Classical Symbolic Cognitive ScienceReplies to Embodied Cognition

Michael J. SpiveyDepartment of Cognitive ScienceUniversity of California, Merced

16th International Summer School in Cognitive Science, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2009

Feedforward Linear Filtering

Raw Input

Raw Input

Output

Homunculus Problem

External W

orld

Behavior

Stim

ulus Features

Obje cts /C

onc epts

Interna lized World

Mind Inside the M

ind?!

The Bottleneck of Movement

Detection RecognitionResponseSelection

The Bottleneck of Movement

Detection RecognitionResponseSelection

The Bottleneck of Movement

RecognitionResponseSelection

ResponseSelection

The Bottleneck of Movement

Population Codesfor movement

discrete

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

discrete

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

symbols discrete

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

populationcodes

discrete

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

populationcodes

graded

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

populationcodes

graded

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

populationcodes

graded

The Bottleneck of Movement

Perceptual Cognitive Motor

populationcodes

populationcodes

Movement

symbols discrete

SHRDLU (Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

(Winograd, 1970)

Will you please stack upboth of the red blocksand either a green cubeor a pyramid.

SHRDLU (Winograd, 1970)

Will you please stack upboth of the red blocksand either a green cubeor a pyramid.

SHRDLU

OK.Which cube is sitting onthe table?

The large green one which supports the red pyramid.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

Put a small cube onto the green cube which supports a pyramid.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

Put a small cube onto the green cube which supports a pyramid.

OK.Put the littlest pyramidon top of it.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

Put a small cube onto the green cube which supports a pyramid.

OK.Put the littlest pyramidon top of it.

OK.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLUHow many things are on topof the green cubes?I’m not sure what you mean by “on top of” in the phrase “on top of thegreen cubes.”Do you mean:1-Directly on the surface2-Anywhere on top?2Three of them.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLUHave you touched any pyramid before you putthe green one on the little cube?

Yes, the green one.

When did you pick it up?

While I was stacking up the red cube, a large red block, and a large green cube.Why?To get rid of it.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLUWhy did you do that?

To clear it off the red cube.

Why did you clear off that cube?

To put it on a large green cube.

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

Why did you do that?

To stack up the red cube, alarge red block, and a large green cube.

Why did you do that?

Because you asked me to,you stupid jerk!

(Winograd, 1970)

SHRDLU

Why did you do that?

To stack up the red cube, alarge red block, and a large green cube.

Why did you do that?

Because you asked me to.

(Winograd, 1970)

Perceptual SimulationsZwaan, Stanfield & Yaxley (2001)

The ranger saw the eagle in the sky.The ranger saw the eagle in the nest.

Kaup, Yaxley, Madden, Zwaan & Lüdtke(2006)

Kaup, Lüdtke, & Zwaan (2006)

In a Commentary on Hubert Dreyfus’s bookWhat Computers Still Can’t Do (1972),Zenon Pylyshyn (1974) wrote:But the point which needs to be understood (as it is well understood by Piaget) is that the importance of the body is in the genesis of intelligence and not in its eventual practice. By the time he is an adult, a person’s intelligence depends on him possessing a body only in the obvious sense that his body contains the mechanisms in which intelligence is realized and provides the means for perception, locomotion, etc. To claim otherwise is to suggest that a person who is paralyzed has lost his intelligence!

Many studies have demonstrated that the sensory and motor systems are activated during conceptual processing. Such results have been interpreted as indicating that concepts, and important aspects of cognition more broadly, are embodied. That conclusion does not follow from the empirical evidence. The reason why is that the empirical evidence can equally be accommodated by a “disembodied” view of conceptual representation that makes explicit assumptions about spreading activation between the conceptual and sensory and motor systems.

At the same time, the strong form of the embodied cognition hypothesis is at variance with currently available neuropsychological evidence. We suggest a middle ground between the embodied and disembodied cognition hypotheses -- grounding by interaction. This hypothesis combines the view that concepts are, at some level, “abstract” and “symbolic”, with the idea that sensory and motor information may “instantiate” online conceptual processing.

Mahon & Caramazza (2008)

ConceptsHaptic

Oculomotor

Visual

Oro-Facial

Auditory

Linguistic

Skeletalmotor

Memory

A Spreading Activation Account ofSensorimotor Influences in Cognition

There is More to Cognition than Stimulus-Response Compatibility

Markman & Brendl (2005)Push/Pull response to pos/neg words (a la Chen & Bargh, 1999)

Louwerse (2008)

attic

basement

Iconicity effects on semantic relatedness judgments (a la Zwaan & Yaxley, 2003)

basement

attic

ConceptsHaptic

Oculomotor

Visual

Oro-Facial

Auditory

Linguistic

Skeletalmotor

Memory

A Spreading Activation Account ofSensorimotor Influences in Cognition