222 research outputs found
We Need New Scientific Languages to Harness the Complexity of Cognitive Development
International audienceTo study the behavioral and cognitive structures that form in the childhood of animals, cognitive science has for a long time organized theories by trying to identify what is innate and what is learned, and how nature and nurture interact to influence each other. However, recent advances in developmental sciences are strongly questioning the relevance of this scientific framing based on the nature/nurture divide, including arguments that rely on their interaction, as they are putting the focus on states and causal explanations while key dimensions of development are processes of change and pattern formation. However, as John Spencer, Mark Blumberg and David Shenk argue in the dialogue featured in this newsletter, the nativist/ empiricist perspective, and its associated concepts , are still playing a central role both in cognitive science and in the way it is explained and understood by the larger public. Responding to this dialog, several key researchers from cognitive and developmental sciences, as well as biology, propose their responses and views
Neural plasticity and the limits of scientific knowledge
Western science claims to provide unique, objective information about the world. This
is supported by the observation that peoples across cultures will agree upon a common
description of the physical world. Further, the use of scientific instruments and
mathematics is claimed to enable the objectification of science.
In this work, carried out by reviewing the scientific literature, the above claims are
disputed systematically by evaluating the definition of physical reality and the scientific
method, showing that empiricism relies ultimately upon the human senses for the
evaluation of scientific theories and that measuring instruments cannot replace the
human sensory system.
Nativist and constructivist theories of human sensory development are reviewed, and it
is shown that nativist claims of core conceptual knowledge cannot be supported by the
findings in the literature, which shows that perception does not simply arise from a
process of maturation. Instead, sensory function requires a long process of learning
through interactions with the environment.
To more rigorously define physical reality and systematically evaluate the stability of
perception, and thus the basis of empiricism, the development of the method of
dimension analysis is reviewed. It is shown that this methodology, relied upon for the
mathematical analysis of physical quantities, is itself based upon empiricism, and that
all of physical reality can be described in terms of the three fundamental dimensions of
mass, length and time.
Hereafter the sensory modalities that inform us about these three dimensions are
systematically evaluated. The following careful analysis of neuronal plasticity in these
modalities shows that all the relevant senses acquire from the environment the capacity
to apprehend physical reality. It is concluded that physical reality is acquired rather than
given innately, and leads to the position that science cannot provide unique results.
Rather, those it can provide are sufficient for a particular environmental setting
Human Development
Human development has different meanings depending on the area we focus on. To the psychologists it is the ontogenetic process of individual development. It considers systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. To sociologists and economists, among others, the main consideration is the macro-level of countries or regions and their development conditions related to human needs. Our book has two parts. The first one is entitled "Development in the ontogenesis" and it consists of three chapters whilst the second is "Human development: contextual factors", also including 3 chapters. Together, the two parts give the readers a panoramic view of very complex subjects and complement each other. Researchers of ontogenetic development cannot ignore that contextual factors are the basis of this process. On the other hand, social scientists worried about the macro variables need to remember that they are dealing with people, who are affected one way or another by those variables and whose development is the product of biology and culture
Musical Haptics
Haptic Musical Instruments; Haptic Psychophysics; Interface Design and Evaluation; User Experience; Musical Performanc
From Biological to Synthetic Neurorobotics Approaches to Understanding the Structure Essential to Consciousness (Part 2)
We have been left with a big challenge, to articulate
consciousness and also to prove it in an artificial agent
against a biological standard. After introducing Boltuc’s
h-consciousness in the last paper, we briefly reviewed
some salient neurology in order to sketch less of a standard
than a series of targets for artificial consciousness, “most-consciousness” and “myth-consciousness.”
With these targets on the horizon, we began reviewing the research
program pursued by Jun Tani and colleagues in the isolation
of the formal dynamics essential to either. In this paper,
we describe in detail Tani’s research program, in order to
make the clearest case for artificial consciousness in these
systems. In the next paper, the third in the series, we will
return to Boltuc’s naturalistic non-reductionism in light of
the neurorobotics models introduced (alongside some
others), and evaluate them more completely
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