The dynamics of embodiment: A field theory of infant perseverative reaching

TLDR

The A‑not‑B error, a well‑studied phenomenon in 7–12‑month‑old infants, shows that after finding a toy at location A, infants continue to reach there even when the toy is moved to B, challenging traditional views that it reflects static object concepts. The article aims to demonstrate that the A‑not‑B error and its contextual variations arise from the coupled dynamics of goal‑directed actions—looking, planning, reaching, and remembering—by presenting a formal dynamic theory and model grounded in embodied cognition. The authors develop a formal dynamic theory that models perception, planning, deciding, and remembering as continuous analogic dynamics, allowing the mental events to be meshed with bodily movement and to simulate the A‑not‑B effects and predict new experimental outcomes. The study concludes that the continuous meshing of mental and bodily dynamics constitutes a primarily cognitive act of knowing, relevant from infancy to everyday life.

Abstract

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span.