In defense of language-independent flexibility, or: What rodents and humans can do without language

Mind and Language 39:1-27 (2024)
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Abstract

There are two main approaches within classical cognitive science to explaining how humans can entertain mental states that integrate contents across domains. The language-based framework states that this ability arises from higher cognitive domain-specific systems that combine their outputs through the language faculty, whereas the language-independent framework holds that it comes from non-language-involving connections between such systems. This article turns on its head the most influential empirical argument for the language-based framework, an argument that originates from research on spatial reorientation. I make the case that neuroscientific findings about spatial reorientation in rodents and humans bolster the language-independent framework instead.

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Alexandre Duval
Australian National University

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