Binding significance to form: Cultural objects, neural binding, and cultural change

Abstract

In sociology, a cultural object is the "binding" of significance to a material form. But, how do people "bind" otherwise discrete elements as a single element? In cognitive neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, this is known as the "binding problem." Sociologists can learn from research on binding, as it deepens our understanding of cultural objects, learning, and social change. Binding is the process by which a material "token" is assimilated into (or expands the boundaries of) a cognitive "type," or resists such typification thereby leading to the formation of a new cognitive "type." Cultural objects are simultaneously types and tokens, and the interplay between them results in a fundamental cultural instability. Binding is an attempt to stabilize meaning in two ways: the first, innovating, is implicated in the emergence of a cultural object, and the second, indexicalizing, in its maintenance and extension. However, even the process of indexicalizing a well-established type-i.e., the proliferation of tokensprovides the material fodder from which to innovate new types. Attention to binding processes in the production and reception of cultural objects reveals important insight into the dynamics of cultural change and stability.

Concept Mover’s Distance: Measuring Concept Engagement in Texts via Word Embeddings

“…A better approach, however, would account for the fuzzy, graded relationship between concepts, rather than either-or relationships (Rosch and Mervis 1975;Taylor 2003;Taylor, Stoltz, and McDonnell 2019). Similarly, Figure 1: An illustration of distances between word embeddings, adapted from Kusner et al (2015) Note:…”

What can cognitive neuroscience do for cultural sociology?

“…This operation results in perceptual, cognitive, and affective constructs endowed with unitary experiential qualities. From the perspective of cultural sociology, binding may, therefore, be one of the most fundamental neurocognitive processes (Taylor et al , 2019).…”

“…Variable binding refers to the processes by which "symbols are designated to represent entities" (Browne and Sun, 1999: 189). Our focus is on this last given its more direct relevance for core work in cultural sociology (Taylor et al , 2019).…”

“…representations, two or more cultural elements that bind in time and space need not be bound at all times (Taylor et al , 2019;Quilley et al , 2013). This is the difference between what Lakoff (2009) refers to as obligatory (characteristic of perceptual bindings such as an apple's shape and color specifications) and nonce bindings (put together on the fly and determined by characteristics of context).…”

What can cognitive neuroscience do for cultural sociology?

“…There are two implications of isolating infra-individual binding processes for cultural sociology. First, since convolution gives rise to novel (emergent) representations, two or more cultural elements that bind in time and space need not be bound at all times (Taylor et al , 2019;Quilley et al , 2013). This is the difference between what Lakoff (2009) refers to as obligatory (characteristic of perceptual bindings such as an apple's shape and color specifications) and nonce bindings (put together on the fly and determined by characteristics of context).…”