Lecture 9- Embodied situation cognition

Question 1

What was Rene Descartes theory behind where people are in the world?

Answer 1

He thought there was a spilt between physical stuff and thinking stuff (e.g souls)

Question 2

What did Descartes believe the connection between the physical stuff and thinking stuff was?

Answer 2

The pineal gland, this is false

Question 3

How did thinking shift after Descartes?

Answer 3

Came to think that everything was orientated around the brain, that was what is responsible for thinking and gives us emotions

Question 4

Why is the brain described as a central point?

Answer 4

All the nerves feed into it

Question 5

What do brain lesions effect?

Answer 5

Behaviour, seems indicative that the brain is controlling our thoughts emotions etc.

Question 6

What is the correlation between brain size relative to body mass and intelligence?

Answer 6

Generally the larger the brain in relation to body size the more intelligent. However, there are other factors to consider as well.

Question 7

What is the general format of how the brain controls behaviour?

Answer 7

• sensory input
• The brain: builds a model of the world, process the input, store in memory and send commands out to the body
• Output + actions

Question 8

How do the different parts of the brain work together?

Answer 8

-Brain is described as a single coordinated system
Different areas that are integrated are:
-sensory brain area
-memory brain area
-motor control brain area

Question 9

Complete the sentence…

Where you are in the world is…

Answer 9

Where your brain is

Question 10

What is maths described as?

Answer 10

The most abstract of reasoning systems

Question 11

How is the body used to aid with abstract reasoning?

Answer 11

Physical things such as fingers and the abacus are used to do abstract reasoning such as math sums and counting

Question 12

What is the idea of embodied cognition?

Answer 12

Physical body motions change the way we think and feel. Therefore, the brain and the body act as a single unit.

Question 13

What’s and example of both the brain and the body working together?

Answer 13

Walking without crashing, don’t take in all possible input and process it with every step instead use experience of environment to help.

Question 14

What is optic flow? How can it be used to walk without crashing?

Answer 14

• Visual sensation of movement
• When you move through space the stuff closer to you seems to move faster
• Move and don’t crash by keeping the optic flow on both sides the same

Question 15

What does optic flow mean?

Answer 15

There is no need to build a model in the brain of the environment

Question 16

Where is our memory?

Answer 16

In the brain

Question 17

Can memory be stored in the environment? How might this be useful?

Answer 17

e.g when cleaning dishes don’t need to remember what every single clean dish looks like just have to know that on the left is dirty and on the right is clean

Question 18

What is the name of the theory that memory can be stored in the environment?

Answer 18

Situated cognition:

• The border between the environment, body and mind is fuzzy
• our actions change the environment and the environment changes us

Question 19

What is the conclusion? What is this called?

Answer 19

• Your brain, body and the environment are a single coordinated system
• This is called embodied, situated cognition