The concept of autonomy is of crucial importance for understanding life and cognition. Whereas cellular and organismic autonomy is based in the self-production of the material infrastructure sustaining the existence of living beings as such, we are interested in how biological autonomy can be expanded into forms of autonomous agency, where autonomy as a form of organization is extended into the behaviour of an agent in interaction with its environment (and not its material self-production) In this thesis, we focus on the development of operational models of sensorimotor agency, exploring the construction of a domain of interactions creating a dynamical interface between agent and environment. We present two main contributions to the study of autonomous agency: First, we contribute to the development of a modelling route for testing, comparing and validating hypotheses about neurocognitive autonomy. Through the design and analysis of specific neurodynamical models embedded in robotic agents, we explore how an agent is constituted in a sensorimotor space as an autonomous entity able to adaptively sustain its own organization. Using two simulation models and different dynamical analysis and measurement of complex patterns in their behaviour, we are able to tackle some theoretical obstacles preventing the understanding of sensorimotor autonomy, and to generate new predictions about the nature of autonomous agency in the neurocognitive domain. Second, we explore the extension of sensorimotor forms of autonomy into the social realm. We analyse two cases from an experimental perspective: the constitution of a collective subject in a sensorimotor social interactive task, and the emergence of an autonomous social identity in a large-scale technologically-mediated social system. Through the analysis of coordination mechanisms and emergent complex patterns, we are able to gather experimental evidence indicating that in some cases social autonomy might emerge based on mechanisms of coordinated sensorimotor activity and interaction, constituting forms of collective autonomous agency.

Consideration of a possible use of virtual reality technologies in school contexts requires gathering together the suggestions of many scientific domains aimed at understanding the features of these same tools that let them offer valid support to the teaching–learning processes in educational settings. Specifically, the present study is aimed at creating a theoretical framework for the didactic use of VR technologies in schools, highlighting the characteristics of these tools that are supported by a view of teaching that enhances sensorimotor activity in learning. The theoretical approach, through the study of the international scientific literature on this topic, offers interdisciplinary suggestions for realising teaching–learning practices that are supported by scientific principles and a concept of learning that is consistent with the processes that these tools may activate.

Excerpt: Embodied cognition refers to the idea that cognitive processes are grounded in the operation of our bodies, and our bodies’ systems of perception, action planning, and emotional responding (e.g., Glenberg, 1997; Barsalou, 1999; Wilson & Golonka, 2013). Embodied cognition started to receive increased attention in the cognitive science literature in the mid-to- late 1990s (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Glenberg, 1997). Even at this early stage in the development of the embodied approach to cognition, it was apparent that the ideas associated with embodiment had the potential to impact thinking about education. For example, the idea that action is important for learning has a long history in the study of education (e.g., Montessori, 1917, among others). Additionally, there is a literature in cognitive psychology suggesting that action has benefits for learning and memory (e.g., Engelkamp & Zimmer, 1994). Finally, one of the first “embodiment” studies to appear in the cognitive science literature was a demonstration that the learning of a new task (using a compass to orient toward different locations) was improved when the learners were able to observe an actor pantomiming the motor components of the task (Glenberg & Robertson, 1999). As demonstrated by the chapters in this volume, embodied cognition has made a number of substantive contributions to educational research over the past two decades. Embodied approaches to language comprehension are centered around the idea that the understanding of language involves construction of sensorimotor simulations of the content of the linguistic input (e.g., Glenberg & Robertson, 2000; Kaschak et al., 2005). To illustrate, consider this sentence: Michael saw Meghan kick through a pile of leaves. The embodied approach suggests that understanding this sentence requires a sensorimotor simulation of the perceptual elements of the input (e.g., seeing a girl kicking leaves; seeing the leaves move through the air; hearing the sound of the leaves moving) and the action-based elements of the input (e.g., the action of kicking while you walk). Note that the sensorimotor activity during sentence comprehension need not be consciously accessible, and that it is not necessary that all elements of the sensorimotor experience are simulated in detail.

Excerpt: Our focus, in this article, on the originary phenomenological sources of mathematical reasoning, moves beyond cognitivist approaches to examining mathematical incomprehension, such as focusing on issues of working memory, semiotic representations, and varied aspects of cognitive function and dysfunction (e.g., Geary, Hoard & Hamson, 1999). We propose to shift the investigative locus of research on mathematical learning to earlier phenomenological events in students’ subjective process of meaning making, just prior to engaging in formal mathematical representation and modeling of psychological content. Our proposition rests on the adoption of a contemplative orientation that promotes a deep focus on somatic and preconceptual realms. In our development of this approach, we introduce contemplative practice as a means to resolve the bottleneck introduced above. Contemplative practices can do this, we suggest, by providing a pre-conceptual or liminal space that bridges the nuanced apprehension of tacit sensorimotor activity and conscious configuring of this ineffable psychological content into expressive forms.

This opening chapter provides an introduction to the book. It also introduces a theme that integrates many of the contributions from the remaining chapters: we adopt Kant’s perspective for merging rationalist and empiricist philosophies on the construction of knowledge. In particular, we focus attention on ways that biologically based abilities and experience in the world (coordinations of sensorimotor activity) each contribute to the construction of number. Additional themes arise within the content chapters and the commentaries on them.

Key words: embodied cognition, epistemology, numerical development, radical constructivism, sensorimotor activity.

Open peer commentary on the article “Enactive Metaphorizing in the Mathematical Experience” by Daniela Díaz-Rojas, Jorge Soto-Andrade & Ronnie Videla-Reyes. Abstract: Constructivist and embodied theories of learning each focus on action as the basis for cognition. However, in restricting action to sensorimotor activity, some embodied perspectives eschew abstraction and replace it with metaphor. Here, we argue that metaphors, and mathematical development itself, depend upon coordinations of actions, within structures that we call abstract.

: The embodiment hypothesis is the idea that intelligence emerges in the interaction of an agent with an environment and as a result of sensorimotor activity. We offer six lessons for developing embodied intelligent agents suggested by research in developmental psychology. We argue that starting as a baby grounded in a physical, social, and linguistic world is crucial to the development of the flexible and inventive intelligence that characterizes humankind.

The enactive approach offers a distinctive view of how mental life relates to bodily activity at three levels: bodily self-regulation, sensorimotor coupling, and intersubjective interaction. This paper concentrates on the second level of sensorimotor coupling. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related (the body-body problem) via dynamic sensorimotor activity, and it is shown how this account helps to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. Arguments by O’Regan, Noë, and Myin that seek to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual consciousness in terms of ‘bodiliness’ and ‘grabbiness’ are considered. It is suggested that their account does not pay sufficient attention to two other key aspects of perceptual phenomenality: the autonomous nature of the experiencing self or agent, and the pre-reflective nature of bodily self-consciousness.

Key words: Enactive cognitive science, self, sensorimotor, subjectivity.