Extended cognition and the priority of cognitive systems

This essay begins by addressing the role of the so-called Parity Principle in arguments for extended cognition. It is concluded that the Parity Principle does not, by itself, demarcate cognition and that another mark of the cognitive must be sought. The second section of the paper advances two arguments against the extended view of cognition, one of which – the conservatism-or-simplicity argument – appeals to principles of theory selection, and the other of which – the argument from demarcation – draws on a systems-based theory of cognition. The final section contests the claim, made by Andy Clark, that empirical work done by Wayne Gray and colleagues supports the extended view.     

Identifying and individuating cognitive systems: a task-based distributed cognition alternative to agent-based extended cognition

This article argues for a task-based approach to identifying and individuating cognitive systems. The agent-based extended cognition approach faces a problem of cognitive bloat and has difficulty accommodating both sub-individual cognitive systems (“scaling down”) and some supra-individual cognitive systems (“scaling up”). The standard distributed cognition approach can accommodate a wider variety of supra-individual systems but likewise has difficulties with sub-individual systems and faces the problem of cognitive bloat. We develop a task-based variant of distributed cognition designed to scale up and down smoothly while providing a principled means of avoiding cognitive bloat. The advantages of the task-based approach are illustrated by means of two parallel case studies: re-representation in the human visual system and in a biomedical engineering laboratory.     

Search behaviour of cats (Felis catus) in an invisible displacement test: cognition and experience

An invisible displacement test was administered to cats in order to test the hypothesis that search behaviour in this species is influenced by their limited capacity for object permanence as well as by their previous experience with the environment. Experiment 1 compared three groups of cats in a five-choice hiding task in which the hiding places could be discriminated by their spatial positions. Two groups received a visible displacement training before the invisible displacement test and one group did not. Experiment 2 compared two groups of trained subjects in the same task, but the hiding places could be discriminated by spatial and visual cues. The results confirmed that cats are unable to solve problems with invisible displacements. The visible displacement training improved their performance, but was not sufficient to make them succeed. Experience with the hiding potential of the covers also gives more persistence to search behaviour. Finally, the distribution of search attempts is not determined by the proximity to the target and is influenced only partially by the subjects' previous experience. Like Stage 5 infants, cats rely mainly on their immediate perception. They search for an object in the last location they have seen it disappear or under the nearest cover from this location.     

Superdupersizing the mind: extended cognition and the persistence of cognitive bloat

The hypothesis of extended cognition (EC) contends that parts of the world outside of the head partly comprise the vehicles of representation and mind. I consider and reject recent efforts to defend EC from the problem of “cognitive bloat.”     

Social cognition and the development of rule-guided behaviour

The weak to modest relationship between cognitive measures of judgement and reasoning and children's behaviour has led to a search for more satisfactory predictors of behaviour. One proposal is to integrate cognitive-developmental theory with children's perceptions of the self and others. In this regard, cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence indicates that children's “identification” as expressed by self-reports of parents' attractiveness and similarity to the self is correlated with their rule-guided behaviour. These relationships reflect the effects of sex-typing. In a study of behaviour in a naturalistic setting, Grade 1 girls' identification with the mother was correlated with a resistance to others' ruleviolations in Grade 2. Boys' self-initiated violations in Grade 2 were correlated with father identification in Grade 3. Given that behaviour can be mediated by perceptions of parents in relation to the self, and that effective socialization may reflect perceptions of control and a willingness to obey, a study of children's evaluations of maternal discipline techniques is reported. Findings were that children of all ages prefer an authoritative parent who displays firmness and flexibility in dealing with the situation at hand. The implications for theories of social development are discussed. Bidirectional influences in parent-child relations are considered as well as age-related changes in the connection between behaviour and sources of perceived control. Processes by which perceptions of control form a basis for autonomy and responsibility are examined.     

At the root of embodied cognition: cognitive science meets neurophysiology

Recent experimental research in the field of neurophysiology has led to the discovery of two classes of visuomotor neurons: canonical neurons and mirror neurons. In light of these studies, we propose here an overview of two classical themes in the cognitive science panorama: James Gibson's theory of affordances and Eleanor Rosch's principles of categorization. We discuss how theoretical perspectives and neuroscientific evidence are converging towards the current paradigm of embodied cognition. From this perspective, we discuss the role of action and simulation in cognitive processes, which lead to the perceptual recognition of objects, and actions and to their conceptual categorization.     

Intelligence research at the interface between differential and cognitive psychology: Prospects and proposals

There seems to be widespread agreement among theoreticians and methodologists alike that new approaches to studying intelligence should somehow combine the differential and cognitive (information-processing) approaches that have been used in the past, and that the combination should somehow enable the investigator to isolate components of intelligence that are elementary (at some level of analysis). Researchers disagree, however, as to how the differential and cognitive approaches should be combined, and consequently, in how elementary components of intelligence should be isolated and in what they are. How does an investigator choose from among the multiple paths available for theory and research? In this article, I propose some guidelines that may help investigators make informed choices. The article is divided into three major parts. In the first, I propose guidelines for choosing from among various methodologies for studying intelligence, and then describe briefly at least some of the methods that meet (or come close to meeting) these guidelines. In the second part, I propose guidelines for the specification of subtheories (and eventually, full-fledged theories) of intelligence, and illustrate how these guidelines can be met. Finally, I describe the direction in which I believe our subtheories and methods should lead us.     

Purposive behaviour in cognition and perception: Considerations of awareness in memory

The responses to the original article by Rönnberg (1990a) provoked interesting and thoughtful points of view that are covered by Gärling (1990), Hjelmquist (1990), Montgomery (1991), and Runeson (1990). These articles do not merely present a different outlook but also provide concepts that are certainly worthy of consideration and add more substance to the general topic under discussion. The purpose of this commentary is to seek an understanding of the ideas presented by the above authors within a synthesis of our views of current conceptualizations in cognition and perception. Each of the original criteria (Rönnberg, 1990a) will be treated in turn.     

Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition

The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior. The 2 types of cognitive processes are embedded in different naive metaphysical systems and tacit epistemologies. The authors speculate that the origin of these differences is traceable to markedly different social systems. The theory and the evidence presented call into question long-held assumptions about basic cognitive processes and even about the appropriateness of the process-content distinction.     

Decision-making theories: linking the disparate research areas of individual and collective cognition

In order to maximize their fitness, animals have to deal with different environmental and social factors that affect their everyday life. Although the way an animal behaves might enhance its fitness or survival in regard to one factor, it could compromise them regarding another. In the domain of decision sciences, research concerning decision making focuses on performances at the individual level but also at the collective one. However, between individual and collective decision making, different terms are used resulting in little or no connection between both research areas. In this paper, we reviewed how different branches of decision sciences study the same concept, mainly called speed-accuracy trade-off, and how the different results are on the same track in terms of showing the optimality of decisions. Whatever the level, individual or collective, each decision might be defined with three parameters: time or delay to decide, risk and accuracy. We strongly believe that more progress would be possible in this domain of research if these different branches were better linked, with an exchange of their results and theories. A growing amount of literature describes economics in humans and eco-ethology in birds making compromises between starvation, predation and reproduction. Numerous studies have been carried out on social cognition in primates but also birds and carnivores, and other publications describe market or reciprocal exchanges of commodities. We therefore hope that this paper will lead these different areas to a common decision science.     

The aging decision maker: cognitive aging and the adaptive selection of decision strategies

Are older adults' decision abilities fundamentally compromised by age-related cognitive decline? Or can they adaptively select decision strategies? One study (N = 163) investigated the impact of cognitive aging on the ability to select decision strategies as a function of environment structure. Participants made decisions in either an environment that favored the use of information-intensive strategies or one favoring the use of simple, information-frugal strategies. Older adults tended to (a) look up less information and take longer to process it and (b) use simpler, less cognitively demanding strategies. In accordance with the idea that age-related cognitive decline leads to reliance on simpler strategies, measures of fluid intelligence explained age-related differences in information search and strategy selection. Nevertheless, both young and older adults seem to be equally adapted decision makers in that they adjust their information search and strategy selection as a function of environment structure, suggesting that the aging decision maker is an adaptive one.     

Grit in adolescence is protective of late-life cognition: non-cognitive factors and cognitive reserve

Various psychological assets have been shown to protect against late-life cognitive impairment by promoting cognitive reserve. While factors such as educational attainment and IQ are well-established contributors to cognitive reserve, noncognitive factors, such as grit, have not been studied in this regard. We examined the contribution of adolescent grit, indexed by high school class rank controlling for IQ, to late-life cognition and its decline among approximately 4000 participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a random sample of high school graduates followed from 1957 to 2011. Adolescent grit significantly predicted both immediate and delayed memory at ages 64 and 71, over and above the contribution of IQ. While the relative contributions of IQ and grit to immediate memory were comparable, grit was a stronger predictor of delayed memory. Cognitive reserve has noncognitive, as well as cognitive, components.     

From attitudes to behaviour: Basic and applied research on the theory of planned behaviour

The present article traces the development of the theory of planned behaviour, from early research on the attitude-behaviour relationship through the theory of reasoned action. In particular, it is argued that a perceived lack of correspondence between attitude and behaviour led to examination of variables that either moderated (e.g., attitude strength, measurement correspondence) or mediated (behavioural intention) the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Several meta-analytic reviews provide strong empirical support for the theory of planned behaviour, yet several applied and basic issues need to be resolved. The six papers that make up the remainder of this special issue address several of these issues.     

From attitudes to behaviour: Basic and applied research on the theory of planned behaviour

The present article traces the development of the theory of planned behaviour, from early research on the attitude-behaviour relationship through the theory of reasoned action. In particular, it is argued that a perceived lack of correspondence between attitude and behaviour led to examination of variables that either moderated (e.g., attitude strength, measurement correspondence) or mediated (behavioural intention) the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Several meta-analytic reviews provide strong empirical support for the theory of planned behaviour, yet several applied and basic issues need to be resolved. The six papers that make up the remainder of this special issue address several of these issues.     

Heterarchy of cognition: the depths and the highs of a framework for memory research

To celebrate the levels-of-processing approach, I describe a multilevel evolutionary architecture for human behaviour and cognition. New experimental data on human eye movements are presented that demonstrate a possibility of splitting visual perceptual activity at least on two hierarchical but closely interrelated levels of processing. Furthermore, data from behavioural studies of human memory and neuroimaging testify that within the domain of cognition proper two higher levels can be differentiated. I call them "conceptual structures" and "metacognitive coordinations" and provide evidence that the latter may residue in the phylogenetically new structures of prefrontal and particularly right prefrontal cortices. From this point of few, the most natural framework for an analysis of the levels-of-processing effects on human memory is to consider them as interactions within the main gradients of evolution and development of the corresponding neurophysiological mechanisms. Finally, several new, still unanswered questions for the future research are formulated.