Abstract
Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference.
Highlights
SUBMITTED ARTICLEFunding information Australian Research Council, Grant/ Award Numbers: DP170102987, FL170100160; European Research Council, Grant/Award Number: DLV692739; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant/ Award Number: 752-2019-0065; Wellcome Trust, Grant/Award Number: 088130/Z/09/Z
This paper reviews generic predictive approaches to niche construction to propose a specific model of cognitive niche construction under active inference
Selfevidencing refers to the process of minimizing the bound on surprisal (a.k.a., negative log model evidence) through perception and action; cognitive uploading through cognitive niche construction outsources part of the computation of self-evidencing processes
Summary
Funding information Australian Research Council, Grant/ Award Numbers: DP170102987, FL170100160; European Research Council, Grant/Award Number: DLV692739; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant/ Award Number: 752-2019-0065; Wellcome Trust, Grant/Award Number: 088130/Z/09/Z. Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. KEYWORDS active inference, affordances, cognitive niche construction, ecological psychology, extended mind, predictive processing
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