Visual perception of coordinated rhythmic movements

Other coordination posts are here.

Fontaine et al (1997) and Wenderoth et al (2002) had empirically established that a key prediction of the dynamic pattern hypothesis was false: learning was easier closer to 0° than it was to 180°. The HKB attractor layout did not appear to be pulling behaviour in the expected manner; what was going on?

The Ames Room and the Bower Bird

A recent study (Endler et al, 2010) has shown that bowerbirds take advantage of forced perspective (the Ames Room effect) in the construction of their bowers. This study has a few interesting things to say on the topic of the origin of the Ames Room effect and the likelihood of equivalent configurations popping up by chance. (This article got a lot of popular press when it came out: Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science covered it best here.)

Is it time to abandon the cognitive / non-cognitive distinction?

We've been having some good debates with Ken Azawa over at The Bounds of Cognition and Gary Williams at Minds and Brains. A recurring theme is where to draw the line between the cognitive and the non-cognitive. A lot hinges on this distinction. For example, whether we consider things external to the brain to be coupled with a cognitive process or to constitute a cognitive process depends on what we're willing to call "cognitive." Ken has written extensively about this on his blog, but this is a simple summary of the problem: [T]he coupling-constitution distinction comes down to a distinction between X causing, or being caused by, a cognitive process, versus X being a cognitive process.

Runeson, the Ames Room and the Irrelevance of Equivalent Configurations

Recently we’ve been discussing several topics with Ken Aizawa at his blog, The Bounds of Cognition; there are several posts brewing from the two of us on this, but some travelling (plus, for me, a broken wrist) has slowed things a little.

I want to spend some time talking about some recent discussions on aperture vision and the Ames Room. This post will go over two papers on the Ames Room; the next few will discuss some of the more interesting points about the ecological approach that came out of the discussion with Ken. This is a really rich topic, and there’s a lot of ground. First, though, we need the set up.

Learning a Novel Coordination; Things Get Interesting

Other coordination posts are here.

This will be a brief post to follow on from the last, in which I reviewed the early learning studies of Kelso & Zanone that led to the dynamic pattern hypothesis.

Is Cognition Extended?

Over the past week or two, we've been engaging philosopher of psychology Ken Aizawa on the topic of extended cognition. Ken is co-author of a book, Bounds of Cognition, in which he argues cognition is most definitely not extended in any way. We both think the other is wrong, which is always fun; I've been getting to grips with his argument and trying a few ideas out, and I wanted to take a moment to summarise where I think we're at.

Tools and Brains and Embodied Cognition

Arguing about embodiment with Ken Aizawa over the last few days has opened up a lot of topics that I hope to cover over the next little while. But it also primed me to notice this article at Scientific American by Patrick Haggard and Matthew Longo, summarising a recent paper adding to the growing literature on the neuroscience of tool use. I like this work, and it got me thinking how this relates to the embodied cognition literature; Ken, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this on.