Authors
Esther Thelen, Gregor Schöner, Christian Scheier, Linda B Smith
Publication date
2001/2/1
Journal
Behavioral and brain sciences
Volume
24
Issue
01
Pages
70-80
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Description
The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
E Thelen, G Schöner, C Scheier, LB Smith - Behavioral and brain sciences, 2001