A Theory of Resonance: Towards an Ecological Cognitive Architecture

The motifs of radical embodied neuroscience

In this paper, I analyse how the emerging scientific framework of radical embodied neuroscience is different from contemporary mainstream cognitive neuroscience. To do so, I propose the notion of motif to enrich the philosophical toolkit of cognitive neuroscience. This notion can be used to characterize the guiding ideas of any given scientific framework in psychology and neuroscience. Motifs are highly unconstrained, open-ended concepts that support equally open-ended families of explanations. Different scientific frameworks-e.g., psychophysics or cognitive neuroscience-provide these motifs to answer the overarching themes of these disciplines, such as the relationship between stimuli and sensations or the proper methods of the sciences of the mind. Some motifs of mainstream cognitive neuroscience are the motif of encoding, the motif of input-output systems, and the motif of algorithms. The two first ones answer the question about the relationship between stimuli, sensations and experience (e.g., stimuli are input and are encoded by brain structures). The latter one answers the question regarding the mechanism of cognition and experience. The three of them are equally unconstrained and open-ended, and they serve as an umbrella for different kinds of explanation-i.e., different positions regarding what counts as a code or as an input. Along with the articulation of the notion of motif, the main aim of this article is to present three motifs for radical embodied neuroscience: the motif of complex stimulation, the motif of organic behaviour and the motif of resonance.

A potential mechanism for Gibsonian resonance: behavioral entrainment emerges from local homeostasis in an unsupervised reservoir network

While the cognitivist school of thought holds that the mind is analogous to a computer, performing logical operations over internal representations, the tradition of ecological psychology contends that organisms can directly "resonate" to information for action and perception without the need for a representational intermediary. The concept of resonance has played an important role in ecological psychology, but it remains a metaphor. Supplying a mechanistic account of resonance requires a non-representational account of central nervous system (CNS) dynamics. Towards this, we present a series of simple models in which a reservoir network with homeostatic nodes is used to control a simple agent embedded in an environment. This network spontaneously produces behaviors that are adaptive in each context, including (1) visually tracking a moving object, (2) substantially above-chance performance in the arcade game Pong, (2) and avoiding walls while controlling a mobile agent. Upon analyzing the dynamics of the networks, we find that behavioral stability can be maintained without the formation of stable or recurring patterns of network activity that could be identified as neural representations. These results may represent a useful step towards a mechanistic grounding of resonance and a view of the CNS that is compatible with ecological psychology.

Invariant representations in abstract concept grounding - the physical world in grounded cognition

Grounded cognition states that mental representations of concepts consist of experiential aspects. For example, the concept "cup" consists of the sensorimotor experiences from interactions with cups. Typical modalities in which concepts are grounded are: The sensorimotor system (including interoception), emotion, action, language, and social aspects. Here, we argue that this list should be expanded to include physical invariants (unchanging features of physical motion; e.g., gravity, momentum, friction). Research on physical reasoning consistently demonstrates that physical invariants are represented as fundamentally as other grounding substrates, and therefore should qualify. We assess several theories of concept representation (simulation, conceptual metaphor, conceptual spaces, predictive processing) and their positions on physical invariants. We find that the classic grounded cognition theories, simulation and conceptual metaphor theory, have not considered physical invariants, while conceptual spaces and predictive processing have. We conclude that physical invariants should be included into grounded cognition theories, and that the core mechanisms of simulation and conceptual metaphor theory are well suited to do this. Furthermore, conceptual spaces and predictive processing are very promising and should also be integrated with grounded cognition in the future.

An Ecological Approach to Conceptual Thinking in Material Engagement

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.

Associations of physical activity dose and movement quality with executive functions in socioeconomically disadvantaged children aged 5-6 years

BACKGROUND

Growing up in areas of high deprivation can negatively impact children's movement behaviours and cognitive development. Enhancing the quantity and quality of children's movement experiences is believed to enhance cognitive development. This study investigated the association of three different modes of movement assessment, movement proficiency and divergent movement ability (collectively understood as motor competence) and PA dose with executive function in a low socio-economic demographic. Demographics, motor competence, and a combination of motor competence and physical activity were hypothesized to be significantly predictor of executive functions.

METHOD

In this cross-sectional study, 360 children aged 5-6 years from deprived areas were assessed using three movement assessments: wrist-worn accelerometery for physical activity dose, Test of Gross Motor Development-3 for movement proficiency, and divergent movement assessment. Executive function, including inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, was measured using the NIH Toolbox on an iPad. Multiple linear regression models were designed to evaluate the independent and combined association of demographics, movement competence and physical activity variables with executive function.

RESULTS

The regression analysis, with demographic factors only, explained 12% of EF variance (r2 = 0.12 95%CI 0.06-0.18). In addition to this demographics the model with divergent movement explained 19% of EF variance (r2 = 0.19 95% CI = 0.12-0.28), the model with movement proficiency explained 16% of EF variance (r2 = 0.16 95% CI = 0.08-0.26) and the model with PA dose explained 13% of EF variance (r2 = 0.13 95% CI = 0.07-0.20). In these models both divergent movement and proficiency were significant predictors, whilst physical activity variables were not. The final models, combining motor competence and physical activity variables, explained 24% and 23% of EF variance (r2 = 0.24 CI = 0.14-0.33 and r2 = 0.23 CI = 0.14-0.32). In these models, motor competence variables were significant predictors, and only vigorous physical activity and Euclidean Norm Minus One emerged as significant PA dose predictors.

DISCUSSION

These findings emphasise that motor competence and physical activity variables better predict executive functions when they are combined. When considered individually both motor competence variables were significant predictors of executive function whilst physical activity variables were not. Importantly, among the two movement competence facets, divergent movement assessment exhibited the strongest association with executive function. Future interventions should consider how to facilitate both movement and cognitive development in children. Future interventions should consider both the interplay of movement quality and quantity and the importance of environments that invite children's exploratory movement behavior.

On natural attunement: Shared rhythms between the brain and the environment

Rhythms exist both in the embodied brain and the built environment. Becoming attuned to the rhythms of the environment, such as repetitive columns, can greatly affect perception. Here, we explore how the built environment affects human cognition and behavior through the concept of natural attunement, often resulting from the coordination of a person's sensory and motor systems with the rhythmic elements of the environment. We argue that the built environment should not be reduced to mere states, representations, and single variables but instead be considered a bundle of highly related continuous signals with which we can resonate. Resonance and entrainment are dynamic processes observed when intrinsic frequencies of the oscillatory brain are influenced by the oscillations of an external signal. This allows visual rhythmic stimulations of the environment to affect the brain and body through neural entrainment, cross-frequency coupling, and phase resetting. We review how real-world architectural settings can affect neural dynamics, cognitive processes, and behavior in people, suggesting the crucial role of everyday rhythms in the brain-body-environment relationship.

Abduction and Deduction in Dynamical Cognitive Science

This paper reviews the recent history of a subset of research in dynamical cognitive science, in particular that subset that allies itself with the sciences of complexity and casts cognitive systems as interaction dominant, noncomputational, and nonmodular. I look at this history in the light of C.S. Peirce's understanding of scientific reasoning as progressing from abduction to deduction to induction. In particular, I examine the development of a controversy concerning the use of the interaction dominance of human cognitive systems as an explanation of the ubiquitous 1/f noise, multifractality, and complexity matching in human behavior.

Cognitive modeling, ecological psychology, and musical improvisation

Understanding novelty and improvisation in music requires gathering insight from a variety of disciplines. One fruitful path for synthesizing these insights is via modeling. As such, my aim in this paper is to start building a bridge between traditional cognitive models and contemporary embodied and ecological approaches to cognitive science. To achieve this task, I offer a perspective on a model that would combine elements of ecological psychology (especially affordances) and the Learning Intelligent Decision Agent (LIDA) cognitive architecture. Jeff Pressing's cognitive model of musical improvisation will also be a central link between these elements. While some overlap between these three areas already exists, there are several points of tension between them, notably concerning the nature of perception and the function of artificial general intelligence modeling. I thus aim to alleviate the most worrisome concerns here, introduce several future research questions, and conclude with several points on how my account is part of a general theory, rather than merely a redescription of existent work.

Why art? The role of arts in arts and health

This article is an answer to a report called "What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?" The authors conclude that the arts have an impact on mental and physical health. Yet, the question of the role of the arts remains unanswered. What is and what is not an art effect? Recently, embodied theory has inspired articles on the perception of art. These articles have not yet received attention in the field of Arts and Health. Scholars in psychosomatic medicine have argued for an approach based on recent work in enactive embodied theory to investigate the connection between the body and the mind. The present article examines how key concepts in this theory relate to art. This leads to a discussion of art in terms of empathy-the relation between the internal state of the artist and the internal state of the beholder. I exemplify with a conceptual framework of musical empathy. Implications for health are addressed.

Neural Aspects of Prospective Control through Resonating Taus in an Interceptive Timing Task

High-density electroencephalography from visual and motor cortices in addition to kinematic hand and target movement recordings were used to investigate τ-coupling between brain activity patterns and physical movements in an interceptive timing task. Twelve adult participants were presented with a target car moving towards a destination at three constant accelerations, and an effector dot was available to intercept the car at the destination with a swift movement of the finger. A τ-coupling analysis was used to investigate involvement of perception and action variables at both the ecological scale of behavior and neural scale. By introducing the concept of resonance, the underlying dynamics of interceptive actions were investigated. A variety of one- and two-scale τ-coupling analyses showed significant differences in distinguishing between slow, medium, and fast target speed when car motion and finger movement, VEP and MRP brain activity, VEP and car motion, and MRP and finger movement were involved. These results suggested that the temporal structure present at the ecological scale is reflected at the neural scale. The results further showed a strong effect of target speed, indicating that τ-coupling constants k and k_res increased with higher speeds of the moving target. It was concluded that τ-coupling can be considered a valuable tool when combining different types of variables at both the ecological and neural levels of analysis.

Consciousness and cognition in plants

Unlike animal behavior, behavior in plants is traditionally assumed to be completely determined either genetically or environmentally. Under this assumption, plants are usually considered to be noncognitive organisms. This view nonetheless clashes with a growing body of empirical research that shows that many sophisticated cognitive capabilities traditionally assumed to be exclusive to animals are exhibited by plants too. Yet, if plants can be considered cognitive, even in a minimal sense, can they also be considered conscious? Some authors defend that the quest for plant consciousness is worth pursuing, under the premise that sentience can play a role in facilitating plant's sophisticated behavior. The goal of this article is not to provide a positive argument for plant cognition and consciousness, but to invite a constructive, empirically informed debate about it. After reviewing the empirical literature concerning plant cognition, we introduce the reader to the emerging field of plant neurobiology. Research on plant electrical and chemical signaling can help shed light into the biological bases for plant sentience. To conclude, we shall present a series of approaches to scientifically investigate plant consciousness. In sum, we invite the reader to consider the idea that if consciousness boils down to some form of biological adaptation, we should not exclude a priori the possibility that plants have evolved their own phenomenal experience of the world. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Philosophy > Consciousness Neuroscience > Cognition.

Placebo From an Enactive Perspective

Due to their complexity and variability, placebo effects remain controversial. We suggest this is also due to a set of problematic assumptions (dualism, reductionism, individualism, passivity). We critically assess current explanations and empirical evidence and propose an alternative theoretical framework-the enactive approach to life and mind-based on recent developments in embodied cognitive science. We review core enactive concepts such as autonomy, agency, and sense-making. Following these ideas, we propose a move from binary distinctions (e.g., conscious vs. non-conscious) to the more workable categories of reflective and pre-reflective activity. We introduce an ontology of individuation, following the work of Gilbert Simondon, that allow us to see placebo interventions not as originating causal chains, but as modulators and triggers in the regulation of tensions between ongoing embodied and interpersonal processes. We describe these interrelated processes involving looping effects through three intertwined dimensions of embodiment: organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective. Finally, we defend the need to investigate therapeutic interactions in terms of participatory sense-making, going beyond the identification of individual social traits (e.g., empathy, trust) that contribute to placebo effects. We discuss resonances and differences between the enactive proposal, popular explanations such as expectations and conditioning, and other approaches based on meaning responses and phenomenological/ecological ideas.

Plant Bioinspired Ecological Robotics

Plants are movers, but the nature of their movement differs dramatically from that of creatures that move their whole body from point A to point B. Plants grow to where they are going. Bio-inspired robotics sometimes emulates plants' growth-based movement; but growing is part of a broader system of movement guidance and control. We argue that ecological psychology's conception of "information" and "control" can simultaneously make sense of what it means for a plant to navigate its environment and provide a control scheme for the design of ecological plant-inspired robotics. In this effort, we will outline several control laws and give special consideration to the class of control laws identified by tau theory, such as time to contact.

Between Ecological Psychology and Enactivism: Is There Resonance?

Ecological psychologists and enactivists agree that the best explanation for a large share of cognition is non-representational in kind. In both ecological psychology and enactivist philosophy, then, the task is to offer an explanans that does not rely on representations. Different theorists within these camps have contrasting notions of what the best kind of non-representational explanation will look like, yet they agree on one central point: instead of focusing solely on factors interior to an agent, an important aspect of cognition is found in the link or coupling between an agent and the external world. This link is fluid, dynamic, and active in a variety of ways, and we do not need to add any internal extra something in the perception-action-cognition process. At the same time, even devout defenders of ecological psychology and enactivism recognize that plenty happens inside an agent during cognition. In particular, no one denies that the brain plays an important role. What, then, is the role of the brain if it's not in the game of representing the environment? One possible option is to describe the brain as a resonant organ instead of a representational organ. In this paper we consider the history of resonance in more detail. Particular focus will be placed on two different sets of approaches that have developed the concept of resonance: a representational reading of resonance and a non-representational, dynamic account of resonance. We then apply these accounts to a case study on music performance, specifically in the context of standard tonal jazz. From this application, we propose that a non-representational resonance account consistent with both enactivism and ecological psychology is a viable way of explaining jazz performance. We conclude with future considerations on research regarding the brain as a resonant organ.

Cultural evolutionary psychology is still evolutionary psychology

The cognitive gadgets theory proposes to reform evolutionary psychology by replacing the standard nativist and internalist approach to modularity with a cultural constructivist one. However, the resulting "cultural evolutionary psychology" still maintains some controversial aspects of the original neo-Darwinian paradigm. These assumptions are unnecessary to the cognitive gadgets theory and can be eliminated without significant conceptual loss.

The History and Philosophy of Ecological Psychology

Ecological Psychology is an embodied, situated, and non-representational approach pioneered by J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson. This theory aims to offer a third way beyond cognitivism and behaviorism for understanding cognition. The theory started with the rejection of the premise of the poverty of the stimulus, the physicalist conception of the stimulus, and the passive character of the perceiver of mainstream theories of perception. On the contrary, the main principles of ecological psychology are the continuity of perception and action, the organism-environment system as unit of analysis, the study of affordances as the objects of perception, combined with an emphasis on perceptual learning and development. In this paper, first, we analyze the philosophical and psychological influences of ecological psychology: pragmatism, behaviorism, phenomenology, and Gestalt psychology. Second, we summarize the main concepts of the approach and their historical development following the academic biographies of the proponents. Finally, we highlight the most significant developments of this psychological tradition. We conclude that ecological psychology is one of the most innovative approaches in the psychological field, as it is reflected in its current influence in the contemporary embodied and situated cognitive sciences, where the notion of affordance and the work of E. J. Gibson and J. J. Gibson is considered as a historical antecedent.

The Active Inference Approach to Ecological Perception: General Information Dynamics for Natural and Artificial Embodied Cognition

The emerging neurocomputational vision of humans as embodied, ecologically embedded, social agents—who shape and are shaped by their environment—offers a golden opportunity to revisit and revise ideas about the physical and information-theoretic underpinnings of life, mind, and consciousness itself. In particular, the active inference framework (AIF) makes it possible to bridge connections from computational neuroscience and robotics/AI to ecological psychology and phenomenology, revealing common underpinnings and overcoming key limitations. AIF opposes the mechanistic to the reductive, while staying fully grounded in a naturalistic and information-theoretic foundation, using the principle of free energy minimization. The latter provides a theoretical basis for a unified treatment of particles, organisms, and interactive machines, spanning from the inorganic to organic, non-life to life, and natural to artificial agents. We provide a brief introduction to AIF, then explore its implications for evolutionary theory, ecological psychology, embodied phenomenology, and robotics/AI research. We conclude the paper by considering implications for machine consciousness.