Theory & Psychology

Embodied embedded cognition (EEC) and neurophenomenology (NP) are slowly invading cognitive (neuro)science. We provide a short introduction of what EEC and NP are about and an overview of the papers in this special section on EEC and NP.

Contemporary cognitive neuroscience, for the most part, aims to figure out how cognitive processes are realized in the brain. This research goal betrays the field's commitment to the philosophical position that cognizing is something that the brain does. Since the 1990s, philosophers and cognitive scientists have started to question this position, arguing that the brain constitutes only one of several contributing factors to cognition, the other factors being the body and the world. This latter position we refer to as embodied embedded cognition (EEC). Although cognitive neuroscience's research practice and EEC do not seem to fit well together at present, it is pertinent to ask if a variant of cognitive neuroscience can be developed that sets itself research goals that are more congenial to the EEC view. In this paper we investigate this possibility. We put forth a new guiding metaphor of the role of the brain in cognitive behavior to replace the current cognitivist metaphor of the brain as an information-processing device. We also identify a research agenda that naturally arises from our metaphor. In this way we hope to provide an impetus for cognitive neuroscientists to pursue an EEC-inspired research program.

This paper discusses both a dissociation view and a dynamic view with respect to the study of voluntary, goal-directed behavior. The dissociation view builds on the recently reintroduced ideomotor principle, and conceives of clearly dissociated and hierarchical roles for the planning and control of action. The dynamic view has a more integral and dynamic conception of how planning, control, and timing merge in the guidance of behavior. This view, however, lacks a clear way of encompassing the goaldirectedness of behavior. For behavior to be effective and efficient, sensory information has to play an equally important role in guiding action as goal-related information does. As a third view, a dynamic action-selection approach is introduced by combining aspects of the former two. This model is able to merge ideomotor and sensorimotor processes continuously and in real time. In discussing the action-selection approach, a special emphasis is given to the role of long-term influences like preferences and goals.

For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness in skillful coping is a matter of prereflective `I can' and not explicit `I think that.' The body unifies many domain-specific capacities. There exists a direct link between the perceived possibilities for action in the situation (`affordances') and the organism's capacities. From Merleau-Ponty's descriptions it is clear that in a flow of skillful actions, the leading `I can' may change from moment to moment without explicit deliberation. How these transitions occur, however, is less clear. Given that Merleau-Ponty suggested that a better understanding of the self-organization of brain and behavior is important, I will re-read his descriptions of skillful coping in the light of recent ideas on neurodynamics. Affective processes play a crucial role in evaluating the motivational significance of objects and contribute to the individual's prereflective responsiveness to relevant affordances.

In this paper I compare heterophenomenology and neurophenomenology as methodologies for a science of consciousness. I give introductions of heterophenomenology (HP) and neurophenomenology (NP), respectively. Than I briefly relate HP and NP to mainstream cognitive science methodology and to each other. I claim that although HP and NP are indeed different methodologies for studying consciousness, in practice it will be very hard to decide on which methodology we should prefer since, given the research that is currently available, both methodologies seem to allow for the same range of experiments. Given the fact that HP excludes the validity of conclusions drawn by means of NP, it seems that we do have to choose between them, nonetheless. My goal is, however, to see whether there currently are reasons for rejecting HP or NP as unreliable or invalid across the board. I conclude that for the time being we had better keep both HP and NP in the running.

Much of mainstream psychology and psychiatry has come under the umbrella of cognitive neuroscience and attempts to provide mechanistic accounts of mental processes. On the other hand, therapeutically oriented branches of psychiatry are concerned with giving accounts at a personal, experiential level of explanation. Relating introspective evidence (first-person perspective) to objective (third-person perspective) evidence is a key challenge for psychology and psychiatry and will be of significance for the unification of the two approaches. In this paper we show that in current neuroscientific experiments different forms of introspective evidence are used. Guided introspection inplies a conscious response to an ongoing stimulus. In unguided introspection, subjects are invited to report freely about `what it is like' to be a subject undergoing an experiment. In neurophenomenology, a method is offered to guide reflexive examination of ongoing subjective experience. Some neurophenomenologists presuppose that it is possible to derive phenomenological `invariants' from the analysis of phenomenal experience. We conclude that contemporary neuroscience allows subjective report to be part of its methodology, but that the added value and specificity of the neurophenomenological training remain to be established.

The hermeneutic tradition in psychology and the social sciences claims that we should understand human identity in terms of self-interpretation. This article is an attempt to spell out what it means to think of identity as self-interpretation. First, two dimensions of identity as self-interpretation are outlined: that we can only have an identity if we are committed to issues of moral worth; and that self-interpretation involves a temporal dimension that has a narrative form. Second, I outline four levels of self-interpretation in order to show that identity is not confined to either social or mental representations, but is dispersed across bodies, persons, practices, and society. Often there are discrepancies and conflicts between levels of self-interpretation, which can lead to social progress but also to social pathologies. Finally, I analyse some pathological aspects of a dominating Western self-interpretation in the current consumer society, which frames identity formation in terms of self-realization.

It has been demonstrated empirically and theoretically that threat is a primary contributor to the increased manifestations of the authoritarian personality. However, most conceptualizations of authoritarianism have failed to explore how these manifestations may have an adaptive value in the face of threat. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to employ the theories of evolutionary psychology in an attempt to provide a comprehensive explanation of authoritarianism. Attention is given to specific psychological mechanisms, such as coalition formation and social exchange, that when utilized by the authoritarian individual under conditions of threat, demonstrate adaptive value. Furthermore, a comprehensive explanation of authoritarianism is offered that encompasses variables related to authoritarianism, its association with a fundamental need to belong, and its larger philosophical relationship to Nietzsche's `will to power.'