Stepping on Obstacles with a Sensory Substitution Device on the Lower Leg: Practice without Vision Is More Beneficial than Practice with Vision

Lobo, Lorena; Travieso, David; Barrientos, Antonio; Jacobs, David M.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098801

Cited by 17 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Kugler & Turvey, 1987; Thelen & Smith, 2006), with some incorporating tools as well (e.g. Dotov, Nie, & Chemero, 2010; Favela, Riley, Shockley, & Chemero, 2018; Froese, McGann, Bigge, Spiers, & Seth, 2012; Lobo, Travieso, Barrientos, & Jacobs, 2014; Wagman & Hajnal, 2016). It should not be particularly controversial to understand such research on affordances and tool use as being ecological and embodied in nature.…”

Section: A Framework For Understanding Perceptual Learning In Softmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As mentioned above, Wagman and Hajnal’s (2016) case for soft-assembled systems could be bolstered if participants’ movements were recorded and analyzed, as could other action-perception-oriented research that has appealed to soft-assembly but did not analyze movement data (e.g. Lobo et al, 2014). However, what sets the current framework on offer apart from previous work is its attempt to incorporate machine intelligence as well, while still maintaining commitments to ecological and embodied principles.…”

Section: A Framework For Understanding Perceptual Learning In Softmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soft-assembled human–machine perceptual systems

Favela

2019

Adaptive Behavior

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Cognitive systems are highly adaptable and flexible, such that action and perception capabilities can be achieved with the body in various ways, and incorporate features of the environment and nonbiological tools. Perceptual learning refers to enduring changes to a system’s ability to perceive and respond to environmental stimuli. Here I present an integrative framework for understanding how such capabilities occur in human–machine systems comprising brain–body–tool–environment interactions. Central to this work is the claim that the capacity for high degrees of adaptation, flexibility, and learning are possible because human–machine systems are soft-assembled systems, that is, systems whose material constitution is not rigidly constrained so as to achieve goals via a variety of configurations. I begin by presenting the foundations of the framework on offer: the concepts, methods, and theories of ecological psychology; embodied cognition; dynamical systems theory; and machine intelligence. Next, I apply the framework to the case of visually-guided action. I conclude by explaining how this framework provides the explanatory and investigative tools to understand human–machine perceptual systems as soft-assembled systems that span brains-bodies-tools-environments.

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Section: A Framework For Understanding Perceptual Learning In Softmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Framework For Understanding Perceptual Learning In Softmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft-assembled human–machine perceptual systems

Favela

2019

Adaptive Behavior

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“…A substantial number of SSDs and experiments with SSDs have been oriented toward the recognition of objects and the perception of properties of objects such as their shape or size [ 8 – 13 ]. Our research is more aligned with SSD-based studies that address action-related tasks such as locomotion toward targets [ 14 , 15 ], collision avoidance [ 16 , 17 ], stepping on ground-level objects [ 18 ], or the perception of the direction and location of objects [ 19 – 21 ]. Relatedly, we believe that it would be fruitful to base research in the field of sensory substitution on the inherently action-related theory of affordances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another fundamental issue for research in the field of sensory substitution is the process of learning to use SSDs [ 18 , 20 , 39 , 40 ]. A substantial number of studies on sensory substitution included practice phases in which participants used SSDs together with regular vision.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory substitution: The affordance of passability, body-scaled perception, and exploratory movements

et al. 2019

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The theory of affordances states that perception is of environmental properties that are relevant to action-capabilities of perceivers. The present study illustrates how concepts and methodological tools from the theory of affordances may help to advance research in the field of sensory substitution. The sensory substitution device (SSD) that was used consisted of two horizontal rows of 12 coin motors that each vibrated as a function of the distance to the nearest object. Sixty blindfolded participants used the SSD to explore virtual horizontal apertures with different widths. They were asked to judge the passability of the apertures. Participants with narrow shoulders judged narrower apertures as passable than participants with wide shoulders. This difference disappeared when aperture width was scaled to shoulder width, demonstrating that perception was body scaled. The actual aperture width was closely related to aspects of the exploratory movements and to aspects of the vibrotactile stimulation that was obtained with the exploratory movements. This implies that the exploratory movements themselves and the vibrotactile stimulation were both informative about the aperture width, and hence that the perception of passability may have been based on either of them or on a global variable that spans vibrotactile as well as kinaesthetic stimulation. Similar performance was observed for participants who accomplished the 7-trial familiarization phase with or without vision, meaning that practice with vision is not indispensable to learn to use the SSD.

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“…13 "Ecological information cannot be transmitted: it is ambient and available, not something put over a channel; it is something to be detected or used (or not) in regulating action…Information pick up is not a process of "internalizing" information" (Reed, 1996, p. 155). 14 For more examples of sensory substitution devices applied to research in ecological psychology, see Lobo et al (2014Lobo et al ( , 2018. 15 It is worth mentioning that some Gibsonians have proposed that the concept of information needs to be expanded so as to include variables that do not relate to the environment in a lawful (1:1) manner (Chemero, 2009;Golonka, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Ecological psychology is radical enough: A reply to radical enactivists

Segundo-Ortin

Heras–Escribano

Raja

2019

Philosophical Psychology

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Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, antirepresentational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its 'pick up' in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be "RECtified" so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. Abbreviations: EP = Ecological Psychology REC = Radical Enactivism.Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its 'pick up' in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be "RECtified" so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified.

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Stepping on Obstacles with a Sensory Substitution Device on the Lower Leg: Practice without Vision Is More Beneficial than Practice with Vision

Cited by 17 publications

References 33 publications

Soft-assembled human–machine perceptual systems

Soft-assembled human–machine perceptual systems

Sensory substitution: The affordance of passability, body-scaled perception, and exploratory movements

Ecological psychology is radical enough: A reply to radical enactivists

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