A non-representational approach to imagined action

This study addresses the dynamical nature of a "representation-hungry" cognitive task involving an imagined action. In our experiment, participants were handed rods that systematically increased or decreasedinlengthonsubsequenttrials.Participantswereaskedtojudgewhetherornottheythoughtthey could reach for a distant object with the hand-held rod. The results are in agreement with a dynamical model, extended from Tuller, Case, Ding, and Kelso (1994). The dynamical effects observed in this study suggest that predictive judgments regarding the possibility or impossibility of a certain action can be understood in terms of dynamically evolving basins of attraction instead of as depending on representational structures.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: COGSCI
• Authors: Iris van Rooij, Raoul M. Bongers, Willem F. G. Haselager
• Keywords: Cognitive Task, COGSCI 2002, Dynamical, Dynamical Nature