Self-directedness, integration and higher cognition

Abstract

In this paper I discuss connections between self-directedness, integration and higher cognition. I present a model of self-directedness as a basis for approaching higher cognition from a situated cognition perspective. According to this model increases in sensorimotor complexity create pressure for integrative higher order control and learning processes for acquiring information about the context in which action occurs. This generates complex articulated abstractive information processing, which forms the major basis for higher cognition. I present evidence that indicates that the same integrative characteristics found in lower cognitive process such as motor adaptation are present in a range of higher cognitive process, including conceptual learning. This account helps explain situated cognition phenomena in humans because the integrative processes by which the brain adapts to control interaction are relatively agnostic concerning the source of the structure participating in the process. Thus, from the perspective of the motor control system using a tool is not fundamentally different to simply controlling an arm.

Interaction and bio-cognitive order

“…These capacities are characterised by an increasingly sophisticated regulation of error feedback that constitutes an internalization of the VSR process (Bickhard 2001(Bickhard , 2002. 34 Still less abstracted is the investigation of the evolution of 'bauplans' for sophisticated organisms and their potential cognitive significance (Moreno and Ruiz-Mirazo 1999;Moreno and Lasa 2003), and more specific again is the investigation of integrative neural regulation and its evolution pursued by Christensen (2004Christensen ( , 2006. While neither of these latter studies are pursued here, they are where the bulk of detailed empirical realisations of interactivist organisation will be revealed (or not) and, though there is initial empirical support for the abstracted conception presented here, 35 they are where the precise sense in which it is a valid approximation to reality will be determined.…”

Bio-agency and the problem of action

“…See e.g. Christensen and Hooker (2000b) for some material on the rise of self-directedness and 2002 for the dual integration of intentionality and intelligence, Christensen (2004) for an introduction to integrated executive control, and Farrell and Hooker (2007a, b)on the same processes in science itself.…”

Modeling user context with applications to media retrieval

“…Most recent attempts on knowledge representation and context modeling fall into one of the two categories namely the logical representation [7,21] and statistical representation [24,33]. The logical representations are mostly driven by linguistic interpretations and the construction of meaning in language.…”

“…Earlier work on determining context of concepts in ontology has used activation spreading [7,8]. Thus the context in these cases is static as opposed to real situations where the context changes with time.…”