Proprioception in Action: A Matter of Ecological and Social Interaction

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Ximena González-Grandón¹  Andrea Falcón-Cortés⁴  Gabriel Ramos-Fernández⁵ 

[1] Departamento de Educación, Universidad Iberoamericana;Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Insituto de Filosofía y Ciencias de la Complejidad IFICC-Chile;Instituto de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

关键词: enactive cognition;    sensorimotor theory;    perception-action-coupling;    ecological self;    social cognition;    agent-based models;    kinesthetic phenomenology;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.569403

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical and formal framework to understand how the proprioceptive and kinesthetic system learns about body position and possibilities for movement in ongoing action and interaction. Whereas most weak embodiment accounts of proprioception focus on positionalist descriptions or on its role as a source of parameters for internal motor control, we argue that these aspects are insufficient to understand how proprioception is integrated into an active organized system in continuous and dynamic interaction with the environment. Our strong embodiment thesis is that one of the main theoretical principles to understand proprioception, as a perceptual experience within concrete situations, is the coupling with kinesthesia and its relational constitution—self, ecological, and social. In our view, these aspects are underdeveloped in current accounts, and an enactive sensorimotor theory enriched with phenomenological descriptions may provide an alternative path toward explaining this skilled experience. Following O'Regan and Noë ( 2001 ) sensorimotor contingencies conceptualization, we introduce three distinct notions of proprioceptive kinesthetic-sensorimotor contingencies (PK-SMCs), which we describe conceptually and formally considering three varieties of perceptual experience in action: PK-SMCs-self, PK-SMCs-self-environment, and PK-SMC-self-other. As a proof of concept of our proposal, we developed a minimal PK model to discuss these elements in detail and show their explanatory value as important guides to understand the proprioceptive/kinesthetic system. Finally, we also highlight that there is an opportunity to develop enactive sensorimotor theory in new directions, creating a bridge between the varieties of experiences of oneself and learning skills.

【 授权许可】

CC BY