{"title":"Grand Unified Theories of the Brain Need Better Understanding of Behavior: The Two-Tiered Emergence of Function","authors":"Viktor Jirsa, A. Mcintosh, R. Huys","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1615207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615207","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Over the last few decades, neuroscience and various associated disciples have expanded enormously in terms of output, tools, methods, concepts, and large-scale projects. In spite of these developments, the principles underlying brain function and behavior are yet only partially understood. We claim that brain functioning requires the elucidation of the rules associated with all possible task realizations, rather than targeting the activity underlying a specific realization. A first step in that direction was taken by approaches focusing on dynamical structures underlying task performances, as exemplified by coordination dynamics. Its theoretical foundation owes much to Haken’s synergetics, which provides a formalism through which the degrees of freedom associated with high-dimensional systems may be effectively reduced to one or a few functional variables in the vicinity of phase transitions. The recent theoretical development of structured flows on manifolds (SFM) allows the employment to a potentially broader range of applications. Here we expand the SFM framework and propose that the emergent two-tiered fast–slow dynamics may be a basic mathematical organization underlying the architecture of brain and behavior dynamics. Finally, along a few examples, we illustrate how this framework allows for the incorporation of notions cardinal to ecological psychology.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615207","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49504237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
F. V. D. van der Weel, Seth B. Agyei, A. V. D. van der Meer
{"title":"Infants’ Brain Responses to Looming Danger: Degeneracy of Neural Connectivity Patterns","authors":"F. V. D. van der Weel, Seth B. Agyei, A. V. D. van der Meer","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1615210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615210","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A fundamental property of most animals is the ability to see whether an object is approaching on a direct collision course and, if so, when it will collide. Using high-density electroencephalography in infants and a looming stimulus approaching under three different accelerations, we previously found how visual information for impending collision is sustained in the young human nervous system. In the present study, using longitudinal data on 25 infants at 4–5 months and 12–13 months, we show that infants’ looming-related brain activity is clearly localized in the visual cortex (V1) following retinotopic mapping, but is highly adaptive in its organization otherwise. Analyzing the orientation of electrical source flow, we provide evidence for a high degree of variability, spread across a relatively large area of the visual cortex. The findings reveal a highly dynamic functional organization, with connectivity patterns constantly emerging and changing in many different directions between trials. This suggests degeneracy of neural connectivity patterns through reentry principles, where neurons temporarily assemble to enable an appropriate looming response with the necessary precision.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615210","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43696010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Are Nervous Systems For?","authors":"M. Fultot, P. Frazier, M. Turvey, C. Carello","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1615205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615205","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract An underlying bias of contemporary cognitive science is that the brain and nervous system are in the business of carrying out computations and building representations. Gibson’s ecological approach, in contrast, is decidedly noncomputational and nonrepresentational. How, then, are we to construe the role of brain and nervous system? We consider this question against the backdrop of evidence for rich achievements in perception and action by agents without brains or nervous systems. If fundamental coordination of perception and action does not require a neural substrate, then what value is added in having one? And if the neural substrate is not in the representational–computational business, then what business is it in? We pursue answers grounded in the constraints of macroscopic, multicellular life and thermodynamics.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1615205","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43149615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Experience Influences Affordance Perception for Low Crawling Under Barriers With Altered Body Dimensions","authors":"Shaziela Ishak, Adam B. Assoian, S. Rincon","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1619456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1619456","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We examined the role of experience in affordance perception for low crawling with altered body dimensions under barriers of different heights. Adults decided which of five backpacks (10–30 cm thick) they would be able to wear while low crawling under barriers. Participants were assigned to one of three experience conditions. Participants in the Pre/Post-choice experience condition crawled under the barrier before and after picking a backpack, participants in the Feedback condition crawled under the barrier after picking a backpack, but participants in the No Experience condition received no low-crawling experience. Past research suggests that pre-choice experience with low crawling under the barrier would lead to more accurate responses. Overall, participants in all three conditions scaled the height of the backpack to the barrier height. Pre-choice low-crawling experience strongly influenced backpack choices such that participants in the Pre/Post condition picked significantly smaller backpacks and produced fewer failures than participants in the other conditions. The results provide evidence that brief practice, in an unfamiliar posture, can lead to improvements in affordance perception.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1619456","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47366426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"von Uexküll’s Theory of Meaning and Gibson’s Organism–Environment Reciprocity","authors":"M. Fultot, M. Turvey","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1619455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1619455","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Jakob von Uexküll is mostly known for his concept of Umwelt—the meaningful surrounding of animals. von Uexküll insisted vehemently on the fact that Umwelt vindicated Kant’s subjectivist epistemology in the biological domain. However, we argue that a crucial yet widely overlooked development in von Uexküll’s theory of meaning implies a more radical vision strikingly germane to J. J. Gibson’s own direct realist epistemology-ontology and in tension with his own subjectivist concept of Umwelt. Gibson argued that organism and environment are complementary and meaning is not constructed via a subjective act but is directly available in the world as opportunities for action, namely, affordances. We show that von Uexküll’s notion of “functional tone” is similar to Gibson’s concept of affordance in that it includes action in perception. More important, von Uexküll introduces the musical metaphor of harmony to characterize the relationship between animal and environment. Like Gibson’s reciprocity, harmony implies an unmediated isomorphism between the dispositions of the animal and those of the environment that allows for direct perceptual contact with the world and action upon it.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1619455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44351989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Á. Jiménez, D. A. Ochoa, P. Amazeen, E. Amazeen, Felipe Cabrera
{"title":"Affordances Guide Choice Behavior between Equal Schedules of Reinforcement in Rats","authors":"Á. Jiménez, D. A. Ochoa, P. Amazeen, E. Amazeen, Felipe Cabrera","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2019.1599686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2019.1599686","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Operant choice theories pose that behavior distribution between options is ruled by the consequences related with these options. Evidence suggests that rats’ performance is attuned to the affordances that the operant setting provides, such as lever height. Our aim was to explore in rats whether lever press distribution was influenced by the affordances furnished by two levers. Lever pressing was reinforced in two concurrent equal variable-ratio schedules of reinforcement, and in successive conditions lever height was varied asymmetrically—that is, one lever was higher than the other. Results showed a quadratic relation between response rates and lever height, a linear trend between preference and lever height, and higher between- and within-bout response rates on the lower lever in four out of the six pairs of lever heights assessed. These findings suggest that intermediate lever heights favored lever pressing with faster bout initiation and faster within-bout responding, and support the idea that preorganized properties of behavior (i.e., the organism’s abilities) interact with the environment before the operant contingency takes place.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2019.1599686","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46995631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Swinging Door Invariants: Optical Information from Rotating Panels","authors":"P. Cabe","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2018.1552497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2018.1552497","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ecological perceptual research focuses on stimulus array invariants as information that might guide organismic (particularly human) actions. Constructed by human agency, built environments entail structural regularities (e.g., planarity, verticality, horizontality, orthogonality) that constrain stimulus array information; here the emphasis is optical information (invariants). Built environments involve barriers that restrict behavior; doors allow passage through such barriers. Doors (more generally, swinging panels) yield surprisingly many instances of optical information. Specifically, invariants exist for (a) panel collision and bypass, (b) the panel’s axis of rotation, (c) the horizon line, and (d) the panel’s frontal-parallel orientation. Affordances are associated with each of those. Invariants described exemplify meta-invariant patterns (i.e., similarities in invariant stimulus array structure that occur across disparate environmental objects and events); meta-invariants may serve as research heuristics for the discovery of invariants in delimited contexts. Empirical considerations for optical invariants identified are described. Derivations described may be helpful for teaching the concept of invariants from stimulus array transformations, as well.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2018.1552497","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48328703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. D. De Ruiter, Majid Elahi Shirvan, N. Talebzadeh
{"title":"Emotional Processes of Foreign-Language Learning Situated in Real-Time Teacher Support","authors":"N. D. De Ruiter, Majid Elahi Shirvan, N. Talebzadeh","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2018.1554368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2018.1554368","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The dynamic turn in the field of psychology of foreign-language learning has inspired researchers to capture the nitty-gritty dynamics of development in inter- or intraindividual variables. Despite the growing number of techniques for analyzing dynamics, there is still a need for techniques that capture how intraindividual dynamics are situated in a changing context. One of the techniques that can contribute to this knowledge is a clustering technique called Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). In this study, we aimed to explore the intraindividual process of foreign-language enjoyment and foreign-language classroom anxiety in alignment with teachers’ level of emotional support during teacher-student interactions for two dyads. The findings indicated the emergence of recurring patterns of teacher support, and student anxiety and enjoyment. These patterns highlight the self-organizing nature of these teacher-student interactions, the bidirectional nature of this process, and, in general, the notion of teachers and students as dynamic systems. Moreover, the specific nature of the emergent patterns suggests that the traditional positive association between teacher support and student affect may (mostly, but not always) be generalized to real-time and real-life processes. And finally, our results point toward the importance of the student in determining the affective nature of the interactions from moment to moment.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2018.1554368","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48620117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Weather as Ecological Events","authors":"A. Stewart, Julia J. C. Blau","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2018.1552496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2018.1552496","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Gibson’s (1979/1986) definition of ecological events suggests that they are different types of change. Weather events exemplify all three varieties that Gibson outlined and can: (1) change the layout of surfaces, (2) change the color or texture of surfaces, and (3) change surface existence. Wind can bring temporary and enduring changes at the ground surface. Clouds can affect visual experiences on the ground through the amount and type of sunlight that is available. Precipitation in the form of rain, ice, and snow can create, disrupt, deform, or destroy surfaces at or on the ground. In this way, weather can change both the optical characteristics of surfaces (e. g., texture, reflectivity, transparency) as well as the affordances of the surfaces (e.g., wetting of surfaces reduces contact friction; high winds change the ease of passing through the medium of air, etc.). We present a taxonomy of weather events based on Gibson’s (1979/1986) classification of terrestrial events and provide some suggestions for future research.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2018.1552496","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47430581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"All Perception Engages the Tensegrity-Based Haptic Medium","authors":"P. Cabe","doi":"10.1080/10407413.2018.1526037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2018.1526037","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Structurally, bodies of organisms can be described as tensegrity systems, fractally self-similar from whole-body to cellular levels. Sensory receptors embedded within such somatic tensegrity systems comprise haptic perceptual systems. Because the elements of the organismic tensegrity system are all interconnected, that system becomes the medium for haptic perception. Forces acting on any element of a somatic tensegrity system radiate throughout the entire system and thereby affect the entire haptic medium. All perception, in the ecological view, requires active sampling of stimulus arrays. Such active perception always involves overt body movements, orienting responses, and sensory organ adjustments (e.g., eye movements). Any and all movements occasioned in active perception affect the organismic tensegrity system, and therefore the haptic medium. A surprising consequence is that all active perception necessarily entails tensegrity-based haptic medium involvement, with implications for perceptual research.","PeriodicalId":47279,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2018-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10407413.2018.1526037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49245450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}