Surprise! Why enactivism and predictive processing are parting ways: The case of improvisation
Possibility Studies & Society December 20, 2022 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1177/27538699221132691 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Improvisational performance integrates knowledge, skill, habit, and environmental factors, but explaining this integration is challenging. Predictive processing (PP), which views the mind as minimizing surprise, cannot account for improvisation while remaining consistent with its own principles. Enactivism, an embodied cognition approach that treats the brain-body-environment as the explanatory unit, offers a better explanation. Habit plays a central role in this enactivist account.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Enactivism, unlike predictive processing, can explain the integration of factors in improvisational performance, with habit as a central notion. |
Abstract
Can we explain how the various factors of knowledge, skill, habit, environmental constraints and affordances interact or integrate in improvisational performance? In attempting to explain how this integration takes place, I’ll consider two possible approaches: predictive processing (PP) and enactivism. I’ll argue that PP, which, on a neuroscientific view, conceives of the mind as set up to avoid surprise, will not be able to explain improvisation if it remains true to its own principles. In contrast, I’ll argue, enactivism, as a form of embodied cognition that takes the explanatory unit to be the brain-body environment, can offer a better explanation of improvisation. I’ll also argue that the notion of habit is central to this account.