I argue that autonomy is substantially relational by appealing to a variety of findings from the cognitive sciences. I gather findings related to a variety of paradigms of the cognitive sciences under the collective banner Relational Cognition and argue that these speak in favor of contingent relational accounts of autonomy by demonstrating the relational nature of cognition and agency. I focus on the ways in which these findings emphasise the embedded nature of cognition. I pay particular attention to the frameworks of 4E cognition because of their general emphasis on how cognition operates in concert with the external environment of the agent. This, I argue, speaks in favor of externalist approaches to autonomy. For example, 4E cognition explores how the human mind exploits its embodied nature to offload part of its internal, mental processing to features of its external environments. By operating in this fashion, an agent’s development and effective exercise of many of her cognitive capacities depend upon her prior embedding into particular environments. This perspective is conceptually very similar to relational accounts of autonomy which emphasise the situatedness of agents, positing that individual autonomy is necessarily contingent on certain social relations. I illuminate this conceptual overlap and bridge it in two ways. First, more broadly through a contingency argument, and second, by connecting relational cognition to the social self thesis which is a central conceptual component of relational accounts of autonomy. Finally, in light of all this, I claim that liberal theorizing on autonomy needs to grant a greater importance to the environments of agents for their ability to develop and practice autonomous agency. I criticise Joseph Raz’s conception of autonomy in this manner and suggest that a relational cognition perspective provides an instructive avenue for further developing a more externalist liberal understanding of autonomy.

This is a study about how embodied cognitive processes relates to slow drawing processes such as stippling, but also other slow mediums such as graphite pencil. With an auto-ethnographical research method the production of a stippled drawing is examined in relation to contemporary cognitional science, as well as a cognitive experiment that examines how important time and technique is to mental processes surrounding the drawing. The study is then examined in relation to other realistically stippled drawings to establish data outside the personal narrative. The main results were that the amount of time you spend drawing the studied object increasingly enhances the cognitive process of gathering of information. Furthermore the usage of hands during this slow process is established as an effective way to feel and remember the essence of an object for a longer period of time. Also, the parallell pause that occurs whilst drawing slowly and methodical enables reflection that stimulate the embodied cognitional processes linked to learning and understanding about objects outside ourselves.

Syftet med studien är att genom en kvalitativ metod bidra till befintlig forskning om olika strategier som elever i årskurs 1 och 2 använder sig av vid handskrivning. I studien använder jag mig av individuella intervjuer med både lärare och elever, samt observationer av elever när de skriver med penna. Fenomenografi har använts som metod vid databearbetningen. Genom en kvalitativ metod och ”embodied cognition” som teoretisk utgångspunkt får jag både höra vilka strategier eleverna beskriver att de använder sig av, men även se vilka kroppsliga rörelser och strategier de uppvisar. Det framkommer även hur lärarna beskriver sin skrivundervisning och att de inte har tid att notera elevernas kroppsliga uttryck. Resultatet åskådliggör att eleverna uppvisar många kroppsliga rörelser vid handskrivning. Med stöd i tidigare forskning visar sig dessa rörelser vara både kognitiva och kroppsliga strategier, vilka hjälper eleverna i deras skrivprocess. Ibland signalerar även rörelserna behov av hjälp, trots att eleverna inte själva är medvetna om dem. / The purpose of this study is to, through qualitative methods, contribute to existing research about different strategies that pupils in grades 1 and 2 make use of in handwriting. In the study, I carry out individual interviews with both teachers and pupils, along with observations of pupils when they are writing with pencils. The method used in data processing is phenomenography. Through a qualitative method and “embodied cognition” as a theoretical starting point, the pupils describe which strategies that they use, but also which body movements and strategies they show. The result also shows how the teachers describe their writing instruction and that they do not have time to take note of the pupils’ bodily expressions. The result illustrates that the pupils display many bodily movements during handwriting. Drawing on earlier research, this study shows that these movements are both cognitive and bodily strategies, which help pupils in their writing process. Sometimes the movements signal a need of help, even though the pupils are not aware of it themselves.

This thesis assesses the link between action and cognition early in development. Thus the notion of an embodied cognition is investigated by tying together two levels of action control in the context of reaching in infancy: prospective motor control and executive functions. The ability to plan our actions is the inevitable foundation of reaching our goals. Thus actions can be stratified on different levels of control. There is the relatively low level of prospective motor control and the comparatively high level of cognitive control. Prospective motor control is concerned with goal-directed actions on the level of single movements and movement combinations of our body and ensures purposeful, coordinated movements, such as reaching for a cup of coffee. Cognitive control, in the context of this thesis more precisely referred to as executive functions, deals with goal-directed actions on the level of whole actions and action combinations and facilitates directedness towards mid- and long-term goals, such as finishing a doctoral thesis. Whereas prospective motor control and executive functions are well studied in adulthood, the early development of both is not sufficiently understood. This thesis comprises three empirical motion-tracking studies that shed light on prospective motor control and executive functions in infancy. Study I investigated the prospective motor control of current actions by having 14-month-olds lift objects of varying weights. In doing so, multi-cue integration was addressed by comparing the use of visual and non-visual information to non-visual information only. Study II examined the prospective motor control of future actions in action sequences by investigating reach-to-place actions in 14-month-olds. Thus the extent to which Fitts’ law can explain movement duration in infancy was addressed. Study III lifted prospective motor control to a higher that is cognitive level, by investigating it relative to executive functions in 18-months-olds. Main results were that 14-month-olds are able to prospectively control their manual actions based on object weight. In this action planning process, infants use different sources of information. Beyond this ability to prospectively control their current action, 14-month-olds also take future actions into account and plan their actions based on the difficulty of the subsequent action in action sequences. In 18-month-olds, prospective motor control in manual actions, such as reaching, is related to early executive functions, as demonstrated for behavioral prohibition and working memory. These findings are consistent with the idea that executive functions derive from prospective motor control. I suggest that executive functions could be grounded in the development of motor control. In other words, early executive functions should be seen as embodied.

This thesis presents an investigation into the pedagogical content knowing (PCKg) of Dutch experienced specialist preschool music teachers with regard to teaching and learning rhythm skills viewed from an embodied cognition perspective. An embodied cognition perspective stresses the intimate relationship between body, mind and environment. In a multiple case study the research methods - stimulated recall interviews, gesture analysis tasks, physical action analysis tasks, notebooks and semi-structured interviews - were used to elicit the PCKg of six specialist preschool music teachers regarding rhythm skills. The data of these different methods were inductively analysed but sensitising concepts derived from the literature review on PCKg were also used in the analysis. Furthermore, the data were triangulated to gain a comprehensive understanding of the participants' PCKg. As for the nature of the specialist preschool music teachers' PCKg regarding rhythm skills the findings illustrated that PCKg is distributed over language, sound, gestures, body positioning and physical actions. Respecting the content of PCKg a new form of (non-verbal) knowledge was explored: 'musical communication and musical interaction' that facilitates the learning of rhythm skills of preschoolers. The study is first of all significant for offering a new perspective on the nature of the specialist preschool music teachers' PCKg: a multimodal and dynamic way of knowing that emerges from the interrelated role between the social, cultural and physical classroom environment, the teaching task and the teacher's body. Beyond the classroom, these teachers' bodies form a source for recalling, re-enacting and eliciting classroom experiences to develop and communicate their PCKg. Secondly, it offers a new perspective on the content of the specialist preschool music teachers' PCKg: these teachers' bodies take on different roles to mediate the preschoolers' learning process regarding rhythm skills. These findings have implications for further research, teacher education, practice and policy.

In this licentiate thesis, I present detailed case studies of students as they make use of simulated digital learning environments to engage with physics phenomena. In doing so, I reveal the moment-to-moment minutiae of physics students’ open-ended inquiry in the presence of two digital tools, namely the sandbox software Algodoo and the PhET simulation My Solar System (both running on an interactive whiteboard). As this is a topic which has yet to receive significant attention in the physics education research community, I employ an interpretivist, case-oriented methodology to illustrate, build, and refine several theoretical perspectives. Notably, I combine the notion of semi-formalisms with the notion of Newtonian modeling, I illustrate how Algodoo can be seen to function as a Papertian microworld, I meaningfully combine the theoretical perspectives of social semiotics and embodied cognition into a single analytic lens, and I reveal the need for a more nuanced taxonomy of students’ embodiment during physics learning activities. Each of the case studies presented in this thesis makes use of conversation analysis in a fine-grained examination of video-recorded, small-group student interactions. Of particular importance to this process is my attention to students’ non-verbal communication via gestures, gaze, body position, haptic-touch, and interactions with the environment. In this way, I bring into focus the multimodally-rich, often informal interactions of students as they deal with physics content. I make visible the ways in which the students (1) make the conceptual connection between the physical world and the formal/mathematical domain of disciplinary physics, (2) make informal and creative use of mathematical representations, and (3) incorporate their bodies to mechanistically reason about physical phenomena. Across each of the cases presented in this thesis, I show how, while using open-ended software on an interactive whiteboard, students can communicate and reason about physics phenomena in unexpectedly fruitful ways.

Les objets fabriqués manipulable (ou outils) sont caractérisés entre autre par leur Fonction (i.e. ce à quoi sert l’objet) et par leur Manipulation (i.e. gestes typiques associés à leur utilisation). Le présent travail de thèse s’inscrit dans une approche incarnée de la cognition et défend l’idée que les connaissances gestuelles sont le point d’ancrage au développement de la représentation conceptuelle des objets. Néanmoins, des études antérieures ont montré que les jugements de similarité de Fonction sont réalisés plus rapidement que ceux de Manipulation suggérant un accès plus précoce à la Fonction. En utilisant le paradigme d’amorçage, nous avons exploré l’organisation des connaissances de Manipulation et de Fonction tout au long de la vie. Nous avons montré que les traits gestuels facilitent la dénomination d’objets chez les enfants de 8 ans et que cet effet diminue linéairement avec l’âge. Cet effet est inhibiteur chez l’adulte jeune et âgé. Parallèlement, les traits fonctionnels ne sont activés de façon incidente que chez l’adulte jeune et entrainent une facilitation de la dénomination. Toutefois le sens de l’effet d’amorçage semble dépendant du type de traitement opéré sur l’objet-cible. En effet, l’amorçage par la Manipulation devient facilitateur chez les adultes dans une tâche de décision d’objet. Ces résultats supportent deux idées cruciales ; ils confirment la primauté de représentations gestuelles et l’ancrage plus lent des connaissances fonctionnelles dans les représentations d’objets, d’autre part, ils montrent que le format procédural des traits gestuels peut ralentir le traitement sémantique de l’objet. Ce dernier point est précisé par l’investigation des processus en jeu durant le jugement de deux objets sur la base de leur Fonction vs. Manipulation en imagerie cérébrale. Notre étude IRMf a montré que le jugement de similarité en termes de gestes entraine l’activation spécifique de régions pariétales (représentations gestuelles), frontales (simulation motrice) et cérébelleuses (inhibition de l’exécution du geste) comparativement à la Fonction. Cette dernière ne présentant pas d’activation spécifique. Enfin, notre étude en EEG a montré que le jugement de Manipulation entraine un traitement structurel de l’objet précoce et accru, ainsi que deux traitements plus tardifs observés sur les composantes P300 et P400-700 reflétant respectivement un accès plus profonds aux représentations gestuelles et un traitement en mémoire de travail. Ensemble, ces résultats montrent que l’allongement des temps de réponse aux tâches de jugements de Manipulation s’explique par un coût cognitif plus important pour la comparaison de traits gestuels plutôt que par un accès tardif à ces représentations. La prédiction de l’approche incarnée de la cognition n’est pas écartée. / Manipulable artifacts (or tools) can be defined according to their Function (i.e. what the object is for) or their Manipulation (i.e. the typical gestures associated with its use). The present PhD thesis is inscribed in the embodied cognition approach and supports the idea that gestural knowledge is the anchor point to the development of the conceptual representation of objects. Nevertheless, previous works showed that Function similarity judgments are made faster than those of Manipulation suggesting that Function is more readily available than Manipulation. Using the priming paradigm, we explored the organization of Manipulation and Function knowledge throughout life. We showed that gestural traits facilitate the naming of objects in 8-year-olds and that this effect decreases linearly with age. This inhibitory effect appears in young and in elderly. At the same time, the functional features are only incidentally activated in the young group and lead to facilitation effect. However, the direction of the priming effect seems to depend on the type of processing performed on the target object. Indeed, by using an object decision task, a facilitation is observed in Manipulation . These results support two crucial ideas: they confirm the primacy of gestural representations, and the slower anchoring of functional knowledge in the representations of objects; and, on the other hand, they show that the procedural format of gestural traits can slow down the semantic processing of the object. This last point is clarified by the investigation of the processes involved during the judgment of two objects on the basis of their Function vs. Manipulation in brain imaging. Our fMRI study showed that the similarity judgment in terms of gestures leads to the specific activation of parietal (gestural representations), frontal (motor simulation), and cerebellar (inhibition of gesture execution) regions compared to function. The latter does not show any specific activation. Finally, our EEG study showed that Manipulation judgment leads to an increased structural object processing occurring early, as well as two other processing observed on the P300 and P400-700 components, and reflecting, respectively, a deeper access to gestural representations, and a working memory processing. Together, these results show that slower response times to Manipulation with respect to Function judgment tasks is explained by a higher cognitive cost for the comparison of gestural traits rather than by late access to these representations. The prediction of the embodied approach of cognition is still maintained.

Les gens produisent des mouvements spontanés pendant des tâches de raisonnement spatial. Ces mouvements aident-ils à la performance de la tâche? Nous avons étudié le rôle des mouvements spontanés dans l'orientation spatiale en utilisant des tâches de prise de perspective spatiale (PPS) dans lesquelles les participants devaient imaginer un point de vue différent de leur point de vue actuel. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur des perspectives exigeant des rotations mentales de soi - particulièrement difficiles, elles sont grandement facilitées par un mouvement actif, même en l'absence de vision. La contribution motrice à la performance de la tâche pourrait résulter d'un mécanisme prédictif, qui anticipe les conséquences d'une action avant son exécution, comme un modèle d'anticipation interne (Wolpert & Flanagan, 2001), inhibant par la suite l’exécution du mouvement si nécessaire. Les mouvements observés peuvent être des traces visibles de ce processus. En utilisant un système de capture de mouvements, nous avons montré que les rotations de la tête sont géométriquement liées à la PPS : leur direction et amplitude étaient liées à la direction et à l'angle entre les perspectives réelles et imaginée (Exp. 1). Chez les contrôleurs aériens, qualifiés ou apprentis, seule la direction de la rotation de la tête était liée à la PPS, reflétant probablement l'expertise spatiale ainsi que le rôle crucial de la direction dans la rotation mentale (Exp. 2). Dans un environnement virtuel, les rotations de tête spontanées étaient liées à une performance accrue. Cependant, les rotations volontaires, qui imitent celles qui sont produites spontanément, ne facilitent pas la performance de navigation (Exp. 3), mais l'empêchent lorsqu’elles sont contraires à la direction de la rotation virtuelle. Nos résultats suggèrent une contribution motrice spécifique à l'orientation spatiale, compatible avec la prédiction motrice. / People produce spontaneous movements during spatial reasoning tasks. Do they relate to task performance? We investigated the role of spontaneous movements in spatial orientation using spatial perspective-taking (SPT) tasks where participants adopted imaginary perspectives. We focused on imaginary perspectives requiring mental rotations of the self as they are particularly difficult and greatly facilitated by active movement in the absence of vision. Motor contribution to task performance could result from a predictive mechanism, which anticipates the consequences of an action before its execution, such as an internal forward model (Wolpert & Flanagan, 2001), further inhibiting full rotations of the head. Observed movements may be visible traces of this process. Using motion capture, we showed that head movements are geometrically related to SPT: both the direction and amplitude of head rotations were related to the direction and angle between the actual and imagined perspectives (Exp. 1). In air traffic controllers and apprentices, only the direction of head rotation was related to SPT, probably reflecting spatial expertise and its crucial role in mental rotation (Exp. 2). In a virtual environment, spontaneous head rotations were related to increased performance. However voluntary rotations, emulating the spontaneously produced ones, did not facilitate navigation performance (Exp. 3), but hindered it when inconsistent with the direction of virtual rotation. Overall, our findings suggest a specific motor contribution to spatial orientation consistent with motor prediction.

This dissertation clarifies the role and relevance of the body in social interaction and cognition from an embodied cognitive science perspective. Theories of embodied cognition have during the past two decades offered a radical shift in explanations of the human mind, from traditional computationalism which considers cognition in terms of internal symbolic representations and computational processes, to emphasizing the way cognition is shaped by the body and its sensorimotor interaction with the surrounding social and material world. This thesis develops a framework for the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition, which is based on an interdisciplinary approach that ranges historically in time and across different disciplines. The theoretical framework presents a thorough and integrated understanding that supports and explains the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition. It is argued that embodiment is the part and parcel of social interaction and cognition in the most general and specific ways, in which dynamically embodied actions themselves have meaning and agency. The framework is illustrated by empirical work that provides some detailed observational fieldwork on embodied actions captured in three different episodes of spontaneous social interaction in situ. Besides illustrating the theoretical issues discussed in the thesis, the empirical work also reveals some novel characteristics of embodied action in social interaction and cognition. Furthermore, the ontogeny of social interaction and cognition is considered, in which social scaffolding and embodied experience play crucial roles during child development. In addition, the issue what it would take for an artificial system to be (socially) embodied is discussed from the perspectives of cognitive modeling and technology. Finally, the theoretical contributions and implications of the study of embodied actions in social interaction and cognition for cognitive science and related disciplines are summed up. The practical relevance for applications to artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction is also outlined as well as some aspects for future work.

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASCs) are marked by social-communicative difficulties and unusually fixed or repetitive interests, activities, and behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In this thesis, I review empirically and conceptually based philosophic proposals that maintain the social-communicative difficulties exhibited by persons on the autism spectrum result from a lack of capacity to understand other persons as minded. I will argue that the social-communicative difficulties that characterize ASCs may instead result from a lack of ability to access other minds, and that this lack of ability is due to a contingent lack of external resources.