Embodied Cognition
... Integrated Information Theory [34,35] tries to explain consciousness by assuming consciousness is a thing and measuring consciousness in terms of how much information is integrated into the whole of the given conscious experience based on what is called the essential properties of experience or Axioms such as composition, information, integration and more and that such experiences cannot be reduced. Dr. Giulio Tononi says, "The axioms are intended to capture the essential aspects of every conscious experience. ...
... Further research areas include enhancing ICOM's scalability and efficiency, developing more robust error-checking mechanisms [11], and studying the impact of simulated emotional valences on decision-making within the architecture. Integrating additional cognitive theories, such as Embodied Cognition [34] and Predictive Coding, could improve the System's cognitive capabilities. Experiments and case studies in real-world scenarios will validate ICOM's effectiveness and applicability, identifying specific domains or industries where its adaptive problem-solving capabilities can provide significant advantages. ...
This paper presents some components of the learning system within the Independent Core Observer Model (ICOM) cognitive architecture as applied to the observer side of the architecture. ICOM is uniquely designed to continuously enhance its problem-solving capabilities through a mechanism that integrates feedback from past experiences to optimize future actions, generate new actions, and extend the system functionality on the fly to perform new functions as the System determines is needed. Central to this System are problem identification, proposed solution generation, and implementing solutions through testable models of an action that directly inform new task achievements or goal settings related to those tasks. By embedding this functionality within the ICOM architecture, we enable the System to adapt and extend its functionality dynamically over time. Integrating continuous learning and adaptation with the rest of the System provides a powerful tool for self-evolving artificial intelligence systems. This approach improves the System's efficiency and effectiveness in handling diverse and unforeseen challenges.
... These correspondences, once activated, project patterns from the source domain onto the target domain. Nevertheless, the cross-domain correspondences are not arbitrary; rather, they are rooted in our physical and cultural experiences (Lakoff and Johnson 1980;Kövecses 2002;Shapiro 2010). This idea underscores the interconnectedness of the mind and body, proposing that our cognitive processes are shaped, and possibly dictated by, our interactions with the physical world. ...
Politics is a struggle for power with the aim of putting political ideas into practice. When giving a speech, politicians want to attract the attention of the public by all available means. The language which they use aims to mobilize the constituents, to persuade the undecided and to attack political opponents. It is for this reason that figurative language and figures of speech appear rather frequently in political speeches. A metaphor as a linguistic tool can be manipulated both for pragmatic and strategic reasons. Metaphors encountered in political speeches facilitate human understanding of complex concepts by explaining them via bodily experiences and the physical senses. It is for that reason that they rhetorically contribute to mental representations of political issues. This study aims to explore how politicians tend to convey their messages and ideas through the use of different types of metaphors: ontological, structural, and orientational. In order to achieve this goal, I will analyze three speeches given by Barack Obama between 2008 and 2009, and three speeches given by Donald J. Trump between 2016 and 2018 while using the model of study proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980).
... /fnhum. . and integration of motor and perceptual experiences related to the events described by linguistic symbols (Zwaan, 2004;Borghi, 2012;Shapiro, 2019). Converging empirical evidence from neuroscience and behavioral research supports the theory that language meaning is grounded in our motor-perceptual experiences of the world, thus favoring that language comprehension is embodied (e.g., Kaschak et al., 2005;Tettamanti et al., 2005;Casteel, 2011;Moreno et al., 2013;De Koning et al., 2017;Kronrod and Ackerman, 2021). ...
Introduction
Evidence from neuroscience and behavioral research has indicated that language meaning is grounded in our motor–perceptual experiences of the world. However, the question of whether motor embodiment occurs at the sentence level in L2 (second language) comprehension has been raised. Furthermore, existing studies on motor embodiment in L2 have primarily focused on the lexical and phrasal levels, often providing conflicting and indeterminate results. Therefore, to address this gap, the present eye-tracking study aimed to explore the embodied mental representations formed during the reading comprehension of L2 action sentences. Specifically, it sought to identify the types of motor representations formed during L2 action sentence comprehension and the extent to which these representations are motor embodied.
Methods
A total of 56 advanced L2 learners participated in a Sentence–Picture Verification Task, during which their response times (RTs) and eye movements were recorded. Each sentence–picture pair depicted an action that either matched or mismatched the action implied by the sentence. Data analysis focused on areas of interest around the body effectors.
Results and discussion
RTs in the mismatch condition indicated an impeding effect. Furthermore, fixations on the body effector executing an action were longer in the mismatch condition, especially in late eye-movement measures.
... Multimodal methods incorporating haptic cues align with the principles of embodied cognition, providing evidence that cognitive processes are grounded in sensorimotor experiences and interactions with the physical world (Lakoff and Johnson, 2017;Shapiro, 2019). Embodied cognition proposes that recruitment of multiple sensory modalities facilitates acquisition and representation of abstract concepts by activating relevant physical experiences via mental simulation. ...
This review discusses the effectiveness of visual and haptic cues for second language (L2) lexical tone acquisition, with a special focus on observation and production of hand gestures. It explains how these cues can facilitate initial acquisition of L2 lexical tones via multimodal depictions of pitch. In doing so, it provides recommendations for incorporation of multimodal cues into L2 lexical tone pedagogy.
... Desde esta perspectiva, aprender implica seleccionar información relevante, organizarla mentalmente en estructuras coherentes e integrarlo a estructuras de conocimiento ya existentes (Turkay et al., 2014). Algunos modelos que caen dentro de esta perspectiva son la teoría de Carga Cognitiva (Sweller et al., 1998), la teoría Cognitiva -Afectiva del Aprendizaje con los Medios (Moreno, 2005) y las teorías de Cognición Encarnada (Shapiro, 2019), las cuales estudian el aprendizaje a través del movimiento del cuerpo y su relación con el entorno, como sucede por ejemplo con dispositivos tales como la consola Nintendo Wii (Turkay et al., 2014). Las teorías de cognición encarnada consideran que el cuerpo puede ser otro canal de aprendizaje de contenido científico, aparte de la lectura, la escritura u la audición. ...
The growing popularity of mass-scale video games over the last three decades
has generated significant interest in their potential for learning in various fields,
including the natural sciences. Despite this trend, the understanding of how video
games truly contribute to learning in this context remains in its infancy. This
doctoral thesis presents the results of research focused on the learning of physics
of motion in the plane through the widely known video game, Portal.
This doctoral research aims to contribute to the understanding of the process
of learning motion in the plane mediated by the video game Portal. Following the
theoretical approach of DiSessa’s ”Knowledge in Pieces,”this thesis examines, in its first phase, the intuitive knowledge expressed by university students during their interaction with Portal. These results allowed for the design and implementation of a didactic sequence that incorporates the video game as an educational tool for the study of motion in the plane. During this second phase, students’ conceptual development is addressed within the framework of DiSessa and Wagner’s Çoordination Classes”theory. Through a qualitative analysis of interaction
records, significant advancements are observed both in conceptualization and in the representation and modeling of motion in relation to situations presented in Portal. This work aims to contribute to the field of physics education at a time
when video games and digital technologies play an unprecedented role in human development and education.
... The integration of several modalities has been proposed as an optimal strategy for perception as it can help achieve a better understanding of the world (Ernst & Bülthoff, 2004). Some embodied perspectives emphasize that perception is an active process-something that we do-which is related to sense-making and is based on previous multimodal experiences (e.g., Noë, 2004;Shapiro, 2010;Varela et al., 2016;Van Der Schyff et al., 2018). So-called motor theories of perception further propose that sound perception includes not only processing of auditory input but also an understanding of what we believe causes a sound-that is, the listener takes into account the sound's source and/or the action that produced the sound (e.g., Berthoz, 2000;Cox, 2016;Godøy, 2003Godøy, , 2010Jensenius, 2007;Laeng et al., 2021;Liberman & Mattingly, 1985). ...
This paper reports on an experiment that investigated how guitarists signal the intended timing of a rhythmic event in a groove-based context via three different features related to sound-producing motions of impulsive chord strokes (striking velocity, movement duration and fretboard position). 21 expert electric guitarists were instructed to perform a simple rhythmic pattern in three different timing styles—"laidback," "on-the-beat," and "pushed"—in tandem with a metronome. Results revealed systematic differences across participants in the striking velocity and movement duration of chords in the different timing styles. In general, laid-back strokes were played with lower striking velocity and longer movement duration relative to on-the-beat and pushed strokes. No differences in the fretboard striking position were found (either closer to the "bridge" [bottom] or to the "neck" [head]). Correlations with previously-reported audio features of the guitar strokes were also investigated, where lower velocity and longer movement duration generally corresponded with longer acoustic attack duration (signal onset to offset).
... The amount of studies included in this systematic review both reporting on amplitude and latency measures is rather limited, and thus the meta-analysis included a limited number of studies. Within the included studies, no differences were made between P3a and P3b components, making the interpretation of novelty and habituation 85 , where a motor action-here a button-press-can offload cognitive processing and thus facilitate it. On the other hand, mentally counting the deviant sounds adds a layer of attention and working memory to the task, which might make the task more cognitively difficult compared to a button press, possibly resulting in longer processing times 86 . ...
Sensorimotor synchronization strategies have been frequently used for gait rehabilitation in different neurological populations. Despite these positive effects on gait, attentional processes required to dynamically attend to the auditory stimuli needs elaboration. Here, we investigate auditory attention in neurological populations compared to healthy controls quantified by EEG recordings. Literature was systematically searched in databases PubMed and Web of Science. Inclusion criteria were investigation of auditory attention quantified by EEG recordings in neurological populations in cross-sectional studies. In total, 35 studies were included, including participants with Parkinson’s disease (PD), stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). A meta-analysis was performed on P3 amplitude and latency separately to look at the differences between neurological populations and healthy controls in terms of P3 amplitude and latency. Overall, neurological populations showed impairments in auditory processing in terms of magnitude and delay compared to healthy controls. Consideration of individual auditory processes and thereafter selecting and/or designing the auditory structure during sensorimotor synchronization paradigms in neurological physical rehabilitation is recommended.
This study investigated cognitive strategies in mental jigsaw puzzles, integrating mental rotation and translation with a focus on directionality and detour arguments. Unlike object mental rotation tasks, these puzzles introduced physical constraints, revealing systematic directional tendencies in both eye movements and subjective reports. Specifically, smaller protruding objects were consistently directed toward larger indented objects. This was accompanied by longer completion times and reduced linearity, paralleling strategies used in physical puzzle-solving. Behavioral asymmetries observed in the puzzles unexpectedly mirrored those found in object mental rotation tasks. While controlling for mental motion directions showed comparable completion times at 300° between tasks, the study did not fully clarify the role of detours, indicating the need for further research.
AI in Society provides an interdisciplinary corpus for understanding artificial intelligence (AI) as a global phenomenon that transcends geographical and disciplinary boundaries. Edited by a consortium of experts hailing from diverse academic traditions and regions, the 11 edited and curated sections provide a holistic view of AI’s societal impact. Critically, the work goes beyond the often Eurocentric or U.S.-centric perspectives that dominate the discourse, offering nuanced analyses that encompass the implications of AI for a range of regions of the world. Taken together, the sections of this work seek to move beyond the state of the art in three specific respects. First, they venture decisively beyond existing research efforts to develop a comprehensive account and framework for the rapidly growing importance of AI in virtually all sectors of society. Going beyond a mere mapping exercise, the curated sections assess opportunities, critically discuss risks, and offer solutions to the manifold challenges AI harbors in various societal contexts, from individual labor to global business, law and governance, and interpersonal relationships. Second, the work tackles specific societal and regulatory challenges triggered by the advent of AI and, more specifically, large generative AI models and foundation models, such as ChatGPT or GPT-4, which have so far received limited attention in the literature, particularly in monographs or edited volumes. Third, the novelty of the project is underscored by its decidedly interdisciplinary perspective: each section, whether covering Conflict; Culture, Art, and Knowledge Work; Relationships; or Personhood—among others—will draw on various strands of knowledge and research, crossing disciplinary boundaries and uniting perspectives most appropriate for the context at hand.
This paper proposes to consider the question “What kind of other can an AI be for a human?”, to analyse a set of ethical and societal challenges associated with a hypothetical massive deployment of “AIs as others” in society (social robots, artificial companions, chatbots with relational purposes such as friendship or romantic partnership, etc.). The proposed answer is that six features characterize “AIs as others”: serviceable, commodified, surveillant, authoritative, techno-standardized, and interiority-less. The implications of each feature are explored in depth, proposing three possible future scenarios (confusion, degradation, transformation), of which only the transformation scenario would be ethically acceptable. Through this analysis, a central thesis is developed, namely, that one of the main challenges of the transformation that “AIs as others” may catalyse is the adequate understanding of the otherness of AIs in relationship to humans. The conclusion is that for society to develop this adequate understanding, a new kind of “other” must be constructed, tailored to the characteristics of “AIs as others”. For it, a new term will be required (it is proposed “analytical other” [AO]), along with a suitable ontological status and a set of admissible roles. This socio-cultural creation of a new kind of other will require a transformation, a more mature and nuanced sense of otherness. The paper concludes by giving some recommendations to bring forth this transformation and proposing some questions and hypotheses that may inspire further research.
Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as transformative tools with the potential to revolutionize philosophical counseling. By harnessing their advanced natural language processing and reasoning capabilities, LLMs offer innovative solutions to overcome limitations inherent in traditional counseling approaches—such as counselor scarcity, difficulties in identifying mental health issues, subjective outcome assessment, and cultural adaptation challenges. In this study, we explore cutting‐edge technical strategies—including prompt engineering, fine‐tuning, and retrieval‐augmented generation—to integrate LLMs into the counseling process. Our analysis demonstrates that LLM-assisted systems can provide counselor recommendations, streamline session evaluations, broaden service accessibility, and improve cultural adaptation. We also critically examine challenges related to user trust, data privacy, and the inherent inability of current AI systems to genuinely understand or empathize. Overall, this work presents both theoretical insights and practical guidelines for the responsible development and deployment of AI-assisted philosophical counseling practices.
Transhumanism embraces the use of technology to enhance human capabilities. In keeping with traditional theories of cognition, transhumanists typically assume that mental capacities are organism-bound (or brain-bound), and enhancement is thus achieved exclusively by modifying the human organism. However, 4E cognition challenges this assumption. Instead, understanding the mind as extended or scaffolded highlights how cognitive processes recruit environmental resources to perform their tasks. Therefore, as Andy Clark argues, cognitive enhancement is no longer restricted to modifications of the biological organism but is also achieved by using cognitive tools or niches that allow brain–body–world coalitions to perform more efficient or more sophisticated cognitive functions. Hence, humans are ‘natural-born cyborgs’ who have long been using environmental resources to enhance cognitive abilities. In this article, I extend this analysis to religion. Drawing on recent work on 4E cognition in religious practices, I argue that religious practices can themselves be understood as ‘cognitive technologies’ that count as enhancements. These insights from cognitive science serve to reframe the dialog between Christian theology and transhumanism: (1) enhancements are reframed as belonging to a long history of self-modification, rather than being the sole purview of the future, (2) humans should be understood as intrinsically technological, and (3) theologians are already in the enhancement game and, conversely, transhumanists should consider religious practices.
The aim of this article is to present the concept of mythical-religious consciousness and present its ontological and epistemological significance through the meaning-giving aspect of myth and the category of the sacred as demonstrated by Ernst Cassirer and Mircea Eliade. Regardless of the significant differences in the understanding of myth and religion of both thinkers, we shall try to present the common ground, which we believe they have shared within the bounds of their antireductionist and anti-Cartesian attitudes towards the subject of myth. We shall supplement this perspective with the hermeneutical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (and others) to make this more coherent within the broader field of anthropology. In doing so, we hope to establish a synthetic perspective for such study, rather than relying on analysis and criticism alone. As such, this will be a trans-disciplinary study of literary sources on the intersections of ontology, epistemology, linguistics, psychology, sociology and religious studies, which exposes itself for a critique of oversimplification from all the disciplines listed. Finally, we shall also attempt to make this study more relevant by reference to the ongoing research in 4E cognition.
Body Percussion can be an innovative method to develop various motor and cognitive skills. Can promote inclusion in education without neglecting soft skills. This type of activity favours the inclusion of all, especially disabled pupils who, being able to work as au pairs, can feel part of a group by increasing their self-esteem, with positive effects on group dynamics.
Moreover, the point of view of neuroscience has further strengthened the integration of dualism mind-body according to the unifying perspective of corporeity; in this sense, some research evidence has in fact shown that you learn first and better through the body and movement, as well as through the experience and intentionality that guide the learning itself. The active teaching of Body Percussion is intertwined in a project that focuses on the whole person.
The present contribution aims to outline and validate a teaching like Body Percussion, a practical activity that has theoretical foundations in Embodied Cognition; this can be a creative and effective addition to education, contributing in different ways to the learning of students, which is no longer understood as the organization of organized and pre-existing data but is an active process of building knowledge that is realized both at the individual and intra-individual level.
Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Tactile Italian Sign Language (LISt) were only recently recognised by the Italian Parliament (Law no. 69, 21 May 2021). While political recognition is recent, academic recognition dates back more than twenty-five years, when LIS was recognised as a scientific discipline by the Ministerial Decree of 23 June 1997 (G.U. 27/07/1997). This enabled Italian universities to include the teaching of LIS and LISt in their programmes. In recent years, the training of professionals working in the field of deafness (interpreters, translators, teachers, and communication assistants) has gradually shifted from associations and private entities to universities. The establishment of new university courses in this area will improve the adoption of teaching methods based on established scientific research. This volume delves into the teaching of LIS and LISt at university level and outlines possible future developments in this field. The contributions share established teaching experiences and explore innovative methodologies and tools capable of promoting the development of LIS and LISt linguistic skills among university students.
Agency is action aimed at goals selected by an agent.
A deterministic world view leaves scant room for agency.
To reconcile the arguments, we represent action as nested control systems, ranging from clearly deterministic to clearly volitional.
Negative feedback minimizes deviations from setpoints (goals).
Goals are determined by higher modules in a hierarchy of
systems, ranging from gamma-efferent spindles through
reflexes to operant responses; these last, and the larger system
that contains them, called the Self, comprise volitional
agents. When operants become habitual they descend to
closed teleonomic systems—automaticity. Change in emotional
states, and unpredicted changes in the context–raise
them back to full volitional systems. At the highest level is the
Self—the brain’s model of the agent. When aroused out of
open teleonomic functioning, it must reconsider means and
ends. It does so by simulating action plans, using the same
neural systems it uses to effect them. The simulated stimuli
and responses are conscious, approximating their perceptions
as experienced in real time; this verisimilitude gives them their
hedonic value. Positive feedback plays a key role in these
complex adaptive systems, as it focuses and holds attention
on the most salient percepts and goals, permitting the self-organization of action plans. The Self is not a separate entity,
but a colloquy of command modules wearing the avatar of
the agent. This system is put into correspondence with
Grossberg’s Adaptive Resonance Theory.
Free will and determinism emerge not as binary opposites, but the modulating inputs to a spectrum of systems.
In literary prose texts there are pauses for descriptions of what can be seen, including descriptions of landscapes, rooms and other built environments, and the appearance of people. These are, what I define as, topological frames and they are systematically organised. I show that these spaces are broken up into parts which are then described in stereotyped sequences within the topological frames. These frames are not found at a pivotal point within the narrative nor are they of central importance to the narrative arc. Highly visual, they foreground the space within the description; there are often no narrative distractions such as character movement, dramatic climaxes or even dialogue in which to interrupt the representation. I argue that a unique systematic pattern of representation emerges in the topological frame for each of these types which is illustrated through examples of texts. The introduction also offers the reader an understanding of the larger scientific framework that this analysis draws on through a review of narrative spaces and ends by positioning these patterns within the larger frameworks of cognitive literary studies and neuronarratology.
Sustainability science researchers are increasingly interested in human–nature connection as a leverage point for societal transformation. Empathy has potential as a way to reconnect people to nature by building relationships among more-than-humans. However, current approaches to empathy with more-than-humans usually prefer sympathy and compassion. I argue that these approaches limit the potential of empathy when considering human–nature (re)connection. I use the established concept of social empathy (Segal 2011, 2018) to structure a new presentation of empathy with more-than-humans: ecological empathy. Ecological empathy, as presented in this paper, consists of two subcomponents: contextual understanding of more-than-human interdependencies and more-than-human awareness and earth system perspective-taking. From this new perspective, I suggest defining ecological empathy as a cognitive and affective ability, which allows for internal coherence across bodily separation in humans and their environment. Integrating literature from biophilia, deep ecology, embodied cognition and multi-species ethnography, I elaborate on ecological empathy with inspirational practices that can be advanced across a range of decision, policy and design environments to address human–nature (re)connection.
This study aimed to scrutinize the impact of drawing medium on learning. Results from three experiments demonstrated that, when acquiring actual concepts, participants in the finger drawing condition exhibited better definition retention compared to those in the pencil drawing and stylus drawing conditions. When engaging with fictitious concepts, the superiority of the finger drawing condition in definition retention persisted over the other conditions. However, the advantage of finger drawing in definition retention was attenuated due to lower prior knowledge for fictitious materials. Experiment 1 found that term source memory and learning motivation were higher for finger drawing compared to pencil drawing, but these findings were not replicated in Experiments 2 and 3. Furthermore, Experiment 3 revealed that stylus drawing resulted in superior term source memory and learning motivation compared to finger drawing. This study underscores the presence of a drawing medium effect and suggests the significance of prior knowledge.
This chapter considers the notion of environmental storytelling for VR through a close reading of three room-scale, non-fiction projects. In recent years, considerable academic criticism has been directed at 360-degree VR documentaries that have adopted the conventions of realist filmmaking, using lens-based technologies to capture live-action, or other tools to create photo-realistic environments based on the real world. Less academic work has considered abstract or expressive approaches that VR practitioners might adopt to communicate a subjective narrative experience of space and time, a gap that this chapter addresses. The concept of environmental storytelling as discussed in video games and theme park contexts (Carson, Environmental storytelling: creating immersive 3D worlds using lessons learned from the theme park industry. Gamasutra.com, Vol. 1, 2000; Jenkins, Game design as narrative architecture. Computer, 44(3), 11, 2004), is adopted as a framework to assist with this quest. The way that narrative might be enacted by the VR user, and/or how meaning might be embedded in objects in a 360-degree VR environment, is interrogated.
Commonsense knowledge is a broad and challenging area of research which investigates our understanding of the world as well as human assumptions about reality. Deriving directly from the subjective perception of the external world, it is intrinsically intertwined with embodied cognition. Commonsense reasoning is linked to human sense-making, pattern recognition and knowledge framing abilities. This work presents a new resource that formalizes the cognitive theory of image schemas. Image schemas are dynamic conceptual building blocks originating from our sensorimotor interactions with the physical world, and enable our sense-making cognitive activity to assign coherence and structure to entities, events and situations we experience everyday. ImageSchemaNet is an ontology that aligns pre-existing resources, such as FrameNet, VerbNet, WordNet and MetaNet from the Framester hub, to image schema theory. This article describes an empirical application of ImageSchemaNet, combined with semantic parsers, on the task of annotating natural language sentences with image schemas.
In this commentary upon the article “Mindfulness in Global Health: Critical Analysis and Agenda”, we articulate how scaling mindfulness technologies as multilevel public health interventions requires the framework of embodied cognition for a scientific articulation of the nuanced dynamics of mindfulness as a therapeutic technology. Embodied cognition contends that the body and bodily activity in the world are constitutive facets of mind. Mindfulness understood in terms of its embodied, enacted, extended, and embedded dimensions describes a broad set of contemplative practices that utilize the circular structure of embodiment to intervene in the complex feedback structure of the mind–body system, influencing cycles of organismic self-regulation and enactments of self-world perception. We contend that to advance the discussion, initiated by Oman, about mindfulness in public health, attention must be given to reconceiving mind–body linkages, the nature of awareness, and the vital role of non-conceptual direct experience in mindfulness interventions. This provides grounds for reconceiving mindfulness as a skillful mode of embodied social cognition and for recognizing diverse cross-cultural contemplative technologies as useful for adapting mindfulness-based interventions to specific populations needs. We also arrive at a novel model of the decentering skills fostered through mindfulness via non-conceptual attention to the processes underlying cognition. It also models mindfulness-based exposure therapy, understood not behaviorally, but through insights generated via intentionally orienting towards internal representation in order to uncover habituated patterns by which we enact both self and world perception. In this way, we may better articulate the nature of mindfulness and thus its effective application to population-scale problems.
The way organismic agents come to know the world, and the way algorithms solve problems, are fundamentally different. The most sensible course of action for an organism does not simply follow from logical rules of inference. Before it can even use such rules, the organism must tackle the problem of relevance. It must turn ill-defined problems into well-defined ones, turn semantics into syntax. This ability to realize relevance is present in all organisms, from bacteria to humans. It lies at the root of organismic agency, cognition, and consciousness, arising from the particular autopoietic, anticipatory, and adaptive organization of living beings. In this article, we show that the process of relevance realization is beyond formalization. It cannot be captured completely by algorithmic approaches. This implies that organismic agency (and hence cognition as well as consciousness) are at heart not computational in nature. Instead, we show how the process of relevance is realized by an adaptive and emergent triadic dialectic (a trialectic), which manifests as a metabolic and ecological-evolutionary co-constructive dynamic. This results in a meliorative process that enables an agent to continuously keep a grip on its arena, its reality. To be alive means to make sense of one’s world. This kind of embodied ecological rationality is a fundamental aspect of life, and a key characteristic that sets it apart from non-living matter.
Although post-cognitivist approaches have shaken the status quo by emphasising the dynamic interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment in cognition, mainstream psychological theories continue to view concepts as primarily representational or skull-bound mental phenomena. As a result, the dynamics of action and the possible impact of material culture on conceptual thinking are poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking from a material engagement perspective. We argue that conceptual thinking is not a matter of forming representations in the head but something we do—a way of engaging with materiality. Conceptual thinking is conceptual thinging, namely a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. In this sense, we propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities. To elucidate this perspective, we introduce seven principles defining conceptual thinking within an ecological-enactive framework of cognition.
Cognitive neuroscience seeks to explain mind, brain, and behavior. But how do we generate explanations? In this integrative theoretical paper, we review the commitments of the 'New Mechanist' movement within the philosophy of science, focusing specifically on the role of mechanistic models in scientific explanation. We highlight how this approach differs from other explanatory approaches within the field, showing its unique contributions to the efforts of scientific explanation. We then argue that the commitments of the Embodied Cognition framework converge with the commitments of the New Mechanist movement in a way that provides a necessary explanatory strategy available to cognitive neuroscience. We then discuss a number of consequences of this convergence, including issues related to the inadequacy of statistical prediction, neuroscientific reduction, the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience, and psychological and neuroscientific ontology. We hope that our integrative thesis provides researchers with a theoretical strategy for an embodied cognitive neuroscience.
The perception of musical rhythm includes not only the sonic rhythm but also the endogenous reference structures, such as meter . Musical meter is often described and understood as points in time or durations between such points. In this chapter, I argue that musical meter also has a shape . I propose that we perceive and make sense of musical meter based on our previous musical experiences involving meter-related bodily motion. In other words, the meter-related motion is integral to the perceived meter—they are the same. Meter thus has a shape that relates to the embodied sensations of these movements. Also crucial is the notion that musical meter is conditioned by musical culture. This perspective on meter as shape is highly influenced by Godøy’s motor-mimetic perspective on music perception and musical shape cognition and concurs with the multimodal approach to sonic design that acknowledges motion as intrinsic to music performance and perception.
Through a close study of T. Yunkaporta's 2019’s Sand Talk, this article explores fractal thinking and the pattern of creation in Indigenous cosmology; the role of custodianship in respectful interaction between living systems; alternative Indigenous understandings of nonlinearity, time, and transience; the process-panpsychism and animism present in Indigenous perceptions of cosmos as living Country, illustrated in the Dreaming and Turnaround creation event; the role of embodied cognition and haptic and situated knowledge in Indigenous science; Indigenous holistic reasoning and the mind-body connection; the process-relational metaphysic embedded in ritual and yarning practice; the knowledge encoded in place-based totemic mythology, lore, and ritual; and Indigenous understandings of complex systems as adaptive, self-organizing, and patterned. This article does not offer a process reading of Indigenous thought but rather demonstrates the significant contribution to process metaphysics that may be provided by an Aboriginal Australian perspective. Yunkaporta's text carves out a language of resistance to the McDonaldization of Indigenous research. While historic scholarly engagement with Aboriginal culture has overemphasized content, Yunkaporta demonstrates how this has occurred to the exclusion of the processes of Indigenous knowledge transmission and creation. Yet a process view requires engagement with the how, not only with the what. Such knowledge transmission is discerned in daily lived relationships among land, spirit, and people—binding epistemology to participation in a specific landscape embedded within a living culture. Place-making for Indigenous knowledges requires exploring how Indigenous ways of valuing, knowing, and being, shaped by cultural activities on Country, offer new understandings for Western metaphysics.
The article is motivated by today’s practical realities and theoretical transformations that have affected education on a major scale. The shift from in-person to online classrooms at the beginning of the pandemic brought forward a series of issues related to embodied conditioning for creative strategies in the learning process. After presenting the shortcomings of the disembodied approach to education, we emphasize the role of the embodied (somatic, motoric, affective) aspects of education and discuss the embodied skills of creativity in a variety of learning environments. While so called embodied creativity became a fast-developing field due to mostly quantitative experiments in teaching-learning environments, it still lacks some conceptual clarification, especially in relation to its genesis in the paradigm of embodied cognition. Hence the main goal of this conceptual article is to extend, through the method of theory adaptation, the existing body of research on embodied cognition in academic environments to show how the embodied teaching and learning paradigm presents embodied creativity methods as an alternative to the disembodied approach to education and how technological environments provide an opportunity for such purposes.
In this paper, we explore the dance as a practice and “Other” space, a counterhegemonic space which is affected by the existing social ordering, or existing power of traumatic discourse which is some kind of imposed discourse, while simultaneously resisting it. To explore these premises we will use Michel Foucault`s concept of heterotopia and apply it on the analysis of the dance as an artistic practice and possibilities to understand dance as a heterotopia in which dominant hegemonic discourses are reversed, and as a counterhegemonic space, as authors Christofidou and Milioni, emphases, that has a potential to disrupt and deconstruct hegemonic discourses of the past traumatic experiences or events. We argue that in order to be able to heal the traumas that are engraved in the body, and to understand the body as an expression and a canvas on which a crisis is outlined, we need bodily memories and stories, both those of survival, trauma and wounds, and those of healing. We demonstrate how dance may provide a counterhegemonic space, enable the reconstruction of the place of traumatic events, that are imprinted in body, into places of communication and reconstruction of the meaning, and how can dance invite individual to reflect on their identity and connect their fragmented self. Here we emphasize the meaning of movement – dance that opens the statics of the body to kinesthetic empathy, which in turn allows us to enter the spaces of unspoken body stories. The ethics of touch, proximity, and the ethics of the space between two bodies and what in these spaces "between" means to be, to be in that "not yet" (about-to-be) lead us in this direction. We assert that our bodies are both self-constituted as well as shaped by the collective, the society and history (personal or collective), and that we know by acting, primarily through the body, in synergy with the mind and the environment (enactive approach).
Although the process of education and learning is traditionally related to reason and its abilities, aesthetics has long played with the idea of emancipation of sensitivity and its enhancement through the aesthetic experience of the arts. In this paper, I will address one particular example of art experience being able to indicate an emancipatory process of learning—the case of dance. According to S. H. Fraleigh, the process of learning how to dance, with its disciplining of the body, is a testimony to the neglect and violence towards our bodily lived experience. On the other hand, the experience gained through dancing is exactly the opposite—the experience which reveals not only aesthetic phenomena per se, but also our very bodily nature. Fraleigh’s phenomenological aesthetics of dance also implies that such an emancipatory effect of the aesthetic experience of dance will be transmitted to the audience as well, that it is not restricted to the artists—dancers—only. The focus of my analysis will be exactly this receptive aesthetic experience of dance and its formative, educational, and emancipatory potentials. I will show that the kinaesthetic nature of the phenomenon of dance, according to the positions of phenomenological aestheticians, can in fact open up a particular possibility of questioning the idea of education in traditional terms. More precisely, I will argue that the phenomenological analysis of the dance phenomenon demands not only the questioning of traditional approaches to body, mind-body relationship, and finally the character of our very basic experience, which determines all our ideas and concepts, but that it also implies a change in the pre-reflective dimension of consciousness, which can be actualized exactly through the aesthetic experience of art. The fact that we are pre-reflectively aware of the relation between ourselves and the Other exactly through our bodily nature can bring forth different perspectives on education and, perhaps, help us to understand it better. In order to develop my argument, I will focus on the critique of the primacy of vision, in favour of the primacy of movement, as presented in the works of S. H. Fraleigh and M. Sheets-Johnstone.
Background
This paper examines cognitive and body-based therapies through the lens of embodiment, framing treatments as constructed experiences shaped by individuals' subjective and intersubjective lived experiences. Embodiment is considered to have restorative qualities that have the potential to improve psychotherapy’s success. We address some of the limitations associated with traditional brain-based reductionist approaches and treatments in clinical psychotherapy. An argument is made for the integration of an embodied approach, empowering clinicians and researchers to evaluate and integrate embodied therapeutic processes leading to successful treatment outcomes.
Methods
This integrative review provides evidence-based practice initiatives and findings from a range of embodied research as it applies to body-based techniques in psychotherapy. It gathers and synthesizes both empirical and theoretical evidence relevant to impact the overall success of psychotherapeutic interventions. Data collection involved keyword searches of electronic databases, including PsycINFO, NCBI, PubMED, Frontiers, MEDLINE, EBM Reviews, and Google Scholar.
Results
We present an array of cognitive and body-based methodologies that can be employed to enhance embodied and enactive therapeutic practices, offering a fresh and promising perspective on psychotherapy. Analyses provide insights into current body-based therapeutic applications, highlighting how a deeper understanding of recent advances in neuroscience can enrich both therapists’ and clients’ meta-awareness of mind–body-environment connections on mental health.
Conclusions
We conclude that psychotherapy can benefit from the transformative process that occurs when individuals gain insights, skills, and self-awareness through embodied therapeutic experiences. In the context of embodied psychotherapy, learning to self-heal extends beyond the acquisition of information; it involves a deeper understanding of the connection between one’s body, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and the interconnectedness of these elements within the environment/context. Through this process, along with the therapist, clients acquire valuable insights into the root causes of challenges, develop coping strategies, and enhance emotional regulation. The learning extends to practical skills for managing stress, improving communication, and fostering healthier relationships. Embodiment in psychotherapy encourages a form of experiential learning, where individuals actively engage with and reflect upon their internal and external world.
Recent work has argued for a Hayekian behavioural economics, which combines Austrian economics with behavioural economics as developed by Kahneman, Thaler, Sunstein, and others. We suggest that this hybrid is misguided because it relies on individual cognitivism. This view of cognition is incompatible with the Hayekian view of cognition which treats rationality as an emergent phenomenon of social interaction in an institutional environment. This Hayekian view, which we call epistemic institutionalism, is compatible with an alternative prominent perspective in psychology, that of the extended mind, sometimes known as 4E cognition. We demonstrate how the Hayekian perspective on individualism, the price system, and the evolution of rules can be connected to the extended mind programme, through concepts such as the coupling of the individual and their environment, cognitive off-loading, and affordances. We suggest that this alternative combination of Austrian economics and psychology provides a more fruitful way forward, especially because it foregrounds the processes of learning, error-correction, and institutional orders, rather than choice, bias, and individual rationality. To explain why Austrian economists have been receptive to behavioural economics, we distinguish epistemic institutionalism from the (radical) subjectivist approach, which shares key assumptions of individual cognitivism.
Background
Empirical evidence has shown that virtual reality (VR) scenarios can increase the effects of relaxation techniques, reducing anxiety by enabling people to experience emotional conditions in more vivid settings.
Objective
This pilot randomized controlled study aims to investigate whether the progressive muscle relaxation technique (PMRT) associated with a personalized scenario in VR promotes psychological well-being and facilitates the recall of relaxing images more than the standard complementary intervention that involves the integration of PMRT and guided imagery (GI).
Methods
On the basis of a longitudinal, between-subject design, 72 university students were randomly exposed to one of two experimental conditions: (1) standard complementary procedure (PMRT and GI exposure) and (2) experimental procedure (PMRT and personalized VR exposure). Individuals were assessed by a therapist before and after 7 training sessions based on measures investigating anxiety, depression, quality of life, coping strategies, sense of presence, engagement, and side effects related to VR exposure. Heart rate data were also collected.
Results
Differences in changes between the 2 groups after the in vivo PMRT session conducted by the psychotherapist (T1) were statistically significant for state anxiety (F1,67=30.56; P<.001) and heart rate (F1,67=4.87; P=.01). Individuals in the VR group obtained lower scores both before (t67=−2.63; P=.01; Cohen d=0.91) and after (t67=−7.23; P<.001; Cohen d=2.45) the relaxation session when it was self-administered by participants (T2). A significant reduction in perceived state anxiety at T1 and T2 was observed for both groups (P<.001). After the VR experience, individuals reported feeling higher engagement in the experience than what was mentioned by participants in the GI group (F1,67=2.85; P=.03; ηp2=0.15), and they experienced the environment as more realistic (F1,67=4.38; P=.003; ηp2=0.21). No differences between groups regarding sense of presence were found (F1,67=1.99; P=.11; ηp2=0.11). Individuals exposed before to the VR scenario (T1) referred to perceiving the scenario recalled in-imagination at T2 as more realistic than what those in the GI group experienced (F1,67=3.21; P=.02; ηp2=0.12). The VR group had lower trait anxiety levels than the GI group after the relaxation session during session 7 (T2; t67=−2.43; P=.02).
Conclusions
Personalized relaxing VR scenarios can contribute to improving relaxation and decreasing anxiety when integrated with PMRT as a complementary relaxation method.
Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05478941; https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05478941
International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)
RR2-10.2196/44183
The paper examines the coverage of the European migrant crisis in the French press. Instead of addressing the almost prototypical metaphors related to migratory movements (the associations with disastrous natural events, invasions, or obstacles) the main focus is on the use of framing effects, caused or intensified by adjective and
verb clusters. Adjectives focusing on the quantity and quality of a crisis or evoking
national affiliations are suitable means of presenting the reporting in a certain light
and amplifying existing frames, such as the [conflict], [economic consequences],
[human interest], [responsibility] or [morality] frame. Especially sensorimotor-based
verbs, which activate brain areas that are necessary to potentially perform actions
related to the stimulus, are powerful means of influencing the public opinion as
the content reverberates even after we have read a newspaper article. In our
study we will analyze the subjectivity level of the media coverage with the help of
[scalar], [agens focused]/[patiens focused], [identifying] & [neutral] adjectives and
[haptic] & [motoric] verb groups in passages that refer to the role of Europe as a
multinational [house], geographical [space] or a political [actor1] dealing with the
migrant crisis [actor2] in two French newspapers, Le Figaro and Le Monde. Our
goal is to discover the changing implicit calls upon the EU regarding the “crisis”
evoked by the two French newspapers in 2015 and 2018.
Enactive görüş, klasik zihin anlayışına karşı alternatif bir zihin görüşü ortaya koymayı hedeflemektedir. Buna göre insanın bilişsel nitelikleri ne tamamen indirgemeci bir şekilde somut ilişkilerle ne de sadece nesnesinden bağımsız soyut bir süreç olarak açıklanabilir. Aksine bilişsellik bedenli bir öznenin somut olarak içinde bulunduğu dünyada nesnelerle kurduğu yönelimsel ilişkiler olarak anlaşılmalıdır. Bu hedef doğrultusunda Merleau-Ponty’nin fenomenolojik analizlerini ve bedene yönelik düşüncelerini kendilerine rehber edinirler. Ancak söz konusu çalışma iki açıdan yetersiz kalmaktadır. İlki enactive görüşün yararlandığı bilimsel veriler nedeniyle fenomenolojinin doğalcılık eleştirilerine muhatap olacak bir doğal tavır içerisine girmesidir. İkincisi ise alternatif bir yol arayışı için rehberlik edinen Merleau-Ponty analizlerinin mevcut haliyle söz konusu hedefi geliştirmede yetersiz kalmasıdır. Bu nedenle TEM’in enactive görüşün bedenlenmiş bilinç yaklaşımını gerçek bir alternatif çözüm olarak sunması için söz konusu eleştirileri aşması gerekmektedir.
This chapter briefly introduces the history of cognitive studies and several contemporary models of cognition, with an emphasis on philosophical views. It offers a primer on debates about cognition, including Global Workspace Theory (Baars, Raichle, Buckner, Andrews, Schacter, Hassabis et al.), theories of memory systems (Tulving, Conway, Piolino et al.), the default mode network, predictive processing (Friston, Metzinger and Wiese, Hohwy, Anderson), and embodied cognition (Bruineberg, Clark, Maiese, O’Donovan-Andersen, Shapiro, Thompson, Zahavi, Eilan). These models are considered in more detail in subsequent chapters. Here they are introduced and connected to the ideas about narrative articulated in the first half of the book.
The new approach in cognitive science largely known as “4E cognition” (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended cognition), which sheds new light on the complex dynamics of human consciousness, seems to revive some of Aristotle's views. For instance, the concept of “nature” ( phusis ) and the discussion on “active intellect” ( nous poiêtikos ) may be particularly relevant in this respect. Out of the various definitions of “nature” in Aristotle's Physics, On the Parts of Animals and Second Analytics , I will concentrate on nature defined as an inner impulse to movement, neither entirely “corporeal,” nor entirely “incorporeal,” and neither entirely “substantial,” nor entirely “accidental.” Related to that, I will consider the distinction in On the Soul between the “active” and the “passive” intellect, which Aristotle asserted as generally present in “nature” itself. By offering a conceptual and historical analysis of these views, I intend to show how the mind–body problem, which is essential for the explanation of consciousness, could be somewhat either eluded or transcended by both ancients and contemporaries on the basis of a subtle account of causation. While not attempting to diminish the impact of the Cartesian paradigm, which led to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness,” I suggest that the most recent neuroscience discoveries on the neurophysiological phenomena related to human consciousness could be better explained and understood if interpreted within a 4E cognition paradigm, inspired by some Aristotelian views.
Mobile, ubiquitous, and immersive computing appear poised to transform visualization, data science, and data-driven decision making.
The Computational Theory of Mind says that the mind is a computing system. It has a long history going back to the idea that thought is a kind of computation. Its modern incarnation relies on analogies with contemporary computing technology and the use of computational models. It comes in many versions, some more plausible than others. This Element supports the theory primarily by its contribution to solving the mind-body problem, its ability to explain mental phenomena, and the success of computational modelling and artificial intelligence. To be turned into an adequate theory, it needs to be made compatible with the tractability of cognition, the situatedness and dynamical aspects of the mind, the way the brain works, intentionality, and consciousness.
Background: The context of this research is reading literacy instruction in Foundation Phase classrooms in South Africa. Although large-scale studies have researched learner performance, little is known of the nuances of teachers’ practice, particularly in the non-verbal realm. This research seeks to address that gap.Aim: This research investigated teachers’ gestural and postural enactments during reading literacy instruction in the Foundation Phase. It identified and described these enactments to understand their function.Setting: The research sites comprised three Grade One classrooms in suburban government schools. The research focused on the Foundation Phase speech event ‘Reading on the Mat’, a variation of Group Guided Reading.Methods: This article presents a strand of a linguistic micro-ethnography. An analysis of the forms and styles of communication showed the salience of gestures and postures in teachers’ practices. The research used an established framework to analyse non-verbal communication and also generated a framework to analyse postural communication.Results: These teachers deployed gestures and postures to enact their instruction. Learners embodied their learning by copying gestures and using them in recall. Postures were used to provide signals to learners and visitors related to the function of activities on the Mat.Conclusion: The article concluded that gestures and postures can be deliberately employed in the service of literacy teaching in the Foundation Phase. Their analysis can also reveal the function of enactment practices to researchers.Contribution: This article adds to the understandings of embodied practices. It presents original categories that may be useful in similar research into teachers’ practices.
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