Tom Froese

At the upcoming Fourth EUCogII Members Conference (April 11 – 12, Anatolia College, Thessaloniki), which has the theme “Embodiment – Fad or Future?”, I will present a poster that summarizes the recent paper I wrote with Prof. Dr. Dr. Fuchs. The title and abstract are as follows:

The Extended Body: On the inter-enaction of bodily resonance, embodied communication and body memory

Tom Froese and Thomas Fuchs

In this paper we address some methodological and theoretical challenges faced by those wishing to go beyond current explanations of social cognition centered on ‘theory’ and/or ‘simulation’. Methodologically, we integrate phenomenological and dynamical systems approaches in a mutually informing manner. We use this integrated methodology so as to explain some of the basic processes of embodied intersubjectivity. A dynamical systems analysis of recent modeling experiments of social interaction is shown to support an enactive and phenomenological conception of the inter-enaction of bodily resonance and embodied communication. The model also serves as a proof of concept for the possibility of an interactive maintenance of body memory. More generally, these results demonstrate how some vague phenomenological notions, such as Merleau-Ponty’s ‘intercorporeity’, can be made compatible with modern scientific practices by analyzing them in terms of the mathematics of dynamical systems theory.

Here you can download the The Extended Body poster.