The goal of this group is to lay the foundations for a theory of embodied
cognition through a number of exemplary studies. These are chosen
so as to provide access to important basic properties of embodied
cognitive systems, as well as to be open to experiment and modeling.
The basic theoretical tools are attractor dynamics and dynamic field
theory.
This group is working in close collaboration with experimentalists
around the world. Graduate students will visit foreign laboratories.
Funding is sought through the DFG as well as on an individual
basis through stipends and collaborative grants.
A dynamic field evolving under the influence of two
sources of input, used in various models as the basic tool to
endow representations with dynamic properties.
Ongoing projects:
Motor control: collaboration John Scholz (Univ. Delaware)
and Mark Latash (Penn State);
`Uncontrolled manifold' concept in control and timing; Integration
of movement initiation/representation with control; Coordination modes;
Movement representation: collaboration John Jeka (Maryland);
Alexa Riehle (CNRS, Marseille);
Online updating of motor representations; Decision making;
Stimulus-response compatibility and updating; Psychological
refractariness; Task switching; Motor memory trace;
Cognition: collaboration John Spencer (Univ. Iowa), spatial memory and beyond;
Basic cognitive paradigms in DFT framework: discrimination,
categorization, match to sample, short-term working memory;
Perception: collaboration with Howard Hock (FAU); Apparent
motion, cooperativity, selective adapation, relative motion;
Development: collaboration with Esther Thelen and Olaf Sporns
(Indiana University); infant motor control, the development of action
memory; habituation; imitation (postdoc Virgil Withmayer);