Enaction-Based Artificial Intelligence: Toward Coevolution with Humans in the Loop

This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of artifical life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly integrate the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from the environment. This proposition does not however resolve that of the relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making). Such reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues, thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways

Rethinking theories of change in the light of enactive cognitive science: Contributions to community-scale local sustainability initiatives.

open access articleSocial innovation projects commonly refer to operationalized theories of change to inform strategy and to deliver intended outcomes. Community based sustainability campaigns, as one example, emphasize the elicitation of pro-environmental activities and decision-making among members of a host community, drawing on mainstream psychological theories of behaviour, motivation and cognitive (mental) processes. Locating an argument within the neurobiological base of structure determinism, this paper explores how theories of change for sustainability campaigns might be reimagined through the lens of enactive theory. Following a brief introduction to the enactive model of embodied cognition, implications associated with trying to operationalize the model to inform how theories of change are mapped out and used in sustainability initiatives are discussed. The paper concludes by drawing on insights from approaches to psychotherapy, which also endeavoured to apply this model of mind, and considers these within the strategic context of sustainability initiatives and public engagement

Differentiating adults who think about self-harm from those who engage in self-harm: the role of volitional alcohol factors

Background: Self-harm, an act of self-poisoning or self-injury irrespective of motivation, is a major public health concern. Use of alcohol prior to or alongside acts of self-harm is common but little is known about the alcohol-related mechanisms of self-harm enaction. We utilised an ideation-to-action approach to clarify the extent to which volitional alcohol factors differentiated those who have thoughts of self-harm but do not act on them (self-harm ideation) and those who engage in self-harm (self-harm enaction). Methods: Cross-sectional analyses of the baseline phase of the Health Lifestyle and Wellbeing study: 1546 adults (1079 female; Mean age = 34 y; 92% White) resident in Scotland completed measures of demographics, lifetime self-harm, volitional alcohol factors and psychosocial factors. Multinomial logistic regression compared those with a history of self-harm thoughts (‘ideation’, n = 297), self-harm acts (‘enaction’, n = 346) and ‘controls’ (n = 897) to identify volitional alcohol factors associated with self-harm enaction. Results: Volitional alcohol factors differentiated those with a history of self-harm enaction from those with a history of self-harm ideation (as well as those with no history) in initial models adjusted for demographics and depressive symptoms: the self-harm enaction group reported stronger alcohol-related negative urgency (OR = 1.74, 95% CI 1.41–2.16, p < .001), more frequent heavy drinking (OR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.24–1.72, p < .001) and stronger expectancies that drinking alcohol leads to negative self-perceptions (OR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.03–1.72, p = 0.03) and markers of self-harm risk (OR = 1.64, 95% CI 1.18–2.30, p = 0.004). Alcohol-related negative urgency and heavy-drinking frequency continued to differentiate those in the self-harm enaction group from those in ideation group in multivariate models. Consistent with theoretical models positing phase-specific moderators of self-harm ideation and enaction, psychosocial factors (perceived stress, support, negative mood regulation expectancies) differentiated those with a history of self-harm ideation from those without but not those in the ideation and enaction groups. Conclusions: Management of self-harm risk requires better understanding of alcohol-related mechanisms of self-harm enaction. Volitional alcohol factors may play a role in governing the translation of self-harm thoughts into self-harm acts

Performance and …

In titling our chapter 'Performance and...' our intention is not to privilege performance studies over theatre studies or drama but rather to call to attention the longstanding proposition that performance (studies) 'resists or rejects definition' (Schechner, Richard, 1998, 'What Is 'Performance Studies' Anyway?' in: P. Phelan and J. Lane (eds.), The Ends of Performance, NYU Press, p. 360) and as such highlight the potential it holds for interdisciplinary scholarship and the way in which the idea of performance has been conceived fluidly and expansively, both key concerns of all the volumes reviewed here. We are, we hope, at a point in the development of performance and theatre studies where there is an understanding, acceptance and exploration of the mutually constructive and beneficial interweaving of these two 'traditions' of scholarship within the broader field of drama. In the books we look at, both 'theatre' and 'performance' are brought to bear on the matters at hand almost interchangeably, with established text-based dramas taking their place alongside works in the performance art tradition to further arguments pertaining to a variety of disciplines. Such plurality of approach is a defining feature of the works we have chosen to discuss and binds them to a common purpose: the exploration of drama/theatre/performance in, with and between other disciplines and discourses in the pursuit of illuminating the world around us in more meaningful ways

Action for perception : influence of handedness in visuo-auditory sensory substitution

In this preliminary study we address the question of the influence of handedness on the localization of targets perceived through a visuo-auditory substitution device. Participants hold the device in one hand in order to explore the environment and to perceive the target. They point to the estimated location of the target with the other hand. This preliminary results support our hypothesis that pointing is more accurate when the device is held in the right dominant hand. Dexterity has to be attributed to the active part of the perceptive system. This study has obviously to be completed but it shows how the concept of enaction is important and how it can be experimentaly addressed in the field of sensory substitution

Processes endure, whereas events occur

In this essay, we aim to help clarify the nature of so-called 'occurrences' by attributing distinct modes of existence and persistence to processes and events. In doing so, we break with the perdurantism claimed by DOLCE’s authors and we distance ourselves from mereological analyzes like those recently conducted by Guarino to distinguish between 'processes' and 'episodes'. In line with the works of Stout and Galton, we first bring closer (physical) processes and objects in their way of enduring by proposing for processes a notion of dynamic presence (contrasting with a static presence for objects). Then, on the events side, we attribute to them the status of abstract entities by identifying them with objects of thought (by individual and collective subjects), and this allows us to distinguish for themselves between existence and occurrence. We therefore identify them with psychological (or even social) endurants, which may contingently occur

Enacting Productive Dialogue: Addressing the Challenge that Non-Human Cognition Poses to Collaborations Between Enactivism and Heideggerian Phenomenology

This chapter uses one particular proposal for interdisciplinary collaboration – in this case, between early Heideggerian phenomenology and enactivist cognitive science – as an example of how such partnerships may confront and negotiate tensions between the perspectives they bring together. The discussion begins by summarising some of the intersections that render Heideggerian and enactivist thought promising interlocutors for each other. It then moves on to explore how Heideggerian enactivism could respond to the challenge of reconciling the significant differences in the ways that each discourse seeks to apply the structures it claims to uncover

Multimodality and enaction

International audienceHow can we revisit the notion of multimodality in the context of "Enactive systems", "Enactive Interfaces", Enactive Interaction" "Enactive Knowledge" mediated by contemporary technological instruments and tools to analyze or to produce multimodal events ? In this context, the search for the recovery of interaction through a genuine sensory modalities, likely as in the real world, corresponds to a truly fundamental paradigm shift from "multimodality to multisensoriality"