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Parvizi-Wayne D, Sandved-Smith L, Pitliya RJ, Limanowski J, Tufft MRA, Friston KJ. Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1354719. [PMID: 38887627 PMCID: PMC11182004 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1354719] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2024] [Indexed: 06/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Flow has been described as a state of optimal performance, experienced universally across a broad range of domains: from art to athletics, gaming to writing. However, its phenomenal characteristics can, at first glance, be puzzling. Firstly, individuals in flow supposedly report a loss of self-awareness, even though they perform in a manner which seems to evince their agency and skill. Secondly, flow states are felt to be effortless, despite the prerequisite complexity of the tasks that engender them. In this paper, we unpick these features of flow, as well as others, through the active inference framework, which posits that action and perception are forms of active Bayesian inference directed at sustained self-organisation; i.e., the minimisation of variational free energy. We propose that the phenomenology of flow is rooted in the deployment of high precision weight over (i) the expected sensory consequences of action and (ii) beliefs about how action will sequentially unfold. This computational mechanism thus draws the embodied cognitive system to minimise the ensuing (i.e., expected) free energy through the exploitation of the pragmatic affordances at hand. Furthermore, given the challenging dynamics the flow-inducing situation presents, attention must be wholly focussed on the unfolding task whilst counterfactual planning is restricted, leading to the attested loss of the sense of self-as-object. This involves the inhibition of both the sense of self as a temporally extended object and higher-order, meta-cognitive forms of self-conceptualisation. Nevertheless, we stress that self-awareness is not entirely lost in flow. Rather, it is pre-reflective and bodily. Our approach to bodily-action-centred phenomenology can be applied to similar facets of seemingly agentive experience beyond canonical flow states, providing insights into the mechanisms of so-called selfless experiences, embodied expertise and wellbeing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Darius Parvizi-Wayne
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Lars Sandved-Smith
- Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
| | - Riddhi J. Pitliya
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- VERSES AI Research Lab, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | - Jakub Limanowski
- Institute of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Miles R. A. Tufft
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Karl J. Friston
- VERSES AI Research Lab, Los Angeles, CA, United States
- Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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Myszka S, Yearby T, Davids K. (Re)conceptualizing movement behavior in sport as a problem-solving activity. Front Sports Act Living 2023; 5:1130131. [PMID: 37346385 PMCID: PMC10281209 DOI: 10.3389/fspor.2023.1130131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/23/2023] Open
Abstract
The use of the term problem-solving in relation to movement behavior is an often-broached topic within kinesiology. Here we present a clear rationale for the concept of problem-solving, specifically pertaining to the skilled organization of movement behaviors in sport performance, and the respective processes that underpin it, conceptualized within an ecological dynamics framework. The movement behavior that emerges in sport can be viewed as a problem-solving activity for the athlete, where integrated movement solutions are underpinned by intertwined processes of perception, cognition, and action. This movement problem-solving process becomes functionally aligned with sport performance challenges through a tight coupling to relevant information sources in the environment, which specify affordances offered to the athlete. This ecological perspective can shape our lens on how movements are coordinated and controlled in the context of sport, influencing practical approaches utilized towards facilitating dexterity of athletes. These ideas imply how coaches could set alive movement problems for athletes to solve within practice environments, where they would be required to continuously (re)organize movement system degrees of freedom in relation to dynamic and emergent opportunities, across diverse, complex problems. Through these experiences, athletes could become attuned, intentional, and adaptable, capable of (re)organizing a behavioral fit to performance problems in context-essentially allowing them to become one with the movement problem.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Tyler Yearby
- Emergence, Minneapolis, MN, United States
- School of Natural, Social and Sport Sciences, University of Gloucestershire, Gloucester, United Kingdom
| | - Keith Davids
- School of Natural, Social and Sport Sciences, University of Gloucestershire, Gloucester, United Kingdom
- Sport & Physical Activity Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom
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3
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Glock HJ. Minds, Brains, and Capacities: Situated Cognition and Neo-Aristotelianism. Front Psychol 2020; 11:566385. [PMID: 33408661 PMCID: PMC7779685 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566385] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2020] [Accepted: 11/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This article compares situated cognition to contemporary Neo-Aristotelian approaches to the mind. The article distinguishes two components in this paradigm: an Aristotelian essentialism which is alien to situated cognition and a Wittgensteinian “capacity approach” to the mind which is not just congenial to it but provides important conceptual and argumentative resources in defending social cognition against orthodox cognitive (neuro-)science. It focuses on a central tenet of that orthodoxy. According to what I call “encephalocentrism,” cognition is primarily or even exclusively a computational process occurring inside the brain. Neo-Aristotelians accuse this claim of committing a “homuncular” (Kenny) or “mereological fallacy” (Bennett and Hacker). The article explains why the label “fallacy” is misleading, reconstructs the argument to the effect that encephalocentric applications of psychological predicates to the brain and its parts amount to a category mistake, and defends this argument against objections by Dennett, Searle, and Figdor. At the same time it criticizes the Neo-Aristotelian denial that the brain is the organ of cognition. It ends by suggesting ways in which the capacity approach and situated cognition might be combined to provide a realistic and ecologically sound picture of cognition as a suite of powers that flesh-and-blood animals exercise within their physical and social environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hans-Johann Glock
- Department of Philosophy, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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4
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Distal engagement: Intentions in perception. Conscious Cogn 2020; 79:102897. [PMID: 32062591 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102897] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2019] [Revised: 01/29/2020] [Accepted: 02/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Non-representational approaches to cognition have struggled to provide accounts of long-term planning that forgo the use of representations. An explanation comes easier for cognitivist accounts, which hold that we concoct and use contentful mental representations as guides to coordinate a series of actions towards an end state. One non-representational approach, ecological-enactivism, has recently seen several proposals that account for "high-level" or "representation-hungry" capacities, including long-term planning and action coordination. In this paper, we demonstrate the explanatory gap in these accounts that stems from avoiding the incorporation of long-term intentions, as they play an important role both in action coordination and perception on the ecological account. Using recent enactive accounts of language, we argue for a non-representational conception of intentions, their formation, and their role in coordinating pre-reflective action. We provide an account for the coordination of our present actions towards a distant goal, a skill we call distal engagement. Rather than positing intentions as an actual cognitive entity in need of explanation, we argue that we take them up in this way as a practice due to linguistically scaffolded attitudes towards language use.
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Yakhlef A, Rietveld E. Innovative action as skilled affordance‐responsiveness: An embodied‐mind approach. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/caim.12345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ali Yakhlef
- Stockholm Business SchoolStockholm University Stockholm Sweden
| | - Erik Rietveld
- Department of Philosophy/ILLCUniversity of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands
- Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Twente Enschede The Netherlands
- Amsterdam University Medical Center, Department of PsychiatryUniversity of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands
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Jin Z, Tirassa M, Borghi AM. Editorial: Beyond Embodied Cognition: Intentionality, Affordance, and Environmental Adaptation. Front Psychol 2019; 9:2659. [PMID: 30622504 PMCID: PMC6308201 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02659] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2018] [Accepted: 12/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Zheng Jin
- International Joint Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Science, Zhengzhou Normal University, Zhengzhou, China
| | | | - Anna M Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.,Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy
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Einarsson A, Ziemke T. Exploring the Multi-Layered Affordances of Composing and Performing Interactive Music with Responsive Technologies. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1701. [PMID: 29033880 PMCID: PMC5626882 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01701] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2017] [Accepted: 09/15/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The question motivating the work presented here, starting from a view of music as embodied and situated activity, is how can we account for the complexity of interactive music performance situations. These are situations in which human performers interact with responsive technologies, such as sensor-driven technology or sound synthesis affected by analysis of the performed sound signal. This requires investigating in detail the underlying mechanisms, but also providing a more holistic approach that does not lose track of the complex whole constituted by the interactions and relationships of composers, performers, audience, technologies, etc. The concept of affordances has frequently been invoked in musical research, which has seen a “bodily turn” in recent years, similar to the development of the embodied cognition approach in the cognitive sciences. We therefore begin by broadly delineating its usage in the cognitive sciences in general, and in music research in particular. We argue that what is still missing in the discourse on musical affordances is an encompassing theoretical framework incorporating the sociocultural dimensions that are fundamental to the situatedness and embodiment of interactive music performance and composition. We further argue that the cultural affordances framework, proposed by Rietveld and Kiverstein (2014) and recently articulated further by Ramstead et al. (2016) in this journal, although not previously applied to music, constitutes a promising starting point. It captures and elucidates this complex web of relationships in terms of shared landscapes and individual fields of affordances. We illustrate this with examples foremost from the first author's artistic work as composer and performer of interactive music. This sheds new light on musical composition as a process of construction—and embodied mental simulation—of situations, guiding the performers' and audience's attention in shifting fields of affordances. More generally, we believe that the theoretical perspectives and concrete examples discussed in this paper help to elucidate how situations—and with them affordances—are dynamically constructed through the interactions of various mechanisms as people engage in embodied and situated activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Einarsson
- Department of Composition, Conducting and Music Theory, Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Tom Ziemke
- Cognition and Interaction Lab, Human-Centered Systems Division, Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.,Interaction Lab, School of Informatics, University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden
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Schilhab T. Adaptive Smart Technology Use: The Need for Meta-Self-Regulation. Front Psychol 2017; 8:298. [PMID: 28303112 PMCID: PMC5332409 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00298] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Accepted: 02/16/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Theresa Schilhab
- Future Technologies, Culture and Learning, Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus Copenhagen, Denmark
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van Dijk L, Rietveld E. Foregrounding Sociomaterial Practice in Our Understanding of Affordances: The Skilled Intentionality Framework. Front Psychol 2017; 7:1969. [PMID: 28119638 PMCID: PMC5220071 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2016] [Accepted: 12/05/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Social coordination and affordance perception always take part in concrete situations in real life. Nonetheless, the different fields of ecological psychology studying these phenomena do not seem to make this situated nature an object of study. To integrate both fields and extend the reach of the ecological approach, we introduce the Skilled Intentionality Framework that situates both social coordination and affordance perception within the human form of life and its rich landscape of affordances. We argue that in the human form of life the social and the material are intertwined and best understood as sociomateriality. Taking the form of life as our starting point foregrounds sociomateriality in each perspective we take on engaging with affordances. Using ethnographical examples we show how sociomateriality shows up from three different perspectives we take on affordances in a real-life situation. One perspective shows us a landscape of affordances that the sociomaterial environment offers. Zooming in on this landscape to the perspective of a local observer, we can focus on an individual coordinating with affordances offered by things and other people situated in this landscape. Finally, viewed from within this unfolding activity, we arrive at the person's lived perspective: a field of relevant affordances solicits activity. The Skilled Intentionality Framework offers a way of integrating social coordination and affordance theory by drawing attention to these complementary perspectives. We end by showing a real-life example from the practice of architecture that suggests how this situated view that foregrounds sociomateriality can extend the scope of ecological psychology to forms of so-called "higher" cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ludger van Dijk
- Amsterdam Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Erik Rietveld
- Amsterdam Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, Netherlands
- Department of Philosophy/Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of AmsterdamAmsterdam, Netherlands
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Bruineberg J, Kiverstein J, Rietveld E. The anticipating brain is not a scientist: the free-energy principle from an ecological-enactive perspective. SYNTHESE 2016; 195:2417-2444. [PMID: 30996493 PMCID: PMC6438652 DOI: 10.1007/s11229-016-1239-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 88] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2016] [Accepted: 09/29/2016] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
In this paper, we argue for a theoretical separation of the free-energy principle from Helmholtzian accounts of the predictive brain. The free-energy principle is a theoretical framework capturing the imperative for biological self-organization in information-theoretic terms. The free-energy principle has typically been connected with a Bayesian theory of predictive coding, and the latter is often taken to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception as unconscious inference. If our interpretation is right, however, a Helmholtzian view of perception is incompatible with Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle. We argue that the free energy principle and the ecological and enactive approach to mind and life make for a much happier marriage of ideas. We make our argument based on three points. First we argue that the free energy principle applies to the whole animal-environment system, and not only to the brain. Second, we show that active inference, as understood by the free-energy principle, is incompatible with unconscious inference understood as analagous to scientific hypothesis-testing, the main tenet of a Helmholtzian view of perception. Third, we argue that the notion of inference at work in Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle is too weak to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception. Taken together these points imply that the free energy principle is best understood in ecological and enactive terms set out in this paper.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jelle Bruineberg
- Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), University of Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 141, 1012 GC Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Julian Kiverstein
- Amsterdam Medical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Amsterdam, 22660, 1100 DD Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Erik Rietveld
- AMC/Dept. of Philosophy/ILLC /Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 141, 1012 GC Amsterdam, Netherlands
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11
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Ramstead MJD, Veissière SPL, Kirmayer LJ. Cultural Affordances: Scaffolding Local Worlds Through Shared Intentionality and Regimes of Attention. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1090. [PMID: 27507953 PMCID: PMC4960915 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01090] [Citation(s) in RCA: 100] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2016] [Accepted: 07/05/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In this paper we outline a framework for the study of the mechanisms involved in the engagement of human agents with cultural affordances. Our aim is to better understand how culture and context interact with human biology to shape human behavior, cognition, and experience. We attempt to integrate several related approaches in the study of the embodied, cognitive, and affective substrates of sociality and culture and the sociocultural scaffolding of experience. The integrative framework we propose bridges cognitive and social sciences to provide (i) an expanded concept of ‘affordance’ that extends to sociocultural forms of life, and (ii) a multilevel account of the socioculturally scaffolded forms of affordance learning and the transmission of affordances in patterned sociocultural practices and regimes of shared attention. This framework provides an account of how cultural content and normative practices are built on a foundation of contentless basic mental processes that acquire content through immersive participation of the agent in social practices that regulate joint attention and shared intentionality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxwell J D Ramstead
- Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, QCCanada; Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QCCanada
| | - Samuel P L Veissière
- Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QCCanada; Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, QCCanada; Raz Lab in Cognitive Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, QCCanada; Department of Communication and Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of JohannesburgJohannesburg, South Africa
| | - Laurence J Kirmayer
- Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC Canada
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Kiverstein J, Miller M. The embodied brain: towards a radical embodied cognitive neuroscience. Front Hum Neurosci 2015; 9:237. [PMID: 25999836 PMCID: PMC4422034 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2014] [Accepted: 04/13/2015] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
In this programmatic paper we explain why a radical embodied cognitive neuroscience is needed. We argue for such a claim based on problems that have arisen in cognitive neuroscience for the project of localizing function to specific brain structures. The problems come from research concerned with functional and structural connectivity that strongly suggests that the function a brain region serves is dynamic, and changes over time. We argue that in order to determine the function of a specific brain area, neuroscientists need to zoom out and look at the larger organism-environment system. We therefore argue that instead of looking to cognitive psychology for an analysis of psychological functions, cognitive neuroscience should look to an ecological dynamical psychology. A second aim of our paper is to develop an account of embodied cognition based on the inseparability of cognitive and emotional processing in the brain. We argue that emotions are best understood in terms of action readiness (Frijda, 1986, 2007) in the context of the organism's ongoing skillful engagement with the environment (Rietveld, 2008; Bruineberg and Rietveld, 2014; Kiverstein and Rietveld, 2015, forthcoming). States of action readiness involve the whole living body of the organism, and are elicited by possibilities for action in the environment that matter to the organism. Since emotion and cognition are inseparable processes in the brain it follows that what is true of emotion is also true of cognition. Cognitive processes are likewise processes taking place in the whole living body of an organism as it engages with relevant possibilities for action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julian Kiverstein
- Institute of Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Mark Miller
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, UK
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