Higher-Level Cognition Under Predictive Processing: Structural Representations and Grounded Cognition
Minds and Machines March 19, 2026 Jannis Friedrich, Martin H. Fischer
Predictive processing explains perception, action, and cognition as prediction-error minimization, but it is unclear how this supports abstract reasoning. Combining predictive processing, structural representations, and grounded cognition addresses this. Structural representations are isomorphic to the world, retaining its relational patterns. Grounded cognition contributes three mechanisms: hierarchical organization abstracts from sensory qualities; language binds disparate sensory qualities into representations and acts as a social tool; metaphoric mapping uses fragments of concrete percepts to represent abstract concepts. Transplanting these into a hierarchical generative model explains higher-level cognition through detached simulations of perception and action isomorphic to actual behavior. This expands life-mind continuity by specifying how principles driving life's emergence also account for sophisticated human cognition.