Lecture 4

Question 1

Embodied Cognition v. functionalism…

Answer 1

cognition cannot be studied
independently from its implementation

body and brain are constitutive of human cognition

Question 2

embodied cognition v. identity theory

Answer 2

cognitive states are not identical with

neural states

Question 3

beyond the brain:

Answer 3

body and environment play an important
role in the production of behavior and they shape and
structure the brain

Question 4

Example: upright posture for embodied cognition…

Answer 4

a basic form of consciousness
• visual perception becomes more important: our visual range is
extended, and the horizon is widened and distanced
• frees the hands for reaching, grasping, manipulating, carrying,
using tools, and pointing
• introduces new complexities into our brain structure (Paillard
2000)

Question 5

Example: visual perception, herbavores v. predators

Answer 5

herbivores have their eyes on the sides of the head, to notice
predators from almost any direction
• predators have both eyes looking forwards, allowing binocular
depth and distance perception to get to their prey

Question 6

Cognition is ‘enactive’

• Alva Noë’s “Action in Perception”

Answer 6

“Perception is not something that happens to

us, or in us. It is something we do.”

Question 7

who made the ‘Kitten

Carousel’?

Answer 7

Held & Hein (1963

Question 8

the point of thekitten experiment:

Answer 8

active and passive kittens received the same visual stimulation
• the researchers tested their capacity to make visual-spatial
discriminations (e.g., visually guided paw placement, visual
cliff avoidance, blinking, visual pursuit of a moving object)
• active kitten showed normal responses, but passive kitten
failed these tests
Conclusion: self-actuated movement is necessary to
develop normal visual perception with depth

Question 9

Against the ‘sandwich-model’ of the mind

Answer 9

“Perception as input from world to mind, action as output from mind to world,
and cognition as sandwiched in between” (Hurley 2008)
• causal direction: perceptual input -> (functional) representation -> bodily
behavior
• the mind/brain as a passive receiver

Question 10

Cognition is shaped by metaphors that are grounded

in our bodily interaction with the world

Answer 10

HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN.
I’m feeling up vs. I’m feeling down
CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN
I’m up already vs. He fell asleep.
HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP, SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN
He’s at the peak of health. He dropped dead.
HIGH STATUS IS UP; LOW STATUS IS DOWN
She’ll rise to the top.. He’s at the bottom of the social
hierarchy.

Question 11

Nagel about Solving the mystery of phenomenal consciousness.

Answer 11

“An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is
something that it is like to be that organism - something that it is
like for the organism to be itself.” (Nagel 1974

Question 12

what is the hard problem according to whom, of consciousness?

Answer 12

according to Chalmers: how to explain the ‘what it is like’ character of conscious
experience

Question 13

how to explain the ‘what it is like’ character of conscious

experience, what dwe call this?

Answer 13

the ‘qualia’

Question 14

what is the sensory motor theory of phenomenal consciousness?

Answer 14

visual perception is a temporally extended
activity

it is not reducible to brain processes that ‘represent the world’

Question 15

who made the sensory motor teory of phenomenal consciousness?

Answer 15

O’Regan & Noë

Question 16

sensory motor theory of phenomenal consciousness

what does our vsual perception depend upon?

Answer 16

it depends on our (implicit) knowledge of the sensorimotor
laws that govern the relation between possible actions and
the resulting changes in incoming visual information

Question 17

Cognition is ‘embedded’ or ‘situated’, what does that mean?

Answer 17

• we manage our physical/spatial surroundings in ways that
fundamentally alter the cognitive tasks that confront our brains
• cognitive outsourcing and the ‘007 principle’: know only as much as
you need to know to get the job done (Clark 1997)

• ‘niche construction’

Question 18

Cognition is ‘extended’, explain that!

Answer 18

Clark & Chalmers (1998): cognition extends beyond ‘skull and
skin’ and includes the body and the environment

Question 19

what is the parity principle?

Answer 19

“if, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a
process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no
hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that
part of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process”

Question 20

the ‘complementarity principle:

Answer 20

some cognitive processes are not complete
without your interaction with certain external objects
• e.g., in working out a mathematical problem your cognitive processes are
complemented by your hand, your bodily posture, your eyes, etc.
• e.g., closed loop DBS

Question 21

Enactivism: restating the mind-body problem, what is it?

Answer 21

• a radical version of embodied cognition
• the mind is not an unobservable entity or abstraction, hidden behind public
behavior, and the body is not just a physical realizer of mental states
• ‘Being in the world’: we are practically engaged with the world, rather than
theoretically reflecting on the world
• ‘know-how’ rather than ‘know-that’
• the body implicitly offers us possibilities for action and provides us with a
perspective on the world (e.g., picking up a tennis ball)

• many cognitive processes can be achieved by the body in
interaction with the environment
• Brook’s robots: we don’t need a ‘mind’ to mediate
between perception and action
• everyday experience as guidance for how we define the
explanandum