The 4E Cognition Group has a new coordinator: Dr. Melina Gastelum!
Tom Froese will still be involved in the group as an external affiliate, and as the external supervisor of some student members. Starting this month he is the group leader of the new Embodied Cognitive Science Unit at OIST.
Our research group contributed a couple of pieces to a volume about cognitive science and education.
Well done to Ariel and Leonardo for showing new lines of research that can be done with the Enactive Torch!
Here is a technical report on a pilot study using the Enactive Torch sensory substitution interface, which involved several different kinds of analyses.
The Enactive Torch: Interactive embodied learning with a sensory substitution interface
Ximena González Grandón, Leonardo Zapata-Fonseca, Hector Gómez-Escobar, Guillermo Ortíz-Garin, Javier Flores, Ariel Sáenz-Burrola, and Tom Froese
Traditionally, the pedagogical design for teaching and learning practices has been characterized as a process during which an active expert supports passive learner for the accomplishment of a specific goal or task. Nowadays, however, the accessibility of information technologies and the understanding of the learner’s active role have caused that interactive, embodied and contextual learning perspectives have begun to gain room. Here, we contribute with a technical report of a pilot study based on the Enactive Torch, a tool for the scientific study of perception, which aimed to investigate the crucial role of embodied process in the generation of perceptual experience for sensory substitution. In using this technological scaffolding, a group of students, from various academic disciplines, have coordinated and conducted three projects using different methods, each of them analyzing quantitative and qualitative data recorded from the participants’ first- and third-person perspective. By means of this practical engagement, the students gained awareness of the transformative potential of technology and developed insights into the challenges of performing interdisciplinary research with their peers, in regard to embodied perception and cognition. The study, therefore, serves as a proof-of-concept for the Enactive Torch, as a technological scaffolding, that can facilitate the kind of interactive learning that students need to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of human embodied cognition and its relationship with technology.
Many thanks to Laura for this fruitful collaboration! I am excited about the new direction we are proposing: the spatiotemporally extensive mind!
Here is Susana’s first full-blown article! Well done!!
Well done to Leonardo for coordinating another excellent study of embodied social interaction!
PHD SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX: FROM SENSATION AND PERCEPTION TO AWARENESS
Corresponding author: Anil Seth (A.K.Seth@sussex.ac.uk)
We are delighted to invite applications for the second round of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme in ‘From Sensation and Perception to Awareness’, hosted across multiple Schools at the University of Sussex. Up to **eight** fully funded positions will be awarded (for UK/EU applicants), starting Sep 2019. The aim of the programme is to bring together doctoral researchers from different disciplines to advance our understanding of the interactions between sensing, perception, and awareness in humans, animals, and machines. Applicants can select from a range of projects or propose their own. Pre-specified projects are divided into three main themes: (i) Human-computer interaction and digital arts, (ii) human cognitive neuroscience and computational neuroscience, and (iii) sensory neuroscience.
For more details and for how to apply please see https://www.findaphd.com/search/PhdDetails.aspx?CAID=3783 and https://www.sussex.ac.uk/sensation/applications. For more on the Programme please visit https://www.sussex.ac.uk/sensation/, and follow us on Twitter @SensationSussex. Email enquiries to Leverhulme@sussex.ac.uk. Application deadline is **31st January 2019**. The programme is co-directed by Anil Seth (Engineering and Informatics) and Jamie Ward (Psychology).
A recurring topic in our group’s meetings this year was the lack of an introductory level resource for people trying to learn about 4E cognition. This summer school could help!
Congratulations to Hector who graduated with honors from UNAM’s Bachelor’s degree in Psychology yesterday for his work with the Enactive Torch on movement complexity.
The title and abstract of his thesis are as follows:
Análisis de series de tiempo de actividad sensorimotora durante la interacción humano-máquina
Héctor Gómez Escobar
4E Cognition Group 