What can cognitive neuroscience do for cultural sociology?

Abstract

Can cognitive neuroscience contribute to cultural sociology? We argue that it can, but to profit from such contributions requires developing coherent positions at the level of ontology and coherent epistemological views concerning interfield relations in science. In this paper, we carve out a coherent position that makes sense for cultural sociology based on Sperber's "infraindividualist" and Clark's "extended cognition" arguments. More substantively, we take on three canonical topics in cultural sociology: language, intersubjectivity, and associational links between elements, showing that the cognitive neurosciences can make conceptual and empirical contributions to the thinking of cultural sociologists in these areas. We conclude by outlining the opportunities for further development of work at the intersection of cultural sociology and the cognitive neurosciences.

Cultural Cartography with Word Embeddings

“…The goal, then, is to assign each word a single vector such that the "gradedness in distributional representations correlates with gradedness in semantic phenomena" (Boleda 2020:228) . 17 This procedure of inferring a word's meaning by summarizing its (linguistic) context aligns with relational theories of culture-pioneered by John Mohr (Kirchner and Mohr 2010;Mohr 1998Mohr , 2000 Hinton 1986;Ignatow 2007Ignatow , 2016Landauer and Dumais 1997;Lizardo et al 2019;Osgood 1952;Strauss and Quinn 1997;Turner 2011;Zaromb et al 2006) .…”

Culture Beneath Discourse: A Conceptual Model for Analyzing Nondeclarative Cultural Knowledge

“…In the past two decades, literature on how the cognitive sciences can aid cultural analyses has grown exponentially (e.g. Cerulo 2002Cerulo , 2010DiMaggio 1997;Kaidesoja et al 2019;Lizardo et al 2020;Zerubavel 1997). This "cognitive turn" has contributed to improved conceptualizations of different types of culture (Lizardo 2017;Patterson 2014), consideration of the body's role in cultural knowledge (Ignatow 2007), attention to automatic cognitions at the subconscious level (Vaisey 2009), and new discussions about methods for studying culture (Cerulo 2014;Jerolmack and Khan 2014;Martin 2010;Pugh 2013;Summers-Effler et al 2015;Swidler 1986Swidler , 2001Vaisey 2009Vaisey , 2014.…”

“…A shared premise of the so-called "cognitive culturalists" (Pugh 2013) is that understanding cultural knowledge and the discourses and actions it leads to requires understanding the cognitive bases of cultural knowledge. Making claims about culture's coherence, consistency, composition, location, role in motivation, or other ways it "works" inevitably involves assumptions about human cognition, whether stated explicitly or assumed implicitly (Bloch 2012;DiMaggio 1997;Foster 2018;Kaidesoja et al 2019;Lizardo et al 2020;Smith et al 2020;Strauss and Quinn 1997). Thus, "we are better off if we make such models explicit than if we smuggle then in through the back door" (DiMaggio 1997, p. 282).…”

“…Thus, "we are better off if we make such models explicit than if we smuggle then in through the back door" (DiMaggio 1997, p. 282). We are also better off building on supported theories on human cognition, rather than theorizing them from scratch or working backward to them based on findings (Lizardo et al 2020;Rotolo 2020).…”

“…All of the cognitive cultural entities discussed below have distinct schematic qualities and, consequently, distinct roles in influencing thought, speech, and action. Benefitting from insights in the cognitive sciences requires further specification and coherence at the level of ontology (Kurakin 2020;Lizardo et al 2020).…”