人文地理学的“神经转向”研究进展及启示

“神经转向”是在后现代语境下提出的,运用神经机制诠释人的心智与空间的关系,超越“社会文化”与“生物神经”的边界,强调情感、身体、“非理性”等的主体特征,为人文地理学研究提供了新的认识论和方法论。同时,人文地理学研究的“空间传统”有益于对批判神经科学关于“心智—大脑—环境”的理解产生知识溢出,实现学科交叉的良性循环。论文梳理了国内外涉及神经科学理论与方法的人文地理学研究,基于具身认知和非表征理论分析人文地理学中“神经转向”研究的理论基础,并围绕空间感知、情感认知、行为实践等主题进行介绍。另外,神经科学技术手段为人文地理学研究提供了新的方法,大脑成像、眼动追踪技术已经在地理学科中得到应用,呈现可期的未来愿景。最后,论文提出“神经转向”对中国人文地理学研究的理论创新和实践路径的启示。

Research progress and implication of the “neural turn” in human geography

Neuroscience is the science of the 21st century. The theoretical research results of neuroscience are affecting daily life, environment, space, context, and place profoundly. It provides a new way of thinking and method to explain human's mind and behavior. In the context of post-modernism, the understanding of self-consciousness in human geography has become fragmented. Non-presentation theory and embodied cognitive geography claim that in most of the time, people are "unconscious". Subject self-consciousness is irrational, which takes place in the "outflows" daily life world. It emphasizes the showing, performance, and practice of the body. The meaning of the real world should be obtained through embodied cognition and behavior. They found evidence from neuroscience that led to a "neural turn" in geography. The "neural turn" devotes to linking human's mind and behavioral traits to biological evidence. It is different from inter-disciplinary debates that are breaking down the disciplinary boundaries between social culture and natural sciences. The laboratory methods cannot reflect the real world, and the social science methods are difficult to get rid of subjective factors. The "neural turn" can provide a research perspective of combining the-first-person and the-third-person for human geography. This article reviewed the recent studies on the "neural turn" in Western human geography. "Neural turn" research mainly concentrated in three aspects: space perception, embodied affect, and behavior practice. It has involved economic, political, social, cultural, public policy, tourism, and education topics. The application of neuroscience in human geography can also be applied to multiple scales of space such as country, city, community, and body. Neuroscience perspective as a new path is used in urban planning, environmental design, tourism development, and public policy, among others. At the same time, the technical tools of neuroscience have become new data collection methods in human geography. Neural technology can capture imperceptible physiological changes in the human body in order to detect neural activity caused by mind and behavior in a particular environment and context. The collection of physiological data can surmount the representation of text and symbols to discover non-representational results. Brain images and eye tracking technologies have been applied in geography, presenting predictable visions for the future. At present, Chinese human geography pays little attention to neuroscience. This article is hoped to provide some reference and enlightenment for the study of Chinese human geography. The dialogue between neuroscience and human geography is still in its infancy and needs more empirical research. In this process, human geography can carry out more cooperative research to produce more knowledge spillover. At the same time, these studies need to explore the topic of Chinese localization in order to better realize the people-oriented approach in the research and application of Chinese human geography.