TSVP Talk "A Body-First Approach to Cognitive Science" by Dr. Mog Stapleton

Dr. Mog Stapleton visiting OIST from 2022/06/10 until 2023/03/31 through the "Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program" (TSVP). Find out more about the TSVP in this news article or the program website.
This seminar intended for a general audience and the research will be presented in an accessible manner. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to ask questions after the talk. Guests from outside OIST can join via Zoom.

Title: A Body-First Approach to Cognitive Science

Abstract: Embodied cognition has been a trendy approach to cognitive science for the last few decades. But what does it mean to say that cognition is embodied? Why should we think we are anything more than brains in bodily vats that keep our brains alive and function as input/output interfaces with the world? If we want to build artificial systems that are genuinely cognitive, do these need to be embodied? And, if so, in what way? In this talk, I will give an overview of some of the main contributions to embodied cognitive science research to show why bodies matter to cognition. And I will explore why more recent research might give us reason to push these insights further and move from an ”embodied” approach to a “body-first” approach to cognitive science.

Profile: Mog Stapleton is a researcher at East China Normal University. Her background is in cognitive science and philosophy (with master's degrees in both). She received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Her research focuses on embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended (so-called "4E") approaches and on the importance of affect for cognitive science. She is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Cognitive Systems Research. Google Scholar

Language: English, no interpretation.

Target audience: General audience / everyone at OIST and beyond.
Freely accessible to all OIST members and guests without registration.

This talk will also be broadcast online via Zoom:

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Meeting ID: 997 2170 6203
Passcode: 966717