•  4
    Strategic Task Decomposition in Joint Action
    with Jeremy Gordon and Guenther Knoblich
    Cognitive Science 47 (7). 2023.
    The core of human cooperation is people's ability to perform joint actions. Frequently, this requires effectively decomposing a joint task into individual subtasks, for example, when jointly shopping at the market to buy food. Surprisingly, little is known about how collaborators balance the costs of establishing a joint strategy for such decompositions and its expected benefits for a joint goal. We created a new online task that required pairs of randomly matched participants to jointly collect…Read more
  •  10
    A Goal-Directed Bayesian Framework for Categorization
    with Francesco Rigoli, Raymond Dolan, and Karl Friston
    Frontiers in Psychology 8. 2017.
  •  10
    Evidence for entropy maximisation in human free choice behaviour
    with Natalie Rens, Gian Luca Lancia, Mattia Eluchans, Philipp Schwartenbeck, and Ross Cunnington
    Cognition 232 (C): 105328. 2023.
  •  15
    Perception and misperception of bodily symptoms from an active inference perspective: Modelling the case of panic disorder
    with Domenico Maisto, Laura Barca, and Omer Van den Bergh
    Psychological Review 128 (4): 690-710. 2021.
  •  28
    Predictive processing theories are increasingly popular in philosophy of mind; such process theories often gain support from the Free Energy Principle —a normative principle for adaptive self-organized systems. Yet there is a current and much discussed debate about conflicting philosophical interpretations of FEP, e.g., representational versus non-representational. Here we argue that these different interpretations depend on implicit assumptions about what qualifies as representational. We deplo…Read more
  •  14
    Social epistemic actions
    with Laura Barca, Domenico Maisto, and Francesco Donnarumma
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43. 2020.
    We consider the ways humans engage in social epistemic actions, to guide each other's attention, prediction, and learning processes towards salient information, at the timescale of online social interaction and joint action. This parallels the active guidance of other's attention, prediction, and learning processes at the longer timescale of niche construction and cultural practices, as discussed in the target article.
  •  51
    What is the function of cognition? On one influential account, cognition evolved to co-ordinate behaviour with environmental change or complexity. Liberal interpretations of this view ascribe cognition to an extraordinarily broad set of biological systems—even bacteria, which modulate their activity in response to salient external cues, would seem to qualify as cognitive agents. However, equating cognition with adaptive flexibility per se glosses over important distinctions in the way biological…Read more
  •  2
    Sensorimotor Coarticulation in the Execution and Recognition of Intentional Actions
    with Francesco Donnarumma and Haris Dindo
    Frontiers in Psychology 8. 2017.
  •  8
    Tracking the Time Course of Bayesian Inference With Event-Related Potentials:A Study Using the Central Cue Posner Paradigm
    with Carlos M. Gómez, Antonio Arjona, Francesco Donnarumma, Domenico Maisto, and Elena I. Rodríguez-Martínez
    Frontiers in Psychology 10. 2019.
  •  57
    The value of uncertainty: An active inference perspective
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42. 2019.
  •  19
    Feel the Time. Time Perception as a Function of Interoceptive Processing
    with Daniele Di Lernia, Silvia Serino, Elisa Pedroli, Pietro Cipresso, and Giuseppe Riva
    Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 12. 2018.
  •  17
    The influence of communication mode on written language processing and beyond
    with Laura Barca
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40. 2017.
    Empirical evidence suggests a broad impact of communication mode on cognition at large, beyond language processing. Using a sign language since infancy might shape the representation of words and other linguistic stimuli – for example, incorporating in it the movements and signs used to express them. Once integrated into linguistic representations, this visuo-motor content can affect deaf signers’ linguistic and cognitive processing.
  •  10
    The sensorimotor and social sides of the architecture of speech
    with Laura Barca and Alessando D'Ausilio
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (6): 569-570. 2014.
  •  9
    Prospective and Pavlovian mechanisms in aversive behaviour
    with Francesco Rigoli and Raymond J. Dolan
    Cognition 146 415-425. 2016.
  • Il continuum percezione - Rappresentazione - Spiegazione
    Nuova Civiltà Delle Macchine 17 (4): 72-91. 1999.
  •  28
    Dynamic computation and context effects in the hybrid architecture akira
    with Gianguglielmo Calvi
    In R. Turner D. Leake B. Kokinov A. Dey (ed.), Modeling and Using Context, Springer. pp. 368--381. 2005.
  •  6
    Intentional strategies that make co-actors more predictable: the case of signaling
    with Haris Dindo
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (4): 371-372. 2013.
    Pickering & Garrod (P&G) explain dialogue dynamics in terms of forward modeling and prediction-by-simulation mechanisms. Their theory dissolves a strict segregation between production and comprehension processes, and it links dialogue to action-based theories of joint action. We propose that the theory can also incorporate intentional strategies that increase communicative success: for example, signaling strategies that help remaining predictable and forming common ground
  •  49
    Topological Self‐Organization and Prediction Learning Support Both Action and Lexical Chains in the Brain
    with Fabian Chersi, Marcello Ferro, and Vito Pirrelli
    Topics in Cognitive Science 6 (3): 476-491. 2014.
    A growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology and neuroscience suggests a deep interconnection between sensory-motor and language systems in the brain. Based on recent neurophysiological findings on the anatomo-functional organization of the fronto-parietal network, we present a computational model showing that language processing may have reused or co-developed organizing principles, functionality, and learning mechanisms typical of premotor circuit. The proposed model combines principles …Read more
  •  4
    Two Basic Agreements and Two Doubts
    Constructivist Foundations 4 (1): 20-21. 2008.
    Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: One intriguing concept that the author introduces and uses throughout the paper is the idea of an “anticipatory drive,” which is described as explaining the systematic tendency to develop anticipatory capabilities that ultimately support goal-oriented action. Although the idea of a common mechanism that explains a multitude of capabilities can be appreciated, i…Read more
  •  82
    We propose a view of embodied representations that is alternative to both symbolic/linguistic approaches and purely sensorimotor views of cognition, and can account for procedural and declarative knowledge manipulation. In accordance with recent evidence in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, we argue that anticipatory and simulative mechanisms, which arose during evolution for action control and not for cognition, determined the first form of representational content and were exapted for inc…Read more
  •  32
    Shared Representations as Coordination Tools for Interaction
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2 (2): 303-333. 2011.
    Why is interaction so simple? This article presents a theory of interaction based on the use of shared representations as “coordination tools” (e.g., roundabouts that facilitate coordination of drivers). By aligning their representations (intentionally or unintentionally), interacting agents help one another to solve interaction problems in that they remain predictable, and offer cues for action selection and goal monitoring. We illustrate how this strategy works in a joint task (building togeth…Read more
  •  22
    Active inference and cognitive-emotional interactions in the brain
    with Laura Barca and Karl J. Friston
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 38. 2015.
  •  13
    To be successful, the research agenda for a novel control view of cognition should foresee more detailed, computationally specified process models of cognitive operations including higher cognition. These models should cover all domains of cognition, including those cognitive abilities that can be characterized as online interactive loops and detached forms of cognition that depend on internally generated neuronal processing.
  •  15
    Goals reconfigure cognition by modulating predictive processes in the brain
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (2): 154-155. 2014.
    I applaud Huang & Bargh's theory that places goals at the center of cognition, and I discuss two ingredients missing from that theory. First, I argue that the brains of organisms much simpler than those of humans are already configured for goal achievement in situated interactions. Second, I propose a mechanistic view of the “reconfiguration principle” that links the theory with current views in computational neuroscience.
  •  15
    This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmentalpathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internalmodeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple actionalternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of execu…Read more
  •  123
    Coordinating with the future: The anticipatory nature of representation (review)
    Minds and Machines 18 (2): 179-225. 2008.
    Humans and other animals are able not only to coordinate their actions with their current sensorimotor state, but also to imagine, plan and act in view of the future, and to realize distal goals. In this paper we discuss whether or not their future-oriented conducts imply (future-oriented) representations. We illustrate the role played by anticipatory mechanisms in natural and artificial agents, and we propose a notion of representation that is grounded in the agent’s predictive capabilities. Th…Read more