The type of principles which cognitive engineers need to design better work environments are principles which explain interactivity and distributed cognition: how human agents interact with themselves and others, their work spaces, and the resources and constraints that populate those spaces. A first step in developing these principles is to clarify the fundamental concepts of environment, coordination, and behavioural function. Using simple examples, I review changes the distributed perspective forces on these basic notions.

The Phillips & Silverstein model of NMDA-mediated coordination deficits provides a useful heuristic for the study of schizophrenic cognition. However, the model does not specifically account for the development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. The P&S model is compared to Meehl's seminal model of schizotaxia, schizotypy, and schizophrenia, as well as the model of schizophrenic cognitive dysfunction posited by McCarley and colleagues.

Although interesting, the hypotheses proposed by Phillips & Silverstein lack unifying structure both in specific mechanisms and in cited evidence. They provide little to support the notion that low-level sensory processing and high-level cognitive coordination share dynamic grouping by synchrony as a common processing mechanism. We suggest that more realistic large-scale modeling at multiple levels is needed to address these issues.

The concept of locally specialized functions dominates research on higher brain function and its disorders. Locally specialized functions must be complemented by processes that coordinate those functions, however, and impairment of coordinating processes may be central to some psychotic conditions. Evidence for processes that coordinate activity is provided by neurobiological and psychological studies of contextual disambiguation and dynamic grouping. Mechanisms by which this important class of cognitive functions could be achieved include those long-range connections within and between cortical regions (...) that activate synaptic channels via NMDA-receptors, and which control gain through their voltage-dependent mode of operation. An impairment of these mechanisms is central to PCP-psychosis, and the cognitive capabilities that they could provide are impaired in some forms of schizophrenia. We conclude that impaired cognitive coordination due to reduced ion flow through NMDA-channels is involved in schizophrenia, and we suggest that it may also be involved in other disorders. This perspective suggests several ways in which further research could enhance our understanding of cognitive coordination, its neural basis, and its relevance to psychopathology. Key Words: attention; cerebral cortex; cognitive coordination; cognitive neuropsychiatry; cognitive neuropsychology; context disorganization; Gamma rhythms; Gestalt theory; glutamate; grouping; memory; NMDA-receptors; PCP-psychosis; perceptual organization; schizophrenia. (shrink)

Studies of aging and autism as outlined by Bertone, Mottron, & Faubert (Bertone et al.) and by Faubert & Bertone suggest that disorders of cognitive coordination involving impairments of dynamic gestalt grouping and context-sensitivity may be common to several different disorders. We agree that such studies may shed light on these processes and their neuronal bases. However, we also emphasize that dynamic grouping and context-sensitivity can fail in various ways, and that, although the underlying pathophysiology may often involve (...) NMDA-receptor malfunction, many different malfunctions are possible, and each of these may result from any one of a number of different etiologies. (shrink)

Neurophysiological investigations of the past two decades have consistently demonstrated a deficit in sensory gating associated with schizophrenia. Phillips & Silverstein interpret this impairment as being consistent with cognitive coordination dysfunction. However, the physiological mechanisms that underlie sensory gating have not been shown to involve gamma-band oscillations or NMDA-receptors, both of which are critical neural elements in the cognitive coordination model.

Schizophrenics exhibit a deficit in theory of mind (ToM), but an intact theory of biology (ToB). One explanation is that ToM relies on an independent module that is selectively damaged. Phillips & Silverstein's analyses suggest an alternative: ToM requires the type of coordination that is impaired in schizophrenia, whereas ToB is spared because this type of coordination is not involved.

The claim that the disorganized subtype of schizophrenia results from glutamate hypofunction is enhanced by consideration of current subtypology of schizophrenia, symptom definition, interdependence of neurotransmitters, and the nature of the data needed to support the hypothesis. Careful specification clarifies the clinical reality of disorganization as a feature of schizophrenia and increases the utility of the subtype.

The past decade has witnessed a growing awareness of conceptual and methodological hurdles within psychology and neuroscience that must be addressed for taxonomic and explanatory progress in understanding psychological functions to be possible. In this paper, I evaluate several recent knowledge-building initiatives aimed at overcoming these obstacles. I argue that while each initiative offers important insights about how to facilitate taxonomic and explanatory progress in psychology and neuroscience, only a “coordinated pluralism” that incorporates positive aspects of each initiative will have (...) the potential for success. (shrink)

Context: Von Foerster’s concept of eigenbehavior can be recognized against the broader context of enactivism as it has been advocated by Varela, Thompson and Rosch, by Noë and recently by Hutto and Myin, among others. This flourishing constellation of ideas is on its way to becoming the new paradigm of cognitive science. However, in my reading, enactivism, putting stress on the constitutive role of action when it comes to mind and perception, faces a serious philosophical challenge when attempting to (...) account for the way we actually perceive our environments, most importantly for the fact that we perceive things or objects. Von Foester’s eigenbehavior is understood here as a concept supposed to take on this challenge. Problem: In this article I tackle the following issues: Enactivism must be able to account for the apparent stability of the perceived world: this is not a realm of a never-ending flux of stimuli; it is a realm of stable things. Enactivism is committed to the anti-Cartesian endeavor seeking to bridge the gap between the inner and the outer; between the subjective and the objective. Now, these two points constrain each other so that one cannot address simply by regarding the apparent stability of things as a projection that springs out of the internal machinery binding inputs with outputs. This is because the very idea of such an internal machinery opposes, i.e., it employs the Cartesian dichotomy. So, enactivism is in need of an account of that would not oppose its anti-Cartesian commitment. Method: I introduce the ontology of location and niche theory, as it has been brought forth by Varzi, Casati, and Smith, and develop it so that it can be used in the philosophy of mind. This is a conceptual, semi-formal philosophical analysis. Results: I shall come up with the idea of object conceived of a product of action, and - drawing on von Foerster’s central idea - as a product of coordination of perceptions. Yet, it is not coordination of stimuli but coordination of cognitive connections. The notion of connection is thus articulated in the article and cast as the central concept in my proposal. Implications: We are able to account for both and (2. The apparent stability of the perceived world is due to the setting up and maintaining of connections between the perceiver and the things perceived, resulting in the establishment of what I call a cognitive niche. Constructivist content: Constructivism, broadly construed, takes, in my reading, a negative stance in the first place. Namely, it opposes what I call the metaphysics of the ready-made world. So, it holds that there is no ready-made reality; however it remains open when it comes to positive claims: a mind-independent reality does not exist at all or it does exist but it is not ready-made and as such it must be brought to completion, so to speak, or enacted, as Varela et al. would say, by a cognitive subject. In this article, I follow the latter and address one specific issue: how the enacted world gains its relatively stable architecture. (shrink)

Developmental coordination disorder is a heterogeneous condition. Besides motor impairments, children with DCD often exhibit poor visual perceptual skills and executive functions. This study aimed to characterize the motor, perceptual, and cognitive profiles of children with DCD at the group level and in terms of subtypes. A total of 50 children with DCD and 31 typically developing peers underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological and motor assessment. The percentage of children with DCD showing impairments in each measurement was first described. (...) Hierarchical agglomerative and K-means iterative partitioning clustering analyses were then performed to distinguish the subtypes present among the complete sample of children in a data-driven way. Moderate to large percentages of children with DCD showed impaired executive functions and praxis, as well as attentional, visual perceptual, and visuomotor skills. Clustering analyses identified five subtypes, four of them mainly consisting of children with DCD and one of TD children. These subtypes were characterized by: generalized impairments, impaired manual dexterity, poor balance, planning, and alertness, impaired manual dexterity, cognitive inhibition, and poor visual perception, impaired manual dexterity and cognitive inhibition, and no impairment. Besides subtle differences, the motor and praxis measures did not enable to discriminate between the four subtypes of children with DCD. The subtypes were, however, characterized by distinct perceptual or cognitive impairments. These results highlight the importance of assessing exhaustively the perceptual and cognitive skills of children with DCD. (shrink)

This paper will critically examine two solutions to Frege’s puzzle: the Millian-Russellian solution proposed by Salmon and Braun, which invokes non-semantic modes of presentation (guises, ways of believing or the like); and Fine’s relationalist solution, which appeals to semantic coordination. Special attention will be devoted to discussing the conception of modes of presentation as mental files and to elucidating the nature of coordination. A third solution to Frege’s puzzle will be explored which, like Salmon’s and Braun’s, adopts the (...) Millian-Russellian semantics but, like Fine’s, involves coordination instead of modes of presentation; however, coordination will not be conceived as a semantic relation but as a cognitive and subjective relation, which provides no contribution to semantic content. This novel Millian-Russellian account involving cognitive coordination will be labelled cognitive relationism. (shrink)

Kit Fine (2007) outlines an account of semantic coordination, an account motivated by the role of semantic coordination in cognition. Actually, Fine outlines two accounts of semantic coordination, one in terms of co-reference and another in terms of synonymy. I argue, first, that Fine's two accounts are not equivalent, with one being logically stronger than the other, but second and more importantly, that neither account is correct. I outline an alternative account of semantic coordination – the (...) epistemic conception of semantic coordination – that links semantic and epistemic aspects of cognition more directly. The most surprising result of my alternative account of semantic coordination is that semantic coordination is a relation that can hold between elements of thought and language of different semantic types. I close the paper by briefly outlining some applications of the idea that semantic coordination is a relation that can hold across semantic types. (shrink)

We investigate the notion of minimal cognition, and claim that this notion already applies to bacterial behavior. On the basis of the example of E. coli, we argue that the basis of cognition can be profitably cast as sensorimotor coordinations which subserve the metabolic requirements of organisms.

The study of coordination, collaboration, and cooperation brings to the fore a number of questions concerning the cognitive status of the various forms of behaviors that are involved. In this article, we will briefly consider coordination, collaboration, and cooperation in terms of their respective time courses and how they relate to such topics as intentionality, consciousness, role perspective, mental models, and mental simulation. Taken together, the study of coordination, collaboration, and cooperation provides a rich area for (...) interaction between the behavioral and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

The purpose of this randomized controlled study was to investigate the effects of a 12-week coordinative ability training program on adolescents’ cognitive functioning, using evaluation tests of visuospatial perception, attention, and working memory. We randomly assigned 60 public school students (14–15 years) to either an experimental coordinative abilities training (∼40 min twice/week) group (n= 30) or a control group (n= 30) who received general psycho-physical wellness training (∼40 min., twice a week). At baseline and after training we used two (...) standardized motor tests and a single cognitive measure (Corsi’s Block-tapping test) to assess students’ visuospatial perception, attention, and working memory. We found a significant Time x Group interaction for the Throwing and Catching Test and Corsi’s Block-Tapping test, reflecting a meaningful experimental group improvement (p< 0.001), and there were no significant pre-post changes found in the control group. Thus, a 12-week program of coordinative abilities was able to improve not only coordination skills but aspects of cognitive functioning relevant to academic achievement. (shrink)

Emerging research shows a strong connection between brain areas governing cognition and motor behavior. Yet, research investigating the negative aftereffects of cognitive control exertion on task performance has not considered the potential role of areas governing motor behavior. The present study investigated the effects of high cognitive control exertion on task self-efficacy and exercise performance in children. A secondary purpose was to investigate whether motor coordination influences the change in exercise performance differently following low versus high (...) class='Hi'>cognitive control exertion. Participants (N = 70) performed two isometric handgrip endurance trials separated by a Stroop task, which was either congruent (low cognitive control) or incongruent (high cognitive control). Motor coordination was assessed prior to the first endurance trial. Task self-efficacy for performing the second endurance trial was assessed following the Stroop task. Participants in the high cognitive control condition reported lower task self-efficacy and showed a reduction in endurance exercise performance. Task self-efficacy mediated the cognitive control – performance relationship. Participants scoring lower on motor coordination showed the greatest declines in exercise performance following high cognitive control, whereas motor coordination did not affect performance following low cognitive control. The results of this study provide evidence that task self-efficacy and exercise performance are also negatively affected in children following high cognitive control, and interestingly, these effects are exacerbated among those scoring lower in motor coordination. We recommend future research investigate motor coordination as a potential mechanism for the reductions in both cognitive and physical task performance following the prolonged exertion of high cognitive control. (shrink)

The literature on coordination within and between individuals is reviewed, with an emphasis on the inherent transience of coordination patterns in behavioral activity. This transience is integral to understanding cognitive activity as flexible patterns of coordination in brain, body, and environment. Kello reviews the articles in this special issue as contributions to understanding the role of context in shaping or interpreting coordination patterns in human behavior.

It has been claimed that a sense of us is presupposed for shared intentions to be possible. Searle introduced this notion together with the notion of the sense of the other. in joint action. It argues that the sense of the other is a necessary condition for a sense of us. Whereas thisarticle distinguishes between the “sense of the other” and the “sense of us” and elaborates on their role the sense of the other is immediate and automatic, the sense (...) of us can (but need not) arise between people and can (a) develop over time, (b) depend on the situation, and (c) involves several sufficient but not necessary processes. The article relies on research on core knowledge to better understand the sense of the other. It elaborates the sense of us using insights from cognitive science and social psychology. The article shows that the sense of the other and the sense of us can contribute to our understanding of the perception of possibilities for joint action and how individuals can come to experience actions and intentions as shared, even if the participants lack common knowledge. This leads to the conclusion that people are ordinarily socially oriented rather than individually. (shrink)

Some philosophical and psychological approaches to social interaction posit a powerful explanatory tool for explaining how we navigate social situations: scripts. Scripts tell people how to interact in different situational and cultural contexts depending on social roles such as gender. A script theory of social interaction puts emphasis on understanding the world as normatively structured. Social structures place demands, roles, and ways to behave in the social world upon us, which, in turn, guide the ways we interact with one another (...) and the ways we coordinate our behaviors. In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of coordinated behaviors in social interactions in humans. I argue that looking closely at everyday interactions, for which social coordination is central, strongly points to a fundamental role of scripts for social cognition and interaction. In order to explain some social interactions, like those based on social coordination, we do not need to recourse to mental state attribution. Rather, I argue, scripts are a powerful resource for explaining social interaction and especially coordinated behaviors. Scripts have been neglected in standard approaches to social cognition but are (re-)gaining attention via the normative turn in social cognition. (shrink)

From playing basketball to ordering at a food counter, we frequently and effortlessly coordinate our attention with others towards a common focus: we look at the ball, or point at a piece of cake. This non-verbal coordination of attention plays a fundamental role in our social lives: it ensures that we refer to the same object, develop a shared language, understand each other’s mental states, and coordinate our actions. Models of joint attention generally attribute this accomplishment to gaze (...) class='Hi'>coordination. But are visual attentional mechanisms sufficient to achieve joint attention, in all cases? Besides cases where visual information is missing, we show how combining it with other senses can be helpful, and even necessary to certain uses of joint attention. We explain the two ways in which non-visual cues contribute to joint attention: either as enhancers, when they complement gaze and pointing gestures in order to coordinate joint attention on visible objects, or as modality pointers, when joint attention needs to be shifted away from the whole object to one of its properties, say weight or texture. This multisensory approach to joint attention has important implications for social robotics, clinical diagnostics, pedagogy and theoretical debates on the construction of a shared world. (shrink)

Natural languages vary in their quantity expressions, but the variation seems to be constrained by general properties, so-calleduniversals. Their explanations have been sought among constraints of human cognition, communication, complexity, and pragmatics. In this article, we apply a state-of-the-art language coordination model to the semantic domain of quantities to examine whether two quantity universals—monotonicity and convexity—arise as a result of coordination. Assuming precise number perception by the agents, we evolve communicatively usable quantity terminologies in two separate conditions: a (...) numeric-based condition in which agents communicate about a number of objects and a quotient-based condition in which agents communicate about the proportions. We find out that both universals take off in all conditions but only convexity almost entirely dominates the emergent languages. Additionally, we examine whether the perceptual constraints of the agents can contribute to the further development of universals. We compare the degrees of convexity and monotonicity of languages evolving in populations of agents with precise and approximate number sense. The results suggest that approximate number sense significantly reinforces monotonicity and leads to further enhancement of convexity. Last but not least, we show that the properties of the evolved quantifiers match certain invariance properties from generalized quantifier theory. (shrink)

Coordination in thought is the treatment of beliefs by the believer as being about the same thing. Such treatment can be indirect, via an identity belief, or direct. Direct coordination presents a problem concerning how this treatment is justified. Dickie accounts for the justification of coordination in terms of aptness to a motivational state: coordination serves to fulfil a need to represent things outside the mind. I argue that this account gets the problem coordination presents (...) wrong, and so does not present an adequate solution. While the material of that account may be reconfigured to provide a more promising proposal, I argue that this depends on a specious psychology of belief, and will anyway end up being circular. I propose an account that, while similar in some ways, improves on both the official and reconfigured Dickie-style accounts, and points to some broader conclusions about the nature of rational cognition. (shrink)

Coordinated group behaviour can result in conflict or social cohesion. Thus having a better understanding of coordination in social groups could help us tackle some of our most challenging social problems. Historically, the most common way to study group behaviour is to break it down into sub-processes, such as cognition and emotion, then ideally manipulate them in a social context in order to predict some behaviour such as liking versus distrusting a target person. This approach has gotten us partway (...) to understanding many important collective behaviours, but I argue that making major changes in the world will require a more integrated approach. In this review, I introduce dynamic systems theory, with a focus on interpersonal systems, where all the processes we typically study in individuals, such as cognition and emotion, become intertwined between social partners over time. I focus on the concept of coordination, defined as a temporal correlation between interacting components of a system (or systems) arising due to coupling between them. Finally, I show how this perspective could be used to guide investigations of social problems such as polarisation. (shrink)

Much contemporary social epistemology takes as its starting point individuals with sophisticated propositional attitudes and considers (i) how those individuals depend on each other to gain (or lose) knowledge through testimony, disagreement, and the like and (ii) if, in addition to individual knowers, it is possible for groups to have knowledge. In this paper I argue that social epistemology should be more attentive to the construction of knowers through social and cultural practices: socialization shapes our psychological and practical orientation so (...) that we perform local social practices fluently. Connecting practical orientation to an account of ideology, I argue that to ignore the ways in which cognition is socially shaped and filtered is to allow ideology to do its work unnoticed and unimpeded. Moreover, ideology critique cannot simply challenge belief, but must involve challenges to those practices through which we ourselves become the vehicles and embodiments of ideology.V. (shrink)

In the paper, I propose a project of social coordination as naturalistic social ontology (CNSO) based on the rules-in-equilibria theory of social institutions (Guala and Hindriks 2015; Hindriks and Guala 2015). It takes coordination as the main ontological unit of the social, a mechanism homological across animals and humans, for both can handle coordination problems: in the forms of “animal conventions” and social institutions, respectively. On this account, institutions are correlated equilibria with normative force. However, if both (...) humans and animals solve coordination problems in a similar way, and only humans have social institutions, how do the latter evolve? I suggest identifying possible causes of this evolution among cognitive capacities like mindreading and imitation by building dynamic models. Social ontology becomes constrained by the evolution of the forms of coordination and by the cognitive mechanisms involved in the emergence and persistence of social institutions. It means that it becomes bound to what might be derived from social institutions, i.e., social roles, structures and their derivatives. It shows how conceptual relations might emerge from causal. I conclude the paper with the discussion of the relationship between involved types of explanation, mechanistic and equilibrium ones. (shrink)

People coordinate body postures and gaze patterns during conversation. We review literature showing that (1) action embodies cognition, (2) postural coordination emerges spontaneously when two people converse, (3) gaze patterns influence postural coordination, (4) gaze coordination is a function of common ground knowledge and visual information that conversants believe they share, and (5) gaze coordination is causally related to mutual understanding. We then consider how coordination, generally, can be understood as temporarily coupled neuromuscular components that (...) function as a collective unit known as a coordinative structure in the motor control literature. We speculate that the coordination of gaze and body sway found in conversation may be understood as a cross‐person coordinative structure that embodies the goals of the joint action system. (shrink)

Schyns et al. make a strong case for context-dependent feature discovery. The features computed from specialized and diverse data-sets help to coordinate their activity by adapting so as to emphasize what is related across sets. Their perspective can be strengthened and extended by formal arguments for the contextual guidance of learning and processing and by neurobiological and psychological evidence of structures and processes that implement this guidance.

What does it take to argue well? The goal of this series of studies was to better understand the cognitive skills entailed in argument, and their course of development, isolated from the verbal and social demands that argumentive discourse also entails. Findings indicated that young adolescents are less able than adults to coordinate attention to both positions in an argument, an age-related pattern that parallels one found in discourse. Contributing to this weakness was inattention to the opposing position (in (...) both constrained and unconstrained formats), but not ability to address the opposing position when explicitly asked to do so. In addition to implementing the necessary dual focus, results point to the importance of developing epistemological understanding of the relevance of the opposing position to argument, as well as of the goals of argument more generally. The results also reflect the close parallels between dialogic and non-dialogic argument. (shrink)