Extended Skill Learning.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2020 Edward Baggs, Vicente Raja, Michael L Anderson 52 citations
Within ecological and enactive cognitive science, skill learning is often viewed narrowly as bodily change over time or broadly as change in the animal–environment system. The authors argue for the broader view, rejecting the narrow one. They claim the proper unit of analysis is activity, not the body, and that learning involves establishing and adaptively organizing enabling constraints on that activity. Using examples of maintaining upright posture and walking, they show how environmental structures (e.g., furniture for support) play a constitutive role that changes over development. This extended approach unifies ecological and enactive theories and may ground a radically embodied account of higher cognition.