Transcript slides from lecture 11

TOOL-BASED TRANSFORMATIONS
Dr. Tom Froese
IIMAS-UNAM
Toward a new cognitive science
• In cognitive science we are seeing a paradigm shift. Gone
is the idea that “mind = digital computer”.
• Instead, it has been found that mind is essentially:
• Embodied
• Embedded
• Extended
• Experiential
• And there is growing evidence that mind is also:
• Technological
The performance artist Stelarc
Mind-body problem
Descartes
(1596-1650)
Matter
Physical
body
Mind
Living
???
being
Traditional dualism: the body is a physical
mechanism like any other in the world.
The relationship between consciousness and
matter remains a complete mystery.
Froese (2011)
How to explain mental transformations caused by tool use?
The mind-body-body problem
Matter
Physical
body
Mind
Living
???
being
Lived
body
Husserl
(1859-1938)
Descartes neglected embodiment.
The body is not just mechanism, it is
our lived flesh. We are our body.
Froese (2011)
Mind is embodied. I
experience the world by
means of my phenomenally
lived body (Leib).
Life-mind continuity
Matter
Living
body
Mind
Life
Lived
body
Phenomenology: mind is embodied in a living body.
The relationship between consciousness and matter can
be understood through the phenomenon of life.
Froese (2011)
Thompson (2007)
Froese and Di Paolo (2011)
Dynamical approach to cognition
• The brain is embodied in
a biological body.
• The body is situated in an
environment.
• Behavior is an emergent
property of a brain-bodyenvironment system.
• What happens if we place
an interface between the
body and its environment?
Beer (2000)
Traditional interface design
• Cognitivist view of tools:
• Subject and tool are
independent
• The tool is just another
object in the world
• Sensorimotor interaction
loops are ignored
• Symbolic information is
given precedence over
direct perceptual experience
Froese, McGann, Bigge, Spiers and Seth (2012a)
EDSAC Computer, 1949, Cambridge Uni.
Enactive interface design
• Embodied view of tools:
• Subject and tool are
interdependent
• The tool is an interface
• Interfaces mediate
sensorimotor interaction
• Continuous interaction
shapes user experience
Paradigmatic example: sensory substitution interfaces
Tactile-visual substitution system (TVSS)
Tools for studying the embodied mind
Froese et al. (2012a)
“Artificial embodiment”
• If mind is rooted in a living body, then this means serious
trouble for replicating our minds artificially.
• Bad news for traditional AI and robotics! (Froese and Ziemke 2009)
• If mind is embodied in life, then this means profound new
opportunities for transforming our minds artificially.
• Good news for human-computer interaction (HCI)!
• Clark (2003). Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the
Future of Human Intelligence
• If mind is embodied, and using technology transforms our
embodiment, then technology can transform our mind!
• Useful scientific methodology! (Froese et al. 2012b)
Effects of tool-use
• Psychologists have been busy documenting the various
ways in which the use of tools affects the users.
• Changes in body schema (living embodiment)
• Changes in perceived space
• Changes in body image (lived embodiment)
• Body schema / body image? (Gallagher 1986)
• Usually, but not always, such tool use based changes
happen to various extents at the same time.
• Effect of modulation, not control.
Changes in body schema
• There is well-known evidence that use of elongated tools can lead to
changes of the neural organization related to the body schema.
• For example, distant object manipulation with a rake leads to an
extension of the neural body schema for the arm (Iriki et al. 1996).
• Associated visual receptive fields are also extended.
• Tool-based modulation of sensorimotor loop.
• This only occurs after intentional usage of the tool, not during
passive holding.
Maravita and Iriki (2004)
Maravita and Iriki (2004)
Iriki et al. (2001)
Changes in perceptual neglect of space
• Berti and Frassinetti (2000) tested a patient who showed
perceptual neglect in near space during a similar line
bisection task.
• The patient showed no neglect in far space when using a laser
pointer to do the task.
• The patient also showed neglect in far space when using a long
stick to bisect the line.
Changes in perceived space
• When participants are asked to
indicate the middle of a line using a
laser pointer, there is a systematic
rightward deviation as the line is
placed further and further away.
• Longo and Lourenco (2006) found
that using an elongated stick in the
same task eliminated this bias.
• Tool use may be extending the
range of what is seen as ‘near
space’ according to reachability.
Changes in perceived space
• Witt et al. (2005) manipulated reachability with an
elongated tool and asked participants for estimates of a
target object’s distance.
• They showed that tool-users perceived shorter
distances to target objects that were beyond normal
reach, but within reach with the tool.
• They also found that manipulating reachability only
influenced perceived distance when the perceiver actually
intended to reach the object.
Witt et al. (2005)
Active reaching condition
Witt et al. (2005)
Passive holding condition
Changes in body image
• Cardinali et al. (2009) found that using a mechanical
grabber that extends the arm alters the kinematics of
subsequent free-hand grasping (body schema).
• Furthermore, this effect is related to an increase of the
perceived length of the arm (body image)
Tool-use modifies movement kinematics
and somatosensory morphology.
Cardinali et al. (2009)
Changes are task dependent
• Farnè, Iriki and Làdavas (2005) showed that these kinds
of changes critically depend upon active tool use.
• They are not found after passive exposure to a hand-tool body
configuration.
• They demonstrated that the elongation extent of near
hand space after tool-use is related to the operationally
effective length of the tool, and not simply its absolute
length.
Changes in body ownership
• The rubber hand illusion (Botvinick & Cohen 1998)
Changes in body ownership
The body swapping illusion (Petkova & Ehrsson 2008)
Body swapping illusion
Petkova and Ehrsson (2008)
Substitutional reality system
Suzuki, Wakisaka and Fujii (2012)
Suzuki, Wakisaka and Fujii (2012)
Conclusions
• If the hypothesis of life-mind continuity is correct, then the
possibilities of replicating human intelligence in robots and
other technological systems is limited – no life, no mind!
• But our embodied mind presents us with open-ended
possibilities for self-transformation – by designing new
technological interfaces that shape our existence.
• The goal should be to extend human capacities with
technological interfaces, and not to externalize our existing
capacities to make machines more autonomous.
Homework
• Try out the rubber hand illusion!
• Finish reading:
• Froese, T., McGann, M., Bigge, W., Spiers, A., & Seth, A. K.
(2012a). The Enactive Torch: A new tool for the science of
perception. IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 5(4), 365-375.
References
• Beer, R. D. (2000). Dynamical approaches to cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(3), 91-99.
• Berti, A., & Frassinetti, F. (2000). When far becomes near: Remapping of space by tool use. Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(3), 415-420.
• Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands 'feel' touch that eyes see. Nature, 391, 756.
• Cardinali, L., Frassinetti, F., Brozzoli, C., Urquizar, C., Roy, A. C., & Farnè, A. (2009). Tool-use induces
morphological updating of the body schema. Current Biology, 19(12), R478-R479.
• Clark, A. (2003). Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Ehrsson, H. H. (2007). The experimental induction of out-of-body experiences. Science, 317, 1048.
• Farnè, A., Iriki, A., & Làdavas, E. (2005). Shaping multisensory action-space with tools: Evidence from
patients with cross-modal extinction. Neuropsychologia, 43, 238-248
• Froese, T. (2011). From second-order cybernetics to enactive cognitive science: Varela's turn from
epistemology to phenomenology. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 28, 631-645.
• Froese, T., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2011). The enactive approach: Theoretical sketches from cell to society.
Pragmatics & Cognition, 19(1), 1-36.
• Froese, T., McGann, M., Bigge, W., Spiers, A., & Seth, A. K. (2012a). The Enactive Torch: A new tool for the
science of perception. IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 5(4), 365-375.
• Froese, T., Suzuki, K., Ogai, Y., & Ikegami, T. (2012b). Using human-computer interfaces to investigate 'mind-
as-it-could-be' from the first-person perspective. Cognitive Computation, 4(3), 365-382.
• Gallagher, S. (1986). Body image and body schema: A conceptual clarification. The Journal of Mind and
Behavior, 7(4), 541-554.
References
• Iriki, A., Tanaka, M., & Iwamura, Y. (1996). Coding of modified body schema
during tool use by macaque postcentral neurones. NeuroReport, 7(4), 2325-2330.
• Iriki, A., Tanaka, M., Obayashi, S., & Iwamura, Y. (2001). Self-images in the video
monitor coded by monkey intraparietal neurons. Neuroscience Research, 40, 163173
• Longo, M. R., & Lourenco, S. F. (2006). On the nature of near space: Effects of
tool use and the transition to far space. Neuropsychologia, 44, 977-981.
• Petkova, V. I., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2008). If I were you: Perceptual illusion of body
swapping. PLoS ONE, 3(12), e3832. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003832
• Suzuki, K., Wakisaka, S., & Fujii, N. (2012). Substitutional reality system: A novel
experimental platform for experiencing alternative reality. Scientific Reports,
2(459). doi: 10.1038/srep00459
• Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of
Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Maravita, A., & Iriki, A. (2004). Tools for the body (schema). Trends in Cognitive
Sciences, 8(2), 79-86.
• Witt, J. K., Proffitt, D. R., & Epstein, W. (2005). Tool use affects perceived
distance, but only when you intend to use it. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception and Performance, 31(5), 880-888.