Embodiment, Cognition, and
Developmental Process
Linda Smith
Indiana University, USA
All of cognition, all learning, all development has a physical reality – a brain in a physical body in a physical world. This series of lectures will consider advancing knowledge on the embodied nature of cognition and cognitive development. Evidence will be considered from the domains of language learning, categorization, and imitation, and from studies of developing children and developing robots.
Lecture
1: The Big Idea – How taking into
account the body and its action in the physical world may be essential to
understanding cognition and development.
Smith, L.B. & Gasser, M. (2005) The development of embodied cognition: Six lessons from babies. Artificial Life, 11, 13-30.
Needham, Barrett & Peterman (2002). Infant Behavior and development.
Piaget, J. (1952) The origins of intelligence. Basic Books (first three chapters)
Lecture 2: Meaning through action. [download presentation]
Sheya & Smith (in press) Development through Sensory-Motor Coordinations
Lecture
3: Representations close to the sensory
surface
Smith, L.B.& Thelen, E. (2003) Development as a dynamic system.Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 343-348.
James, William (1890) The principles of psychology. Volume 1, chapter 9.
Lecture
4: The first-person view and coupled systems in a social world
Chen Yu, Dana H. Ballard and Richard N. Aslin, "The Role of Embodied Intention in Early Lexical Acquisition", Cognitive Science, 29(6), 961-1005,2005.
Smith, L.B. & Breazeal, C. (2007) The dynamic lift of developmental process. Developmental Science, 10, 61-68.
Jones, S. (in press) Imitation in Infancy: The Development of Mimicry Psychological Science
Jones, S. (1996) Imitation or Exploration? Young Infants' Matching of Adults' Oral Gestures Child Development, Vol. 67, No. 5. (pp. 1952-1969.
Lecture
5: Correlations, language, action
Colunga, E., Smith, L. B. (2005) From the Lexicon to Expectations About Kinds: A Role for Associative Learning. Psychological Review, Vol. 112, No. 2.
Yoshida, H. & Smith, L. B. (2005) Linguistic cues enhance the learning of perceptual cues. Psychological Science, Vol 16 (2) 90-95
Lectures, hands-on activities, in-class experiments, and group discussions and debates will be used to explore these issues.
Linda Smith
Indiana University, USA
Dr. Linda Smith is a Chancellor's Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Indiana University - Bloomington. She received her B.S. degree in 1973 from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. She joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1977. Her research is directed to understanding developmental processes especially how it applies to early cognitive development and to the interaction of perception, action and language in that developmental process. She has published over 100 research articles and is co-author with Esther Thelen of A Dynamical Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. Her research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development and the National Institute of Mental Health.