scholarly journals Neither mindful nor mindless, but minded: habits, ecological psychology, and skilled performance

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Segundo-Ortin ◽  
Manuel Heras-Escribano
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Ecological Psychology ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Skilled Performance ◽  
New Information ◽  
Skilled Action ◽  
Conscious Attention ◽  
Computational Processes

AbstractA widely shared assumption in the literature about skilled motor behavior is that any action that is not blindly automatic and mechanical must be the product of computational processes upon mental representations. To counter this assumption, in this paper we offer a radical embodied (non-representational) account of skilled action that combines ecological psychology and the Deweyan theory of habits. According to our proposal, skilful performance can be understood as composed of sequences of mutually coherent, task-specific perceptual-motor habits. Such habits play a crucial role in simplifying both our exploration of the perceptual environment and our decision-making. However, we argue that what keeps habits situated, precluding them from becoming rote and automatic, are not mental representations but the agent's conscious attention to the affordances of the environment. It is because the agent is not acting on autopilot but constantly searching for new information for affordances that she can control her behavior, adapting previously learned habits to the current circumstances. We defend that our account provides the resources needed to understand how skilled action can be intelligent (flexible, adaptive, context-sensitive) without having any representational cognitive processes built into them.

Hand Movements and Nondominant Fluency in Bilinguals

1979 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis R. Marcos
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Language Fluency ◽  
Movement Activity

16 subordinate bilingual subjects produced 5-min. monologues in their nondominant languages, i.e., English or Spanish. Hand-movement activity manifested during the videotape monologues was scored and related to measures of fluency in the nondominant language. The hand-movement behavior categorized as Groping Movement was significantly related to all of the nondominant-language fluency measures. These correlations support the assumption that Groping Movement may have a function in the process of verbal encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the possibility of monitoring central cognitive processes through the study of “visible” motor behavior.

scholarly journals Educational Opportunities for New Information Technologies in Teaching Foreign Language in High School

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-451
Author(s):  
L. Aripzhanova ◽  
M. Mukhitdinova
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Information ◽  
Use Of The Internet

The article deals with the use of the Internet in teaching a foreign language. With the advent of the information age, both the scheme of knowledge transfer and the model of the learning process are changing sharply, which requires the improvement of professional training from the position of activation of cognitive processes.

scholarly journals An Autocatalytic Network Model of Conceptual Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora ◽  
Nicole Beckage
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Change ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Pretend Play ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Earth Model ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Impact

Reflexively Autocatalytic Foodset-generated (RAF) networks have been used to model the origins of evolutionary processes, both biological (the origin of life) and cultural (the origin of cumulative innovation). The RAF approach tags conceptual shifts with their source, making it uniquely suited to modelling how new ideas grow out of currently available knowledge, studying order effects, and tracking conceptual trajectories within (and across) individuals. Using RAF networks, we develop a step-by-step process model of conceptual change (i.e., the process by which a child becomes an active participant in cultural evolution), focusing on childrens’ mental models of the shape of the earth. Using results from (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992), we model different trajectories from the flat earth model to the spherical earth model, as well as the impact of other factors, such as pretend play, on cognitive development. As RAFs increase in size and number, they begin to merge and form a maxRAF that bridges previously compartmentalized knowledge. The expanding maxRAF constrains and enables the scaffolding of new conceptual structure. Once most conceptual structure is subsumed by the maxRAF, the child can reliably frame new knowledge and experiences in terms of previous knowledge and experiences, and engage in recursive representational redescription, or abstract thought, at which point the conceptual network becomes a self-organizing structure. The approach distinguishes between mental representations acquired through social learning or individual learning (of existing information), and mental representations obtained through abstract thought (resulting in the generation of new information). We suggest that individual differences in reliance on these information sources culminates in different kinds of conceptual networks and concomitant learning trajectories. These differences may be amplified by differences in the proclivity to spontaneously tailor one’s mode of thought to the situation one is in by modulating the degree of divergence (versus convergence), abstractness (versus concreteness), and context-specificity. We discuss a potential role for the approach in the development of an overarching framework that integrates evolutionary and developmental approaches to cognition.

Could Emotions Be Modelled through Information Processing?

2015 ◽  
pp. 63-82
Author(s):  
Ebrahim Oshni Alvandi
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Emotional Agents ◽  
The Brain

One way to evaluate cognitive processes in living or nonliving systems is by using the notion of “information processing”. Emotions as cognitive processes orient human beings to recognize, express and display themselves or their wellbeing through dynamical and adaptive form of information processing. In addition, humans behave or act emotionally in an embodied environment. The brain embeds symbols, meaning and purposes for emotions as well. So any model of natural or autonomous emotional agents/systems needs to consider the embodied features of emotions that are processed in an informational channel of the brain or a processing system. This analytical and explanatory study described in this chapter uses the pragmatic notion of information to develop a theoretical model for emotions that attempts to synthesize some essential aspects of human emotional processing. The model holds context-sensitive and purpose-based features of emotional pattering in the brain. The role of memory is discussed and an idea of control parameters that have roles in processing environmental variables in emotional patterning is introduced.

The Inferential Reasoning Theory of Causal Learning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannick Boddez ◽  
Jan De Houwer ◽  
Tom Beckers
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Inferential Reasoning ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Process Level

Chapter 4 describes the inferential reasoning theory of causal learning and discusses how thinking about this theory has evolved in at least two important ways. First, the authors argue that it is useful to decouple the debate about different possible types of mental representations involved in causal learning (e.g., propositional or associative) from the debate about processes involved therein (e.g., inferential reasoning or attention). Second, at the process level inferential reasoning is embedded within a broad array of mental processes that are all required to provide a full mechanistic account of causal learning. Based on those insights, the authors evaluate five arguments that are often raised against inferential reasoning theory. They conclude that causal learning is best understood as involving the formation and retrieval of propositional representations, both of which depend on multiple cognitive processes (i.e., the multi-process propositional account).

scholarly journals A experiência perceptual na perspectiva da teoria da percepção direta

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-233
Author(s):  
Mariana Claudia Broens
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Ecological Psychology ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
Skilled Action

The objective of this paper is to analyse the concept of skilful action underlying the studies of perceptual experience, especially the visual one, from the perspective of the theory of direct perception. The problem we propose to investigate can be formulated as follows: what are the possible contributions of the concept of affordance to understand the nature of skilful actions generally attributed to processes resulting from internal representations or mental models? In particular, we will try to investigate to what extent the concept of social affordance (as a possibility of action that the bodies of the organisms offer directly to other organisms) can help to understand aspects of complex skilful actions that involve capacities considered as deriving from the possession of a Theory of Mind. We will try to show that the perspective of the ecological psychology of direct perception (Gibson 1986, Turvey 1992, Petrusz & Turvey 2010) allows to understand aspects of human skilled action, especially of a collaborative nature, from a conception of perceptual experience that involves information intrinsically significant.

An Exemplar-Based Random-Walk Model of Categorization and Recognition

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Nosofsky ◽  
Thomas J. Palmeri
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Random Walk ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Object Identification ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Response Time Models ◽  
Individual Object ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Skilled Performance

In this chapter, we provide a review of a process-oriented mathematical model of categorization known as the exemplar-based random-walk (EBRW) model (Nosofsky & Palmeri, 1997a). The EBRW model is a member of the class of exemplar models. According to such models, people represent categories by storing individual exemplars of the categories in memory, and classify objects on the basis of their similarity to the stored exemplars. The EBRW model combines ideas ranging from the fields of choice and similarity, to the development of automaticity, to response-time models of evidence accumulation and decision-making. This integrated model explains relations between categorization and other fundamental cognitive processes, including individual-object identification, the development of expertise in tasks of skilled performance, and old-new recognition memory. Furthermore, it provides an account of how categorization and recognition decision-making unfold through time. We also provide comparisons with some other process models of categorization.

scholarly journals Attentional Focus, Dispositional Reinvestment, and Skilled Motor Performance under Pressure

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin C. Jackson ◽  
Kelly J. Ashford ◽  
Glen Norsworthy
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Single Task ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Skilled Performance ◽  
Hockey Players ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Task Conditions

Attentional processes governing skilled motor behavior were examined in two studies. In Experiment 1, field hockey players performed a dribbling task under single-task, dual-task, and skill-focused conditions under both low and high pressure situations. In Experiment 2, skilled soccer players performed a dribbling task under single-task, skill-focused, and process-goal conditions, again under low and high pressure situations. Results replicated recent findings regarding the detrimental effect of skill-focused attention and the facilitative effect of dual-task conditions on skilled performance. In addition, focusing on movement related process goals was found to adversely affect performance. Support for the predictive validity of the Reinvestment Scale was also found, with high reinvesters displaying greater susceptibility to skill failure under pressure. Results were consistent with explicit monitoring theories of choking and are further discussed in light of the conceptual distinction between explicit monitoring and reinvestment of conscious control.

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