304B(6), 610–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Via Concezione, 6-8, 98122, Messina, Italy

    Francesco Parisi

Authors
  1. Francesco Parisi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Parisi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Parisi, F. Temporality and metaplasticity. Facing extension and incorporation through material engagement theory. Phenom Cogn Sci 18, 205–221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9599-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9599-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation