Situated Cognition

The ability of a single neural circuit to produce qualitatively distinct behaviors is typically attributed to some adaptive mechanism in the circuit itself. However, neural circuits are also embedded in particular bodies and environments, and feedback through the sensorimotor loop may also serve to drive behavioral differentiation. Here we explore the ability of a single neural circuit to produce qualitatively different behaviors based on changing patterns of environmental feedback. Agents equipped with two sets of effectors and controlled by fixed neural circuits are evolved to catch circles under three different motor conditions. In one condition, the agent must coordinate both sets of effectors, while in each of the other conditions one set of effectors is lesioned and the agent must rely on the other set alone to accomplish the task. A detailed behavioral analysis of the best evolved agent is reported, providing numerous insights into its evolved behavioral mechanism. The agent is found to produce significantly different motor outputs in each of the three conditions, to rely on continuous environmental feedback for successful behavior, and to switch flexibly between different behavioral conditions.

There has been considerable debate in the literature about the relative merits of information processing vs. dynamical approaches to understanding cognitive processes. In this paper, we explore the relationship between these two styles of explanation using a model agent evolved to solve a relational categorization task. Specifically, we separately analyze the operation of this agent using the mathematical tools of information theory and dynamical systems theory. Information-theoretic analysis reveals how task-relevant information flows through the system to be combined into a categorization decision. Dynamical analysis reveals the key geometrical and temporal interrelationships underlying the categorization decision. Finally, we propose a framework for directly relating these two different styles of explanation and discuss the possible implications of our analysis for some of the ongoing debates in cognitive science.

The |Gui and ||Gana, two groups of San, have made extensive use of
the central part of the Kalahari Desert, though they were recently resettled
outside their previous living area. Since relocation, their rich ecological
knowledge has not served them well. Even in this situation, they
still show a keen perception regarding the ground conditions: for avoiding
obstacles as well as for assessing animal signs in the bushveld. This
study explores how they deployed these kinds of knowledge by cleverly
using various resources in the environment. My analysis shows that the
skills required to find a path between hurdles on the land are closely
associated with those used to perceive animal signs. I have documented,
in detail, interactions among my informants; and shown how they arrive
at a mutual understanding about the land and its signs, and that the
presence of outsiders within these interactions encourages the |Gui and
||Gana to formulate their knowledge more explicitly. In these ways, folk
knowledge becomes “known” to various participants. Their prediction
becomes inseparable from their memory; their selves become involved
with the land.

Book chapter on the methodology of empirical moral psychology. By showing examples of relevant applications of moral psychology in the context of research as well as policy-making, shortcomings of traditionally used survey designs are highlighted and alternatives such as dialogical surveys and virtual reality are presented.

Bunge, A. & Skulmowski, A. (2014). Descriptive & Pragmatic Levels of Empirical Ethics: Utilizing the Situated Character of Moral Concepts, Judgment, and Decision-Making. In C. Lütge, H. Rusch & M. Uhl (Eds.), Experimental Ethics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Le projet de représenter la sémantique des termes et concepts humains à l’aide de langages formels ne date pas d’hier, mais il connait aujourd’hui un regain d’intérêt avec le développement des ontologies computationnelles. Fer de lance du Web sémantique, la principale ambition de ces systèmes de représentation est de permettre aux machines d’accéder au « sens » des données qu’elles manipulent. Les langages formels ont toujours eu leurs détracteurs et l’usage qui en est fait en ingénierie ontologique ne fait pas exception. Différents auteurs dénoncent le projet de soumettre notre sémantique naïve à des formalismes logiques, trop rigides et trop mécaniques pour en capter la mobilité et l’adaptabilité, et proposent de leur substituer des approches et modèles alternatifs, censés être plus proches des mécanismes de conceptualisation et de représentation « naturels » de l’humain. L’objet de cet article est de montrer que ces critiques sont pour la plupart infondées, et en tout cas hors sujet, en ce qu’elles présupposent la subordination des ontologies à une exigence épistémique (modéliser de manière fidèle un référent) plutôt qu’opérationnelle (fonctionner et rendre service). Elles perdent leur raison d’être dès lors que l’on considère que la fonction des ontologies n’est pas (i) de représenter de manière fidèle le mobilier et les structures constitutives de la réalité (réalisme) ou la manière dont l’esprit se représente cette réalité (conceptualisme), mais (ii) d’augmenter les capacités de catégorisation, d’accès à l’information et de manipulation de données et documents, et (iii) de normaliser les pratiques de catégorisation et d’encodage. Considérer les ontologies computationnelles dans la perspective de l’augmentation cognitive et de l’instrumentation des pratiques exige un nouveau cadre épistémologique pour leur conception. Nous en décrivons ici les principes de base et proposons de qualifier cette nouvelle approche d’instrumentaliste.

Beim Stichwort »Kognition« denken die meisten an das Gehirn, Computermodelle oder Informationsverarbeitung. In der realen Welt treffen wir aber immer nur auf Wesen mit Körpern, die in eine Umwelt eingebunden und in ihr aktiv sind. Kognition findet nicht im Kopf statt, sondern in der Welt. So lautet der Grundgedanke der Philosophie der Verkörperung. Die Hinwendung zu Körper und Umwelt stellt eine der vielleicht weitreichendsten Neuorientierungen der modernen Kognitionswissenschaft und Philosophie dar, die auch unser Verständnis von Wissenschaft und Kultur prägen wird. Der Band versammelt die Grundlagentexte zu diesem Thema zum ersten Mal in deutscher Sprache und bietet somit einen vorzüglichen Überblick über dieses neue Forschungsgebiet.

The point of this presentation is to advance a very “in progress” research platform regarding emergence metaphysics and material engagement theory.  Material engagement theory is an offshoot of the recent 4E programs in cognitive science (the 4Es,being enactive, extended, embodied, and embedded accounts of cognition— situational, distributed, and group cognition, these areas are foreign neither to the 4E specialists nor  to material engagement theorists). Specifically, material engagement theory is a research paradigm predominantly within archeology that seeks to “downplay an analytical separation between mind and matter, or ‘idealist’ versus ‘materialist’ approaches” and as such aims to “understand the processes underlying the development of new concepts, symbols, social institutions, and ultimately their effects on longer-term dynamics of socio-political change.”  The archeological context here might seem surprising, but if we think about how archeologists’ primary practice is to uncode the minds and subjective states of peoples through material remnants, it’s not so mysterious.  What is novel about MET is that not only does it square itself with recent cognitive science, eschewing traditional dualist binaries and monadic conceptions of the mind, self, or the ego—what is novel is that it does this against a realist relational ontology of mental, social, and technical life.  And most notably for the work at hand, this ontology, while inherently materialistic, is one that holds commitments to an emergentist metaphysics which postulates that “mind” and the attributes traditionally associated with mind, namely agency and intentionality, are emergent properties or events, ones which “emerge” from out of a situational dynamic between brains, bodies, and things in the world. 

After expounding my own approach, I'll try to show the significance of an emergentist paradigm for social ontology and, in keeping with the themes of this symposium, the structuralism of the Cahiers writers (specifically Jacques-Alain Miller's assessment in "Action de la Structure").

Situated learning as an educational theory, in which learners are engaged in collaborative learning and authentic tasks is briefly described. Since such learning is social in nature, when learners engage in authentic tasks they form a community of practice. There are various pointers that indicate whether learners are engaged in authentic learning and these are described. The challenges to setting up authentic learning activities within a local content are described and include the implementation of a more restrictive curriculum and the use of common assessment tasks in the sciences. Can the implementation of such rigid structures restrict a school’s ability to produce future science graduates? What impact will this have on the quality of science education? These are questions that cannot be answered within such a small context but may require further investigation.       

If mind is investigated as the set of interactions that accomplish a cognitive task, that is, if mind is more than that which occurs inside the head, then how does the interplay of biological and environmental resources produce human cognition? Informed by active externalism, joint action, and distributed cognition, we review and classify a set of cognitive processes mediated by material representations. Specifically, we ask how—in a range of everyday cognitive and cultural practices—we employ objects (1) to scaffold memory, (2) to alter cognitive complexity, (3) to facilitate epistemic experimentation, (4) to enable the division of cognitive labor, (5) to promote confidence and trust, (6) to consolidate social structure, and (7) to support dialogical coupling. We conclude that through cultural practices the stable, “manipulable”, and public properties of objects have come to afford unprecedented modes of extended and distributed cognition.

Organizational learning, at the broadest levels, as it has come to be understood within the organization theory and management literatures, concerns the experientially driven changes in knowledge processes, structures, and resources that enable organizations to perform skillfully in their task environments (Argote and Miron–Spektor, 2011). In this chapter, we examine routines and capabilities as an important micro–foundation for organizational learning. Adopting a micro–foundational approach in line with Barney and Felin (2013), we propose a new model for explaining how routines and capabilities play a causal role in transforming experience into repertoires of (actual or potential) organization–level behavior. More specifically, we argue that routines and capabilities are built out of capacities for shared – both joint and collective – intentionality (Tomasello, 1999, 2014; Bratman, 1999a, 2014) that enable individuals to engage in complex forms of collaboration in conjunction with multiple layers of scaffolds that encompass material and symbolic resources, social processes, and cultural norms and practices (Weick, 1995; Hutchins, 1995; Clark, 1997, 2008; Orlikowski, 2007). In short, we outline what we call the ‘scaffolded joint action’ model and suggest its potential as a micro–foundation of organizational learning.

Organizational learning, at the broadest levels, as it has come to be understood within the organization theory and management literatures, concerns the experientially driven changes in knowledge processes, structures, and resources that enable organizations to perform skillfully in their task environments (Argote and Miron–Spektor, 2011). In this chapter, we examine routines and capabilities as an important micro–foundation for organizational learning. Adopting a micro–foundational approach in line with Barney and Felin (2013), we propose a new model for explaining how routines and capabilities play a causal role in transforming experience into repertoires of (actual or potential) organization–level behavior. More specifically, we argue that routines and capabilities are built out of capacities for shared – both joint and collective – intentionality (Tomasello, 1999, 2014; Bratman, 1999a, 2014) that enable individuals to engage in complex forms of collaboration in conjunction with multiple layers of scaffolds that encompass material and symbolic resources, social processes, and cultural norms and practices (Weick, 1995; Hutchins, 1995; Clark, 1997, 2008; Orlikowski, 2007). In short, we outline what we call the ‘scaffolded joint action’ model and suggest its potential as a micro–foundation of organizational learning.

Cognition is situated and the environment is part of the cognitive system. These are two of the basic tenets of embodiment, a research framework rapidly growing in popularity. They are abstract enough to have inspired a diverse array of approaches to literature and reading. Some of these approaches look into how the minds of literary characters engage with their environment; some study how this environment informs readers’ imagination; others analyze the spatiality of literary metaphor. What all these approaches have in common is a primary focus on environment as encoded in a text. Meanwhile, this lecture will take the notions of environment and situatedness more literally and explore physical site-sensitivity in the reading of literary narrative. Leaving aside the obvious cases of overly distractive reading situations, I will outline some new theoretical distinctions applying to the relationship between narrative style and reading environment. I will propose that it does make a difference where you read, and recount several levels at which physical environment may structure your experience and understanding of a text.

Exploring the affordances of situated and mobile games-based learning with ARIS. A research study using a Design-Based Research (DBR) method that sought to discover how the affordances of iPads and games-based learning applications can be harnessed to allow for the creation of situated learning experiences, offering opportunities for students to learn in self-directed and personalized ways. The research involved the design of a games-based inquiry- led instructional unit centered on the use of iPads within a location and augmented learning scenario intended to study the potential for creating authentic situated learning experiences. Using iPads alongside ARIS, a location and games-based mobile application, the study sought to place learners into the community where they were immersed within a games-based narrative. The study incorporated new ideas in the use of mobile technologies for learning covering experiential play, personalized learning, situated learning, m-learning and location-based learning. The study closely observed the impact of affordances of mobile technology and games-based applications in fostering engagement and motivation in a situated learning setting. The study sought to incorporate current theories from the literature into a DBR iterative design cycle thereby offering the researcher the opportunity to impact learning design in real time while also pointing towards a potential set of instructional design principles and model that may be used by educators and instructional designers in future learning design studies. The study sought to explore the importance of using a DBR approach in educational setting in order to effectively study the impact of new educational technologies in teaching and learning environments.