Wayne David Christensen

In recent years, a number of approaches to social cognition research have emerged that highlight the importance of embodied interaction for social cognition (Reddy, How infants know minds, 2008; Gallagher, J Conscious Stud 8:83–108, 2001; Fuchs and Jaegher, Phenom Cogn Sci 8:465–486, 2009; Hutto, in Seemans (ed.) Joint attention: new developments in psychology, philosophy of mind and social neuroscience, 2012). Proponents of such ‘interactionist’ approaches emphasize the importance of embodied responses that are engaged in online social interaction, and which, according to interactionists, present an alternative to mindreading as a source of social understanding. We agree that it is important to take embodied interaction seriously, but do not agree that this presents a fundamental challenge to mainstream mindreading approaches. Drawing upon an analogy between embodied interaction and the exercise of expert skills, we advocate a hierarchical view which claims that embodied social responses generally operate in close conjunction with higher-level cognitive processes that play a coordinative role, and which are often sensitive to mental states. Thus, investigation of embodied responses should inform rather than conflict with research on mindreading.

Tim van Gelder, following Brandom, Collins and others, uses the so‐called wide content of capacities which support social, norm governed activities, such as language, to argue for their anti‐natural, abstract, but socially instituted nature and thence for the failure of the entire traditional mind‐body discussion as ill‐posed. We argue that his former conclusion is wrong, that such properties are naturalisable, complicated organisational properties of the complexly organised, non‐linearly interactive systems that human beings are. This analysis also provides principled support, but on other grounds, for van Gelder’s latter conclusion. We outline a new naturalist approach to the organisational capacities of such systems that is intended to ground their biological, cognitive and social characters.

Standard approaches to cognition emphasise structures (representations and rules) much more than processes, in part because this appears to be necessary to capture the normative features of cognition. However the resultant models are inflexible and face the problem of computational intractability. I argue that the ability of real world cognition to cope with complexity results from deep and subtle coupling between cognitive and non-cognitive processes. In order to capture this, theories of cognition must shift from a structural rule-defined conception of cognition to a thoroughgoing embedded process approach.

Much work on the sense of agency has focused either on abnormal cases, such as delusions of control, or on simple action tasks in the laboratory. Few studies address the nature of the sense of agency in complex natural settings, or the effect of skill on the sense of agency. Working from 2 case studies of mountain bike riding, we argue that the sense of agency in high-skill individuals incorporates awareness of multiple causal influences on action outcomes. This allows fine-grained differentiation of the contributions of self and external factors to action outcomes. We further argue that the sense of agency incorporates prospective awareness of actions that are possible in a situation and awareness of the limits of control. These forms of sense of agency enable highly flexible, context-sensitive strategic control, and are likely to contribute to high interindividual variability in responses to complex tasks.

B eginning with the problem of integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives on moral cognition, we argue that the various disciplines have an interest in developing a common conceptual framework for moral cognition research. We discuss issues arising in the other chapters in this volume that might serve as focal points for future investigation and as the basis for the eventual development of such a framework. These include the role of theory in binding together diverse phenomena and the role of philosophy in the construction of moral theory. We discuss the problem of distinguishing descriptive and normative issues and the importance of systematic normative analysis for empirical research. We argue that theories of cognitive architecture should play an important role as a backdrop for investigation into specific aspects of moral cognition, and we consider some of the taxonomic issues that will arise for moral cognition research, including types of moral agents, forms of moral cognition, and the nature of morality itself. Finally, we discuss some key issues in moral development, including the importance of..

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation or external design.Self-directedness lies at the nexus of issues concerning the evolution and nature of intentionality, intelligence, and agency. It provides some insight into the evolution of intelligence because it helps explain how organisms are able to manage variable interaction processes, e.g., a hunting strategy that varies with prey type, ground condition, and hunger level. Simple self-directed organisms like bumblebees manage variability in one or a few dimensions.

Understanding when it is acceptable to interrupt a joint activity is an important part of understanding what cooperation entails. Philosophical analyses have suggested that we should release our partner from a joint activity anytime the activity conflicts with fulfilling a moral obligation. To probe young children’s understanding of this aspect, we investigated whether 3-year-old children (N = 60) are sensitive to the legitimacy of motives (selfish condition vs. moral condition) leading agents to intentionally interrupt their joint activity. We measured whether children protested or released their partner by scoring their reactions. Our results indicate that children did not manifest different reactions when the motive behind their partner leaving was moral than when the motive was selfish. However, our data showed a stable pattern: regardless of the partner’s motives, some 3-year-olds take initiatives to release their partners from joint activity, suggesting that measuring release is a valuable tool for investigating joint action.

Expert skill in music performance involves an apparent paradox. On stage, expert musicians are required accurately to retrieve information that has been encoded over hours of practice. Yet they must also remain open to the demands of the ever-changing situational contingencies with which they are faced during performance. To further explore this apparent paradox and the way in which it is negotiated by expert musicians, this article profiles theories presented by Roger Chaffin, Hubert Dreyfus and Tony and Helga Noice. For Chaffin, expert skill in music performance relies solely upon overarching mental representations, while, for Dreyfus, such representations are needed only by novices, while experts rely on a more embodied form of coping. Between Chaffin and Dreyfus sit the Noices, who argue that both overarching cognitive structures and embodied processes underlie expert skill. We then present the Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes approach—a differently nuanced model of expert skill aligned with the integrative spirit of the Noices’ research. The AIR approach suggests that musicians negotiate the apparent paradox of expert skill via a mindedness that allows flexibility of attention during music performance. We offer data from recent doctoral research conducted by the first author of this article to demonstrate at a practical level the usefulness of the AIR approach when attempting to understand the complexities of expert skill in music performance.

Kinds of minds, Daniel Dennett. New York: Basic Books, 1996. ISBN 0–465–07350–6Darwin's dangerous idea: evolution and the meanings of life, Daniel C. Dennett. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0–684–80290–2The cognitive neurosciences, Michael S. Gazzaniga (Ed.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0–262–07157–6Lessons from an optical illusion: on nature and nurture, knowledge and values, Edward M. Hundert. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–674–52540‐XWittgenstein on mind and language, David G. Stern, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–19–508000–9Ten problems of consciousness: a representational theory of the phenomenal mind, Michael Tye. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN: 0–262–20103–8Android epistemology, K.M. Ford, C. Glymour & P.J. Hayes (Eds). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0–262–06184–8Autonomous agents, Alfred R. Mele. Oxford University Press, 1995.

We present a synthetic theory of skilled action which proposes that cognitive processes make an important contribution to almost all skilled action, contrary to influential views that many skills are performed largely automatically. Cognitive control is focused on strategic aspects of performance, and plays a greater role as difficulty increases. We offer an analysis of various forms of skill experience and show that the theory provides a better explanation for the full set of these experiences than automatic theories. We further show that the theory can explain experimental evidence for skill automaticity, including evidence that secondary tasks do not interfere with expert performance, and evidence that experts have reduced memory for performance of sensorimotor skills.

We investigate flexibility and problem solving in skilled action. We conducted a field study of mountain bike riding that required a learner rider to cope with major changes in technique and equipment. Our results indicate that relatively inexperienced individuals can be capable of fairly complex 'on-the-fly' problem solving which allows them to cope with new conditions. This problem solving is hard to explain for classical theories of skill because the adjustments are too large to be achieved by automatic mechanisms and too complex and rapid to be achieved by cognitive processes as they are usually understood. A recent theory, Mesh, can explain these results because it posits that skill-specific cognitive abilities develop during skill learning and that control typically involves an interplay between cognitive and automatic mechanisms. Here we develop Mesh further, providing a detailed explanation for these problem solving abilities. We argue that causal representation, metacognitive awareness and other forms of performance awareness combine in the formulation and control of action strategies. We also argue that the structure of control present in this case is inconsistent with Bratman's model of intentions, and that, in the face of high uncertainty and risk, intentions can be much more labile than Bratman recognises. In addition, we found limitations and flaws in problem solving which illuminate the representations involved. Finally, we highlight the crucial role of social and cultural learning in the development of complex skills.

The nature of the cognition-motor interface has been brought to prominence by Butterfill & Sinigaglia, who argue that the representations employed by the cognitive and motor systems should not be able to interact with each other. Here I argue that recent empirical evidence concerning the interface contradicts several of the assumptions incorporated in Butterfill & Sinigaglia’s account, and I seek to develop a theoretical picture that will allow us to explain the structure of the interface presented by this evidence. The central idea is that neural plasticity incorporates metarepresentational rules for constructing representational systems and linking them. The structure of the cognition-motor interface is constructed flexibly during development and skill learning based on information processing demands.

In keeping with the dominant view that skills are largely automatic, the standard view of memory systems distinguishes between a representational declarative system associated with cognitive processes and a performance-based procedural system. The procedural system is thought to be largely responsible for the performance of well-learned skilled actions. Here we argue that most skills do not fully automate, which entails that the declarative system should make a substantial contribution to skilled performance. To support this view, we review evidence showing that the declarative system does indeed play a number of roles in skilled action.

‘There is no place in the phenomenology of fully absorbed coping’, writes Hubert Dreyfus, ‘for mindfulness. In flow, as Sartre sees, there are only attractive and repulsive forces drawing appropriate activity out of an active body’1. Among the many ways in which history animates dynamical systems at a range of distinctive timescales, the phenomena of embodied human habit, skilful movement, and absorbed coping are among the most pervasive and mundane, and the most philosophically puzzling. In this essay we examine both habitual and skilled movement, sketching the outlines of a multidimensional framework within which the many differences across distinctive cases and domains might be fruitfully understood. Both the range of movement phenomena which can plausibly be seen as instances of habit or skill, and the space of possible theories of such phenomena are richer and more disparate than philosophy easily encompasses. We seek to bring phenomenology into contact with relevant movements in psychological theories of skilful action, in the belief that phenomenological philosophy and cognitive science can be allies rather than antagonists

How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research suggests that the key to this skill is a declarative mental roadmap aiding musical performance. This hypothesis is neatly and unintentionally summarized by professional pianist Imreh, who states when learning a new piece of music “My fingers were playing the notes just fine. The practice I needed was in my head. I had to learn to keep track of where I was. It was a matter of learning exactly what I needed to be thinking of as I played, and at exactly what point.

Standard approaches to cognition emphasise structures (representations and rules) much more than processes, in part because this appears to be necessary to capture the normative features of cognition. However the resultant models are inflexible and face the problem of computational intractability. I argue that the ability of real world cognition to cope with complexity results from deep and subtle coupling between cognitive and non-cognitive processes. In order to capture this, theories of cognition must shift from a structural rule-defined conception of cognition to a thoroughgoing embedded process approach.

The general structure of Steels & Belpaeme's (S&B's) central premise is appealing. Theoretical stances that focus on one type of mechanism miss the fact that multiple mechanisms acting in concert can provide convergent constraints for a more robust capacity than any individual mechanism might achieve acting in isolation. However, highlighting the significance of complex constraint interactions raises the possibility that some of the relevant constraints may have been left out of S&B's own models. Although abstract modeling can help clarify issues, it also runs the risk of oversimplification and misframing. A more subtle implication of the significance of interacting constraints is that it calls for a close relationship between theoretical and empirical research.