Theoretical strategies for an embodied cognitive neuroscience: Mechanistic explanations of brain-body-environment systems.

Cognitive neuroscience seeks to explain mind, brain, and behavior. But how do we generate explanations? In this integrative theoretical paper, we review the commitments of the 'New Mechanist' movement within the philosophy of science, focusing specifically on the role of mechanistic models in scientific explanation. We highlight how this approach differs from other explanatory approaches within the field, showing its unique contributions to the efforts of scientific explanation.

Representing creative thought: A representational similarity analysis of creative idea generation and evaluation.

Dual process theories of creativity suggest that creative thought is supported by both a generation phase, where unconstrained ideas are generated and combined in novel ways, and an evaluation phase, where those ideas are filtered for usefulness in context. Neurocognitively, both the default mode network (DMN) and the executive control network (ECN) have been implicated in generation and evaluation, respectively. Importantly, generating and evaluating ideas implies that the same information, reflected in patterns of neural activity, must be present in both phases, suggesting that information should be 'reinstated' (i.

God in body and space: Investigating the sensorimotor grounding of abstract concepts.

concepts are defined as concepts that cannot be experienced directly through the sensorimotor modalities. Explaining our understanding of such concepts poses a challenge to neurocognitive models of knowledge. One account of how these concepts come to be represented is that sensorimotor representations of grounded experiences are reactivated in a way that is constitutive of the abstract concept.

Context-sensitive computational mechanistic explanation in cognitive neuroscience.

Mainstream cognitive neuroscience aims to build mechanistic explanations of behavior by mapping abilities described at the organismal level the subpersonal level of computation onto specific brain networks. We provide an integrative review of these commitments and their mismatch with empirical research findings. Context-dependent neural tuning, neural reuse, degeneracy, plasticity, functional recovery, and the neural correlates of enculturated skills each show that there is a lack of stable mappings between organismal, computational, and neural levels of analysis.

A novel coding scheme for assessing responses in divergent thinking: An embodied approach.

In the present study we devised a novel coding scheme for responses generated in a divergent thinking task. Based on considerations from behavioural and neurocognitive research from an embodied perspective, our scheme aims to capture dimensions of simulations of action or the body. In an exploratory investigation, we applied our novel coding scheme to analyze responses from a previously published dataset of divergent thinking responses.

Neural correlates of the production effect: An fMRI study.

Recognition memory is improved for items produced at study (e.g., by reading them aloud) relative to a non-produced control condition (e.

Scene context shapes category representational geometry during processing of tools.

Tools are ubiquitous in human environments and to think about them we use concepts. Increasingly, conceptual representation is thought to be dynamic and sensitive to the goals of the observer. Indeed, observer goals can reshape representational geometry within cortical networks supporting concepts.

The role of the motor system in generating creative thoughts.

Neurocognitive research is pertinent to developing mechanistic models of how humans generate creative thoughts. Such models usually overlook the role of the motor cortex in creative thinking. The framework of embodied or grounded cognition suggests that creative thoughts (e.

Investigating grounded conceptualization: Stimulus-response compatibility for tool handles is due to spatial attention.

Brain imaging research shows that viewing tools activates regions of the cortex implicated in performing actions with that tool. Grounded (or embodied) theories of cognition propose that this activity reflects the activation of motor representations that are constitutive of the object concept. Behaviorally, participants respond faster with the hand that is aligned with the handle of an object.

Embodied object concepts: The contribution of structural and functional manipulability depends on available visual information.

Object identification is driven, in part, by the extent to which we have sensorimotor experience with the object. Importantly, the activation of embodied object representations depends on contextual information. In the present study, we use a visual masking paradigm to investigate how the availability of visual information modulates the role of manipulability in the representation of object concepts.

Investigating grounded conceptualization: motor system state-dependence facilitates familiarity judgments of novel tools.

Theories of embodied cognition propose that we recognize tools in part by reactivating sensorimotor representations of tool use in a process of simulation. If motor simulations play a causal role in tool recognition then performing a concurrent motor task should differentially modulate recognition of experienced vs. non-experienced tools.

Differential Tuning of Ventral and Dorsal Streams during the Generation of Common and Uncommon Tool Uses.

Our use of tools is situated in different contexts. Prior evidence suggests that diverse regions within the ventral and dorsal streams represent information supporting common tool use. However, given the flexibility of object concepts, these regions may be tuned to different types of information when generating novel or uncommon uses of tools.

Photographs of manipulable objects are named more quickly than the same objects depicted as line-drawings: Evidence that photographs engage embodiment more than line-drawings.

Previous research has shown that photographs of manipulable objects (i.e., those that can be grasped for use with one hand) are named more quickly than non-manipulable objects when they have been matched for object familiarity and age of acquisition.

Accessing embodied object representations from vision: A review.

Theories of embodied cognition (EC) propose that object concepts are represented by reactivations of sensorimotor experiences of different objects. Abundant research from linguistic paradigms provides support for the notion that sensorimotor simulations are involved in cognitive tasks like comprehension. However, it is unclear whether object concepts, as accessed from the visual presentation of objects, are embodied.

Handles of manipulable objects attract covert visual attention: ERP evidence.

Previous research has demonstrated that people are faster at making a manual response with the hand that is aligned with the handle of a manipulable object compared to its functional end. According to theories of embodied cognition (ETC), the presentation of a manipulable object automatically elicits sensorimotor simulations of the respective hand and these simulations facilitate the response. However, an alternative interpretation of these data is that handles preferentially attract visual attention, since attended stimuli and locations typically elicit faster responses.

Testing the embodied account of object naming: a concurrent motor task affects naming artifacts and animals.

Embodied theories of object representation propose that the same neural networks are involved in encoding and retrieving object knowledge. In the present study, we investigated whether motor programs play a causal role in the retrieval of object names. Participants performed an object-naming task while squeezing a sponge with either their right or left hand.

A test of the embodied simulation theory of object perception: potentiation of responses to artifacts and animals.

Theories of embodied object representation predict a tight association between sensorimotor processes and visual processing of manipulable objects. Previous research has shown that object handles can 'potentiate' a manual response (i.e.

The development of social learning in interactive and observational contexts.

From the first year of life, imitative learning readily occurs in contexts where a demonstrator directly interacts with infants (i.e., "interactive contexts"), and at least by 18 months, imitation will also occur in third-party or observational contexts where infants witness a demonstration by another person that is not directed at them.

A computer-generated face database with ratings on realism, masculinity, race, and stereotypy.

Ratings of realism, masculinity, race, and racial stereotypy were collected on a set of computer-generated faces representing European, South East Asian, and African American ethnicities. To determine if these faces are processed in the same way as photographs of real faces, we demonstrated with these faces superior memory performance for upright faces over inverted faces (the face inversion effect). Further, in observers of European decent, we found both superior memory for European faces and a larger inversion effect for European than African American faces.

Neuropsychological dissociations between motion and form perception suggest functional organization in extrastriate cortical regions in the human brain.

In this review of neuropsychological case studies, a number of dissociations are shown between different visual abilities including low-level motion perception, static form perception, form-from-motion perception and biological motion perception. These dissociations reveal counter-intuitive results. Specifically, higher level form-from-motion perception can persist despite deficits in low-level motion perception and static form perception.

A contextual effect of 2nd-order configural processing of non-face objects by non-experts.

We investigated here the detection of 2nd-order configural relations both in faces and in non-face objects. In experiment 1 it was shown that observers were more sensitive to feature displacements in upright faces and houses than in inverted faces and houses. The presence of an inversion effect in the house stimuli suggested that 2nd-order relational processing was applied to the non-face stimuli.