Post date: Oct 20, 2012 7:45:39 PM
This is a theoretical paper about the emergence of representations.
How and why do situated agents develop representations that are detached from their current sensorimotor interaction, but nevertheless preserve grounding and aboutness? How do cognitive agents progressively acquire a range of capabilities permitting them to deal not only with the current situation but also with alternative, in particular future states of affairs? How do they develop the capability of acting on their representations instead of acting directly on the world? In a theoretical and developmental perspective, we propose that anticipation plays a crucial role in the detachment process: anticipatory representations, originally detached from the sensorimotor cycle for the sake of action control, are successively exapted for bootstrapping increasingly complex cognitive capabilities.
Pezzulo, G. & Castelfranchi, C. The Symbol Detachment ProblemCognitive Processing, 2007, 8 (2). Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-007-0164-0