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Neural Mechanisms and the Body-World Coupling - Cerebral mechanisms in Context
  • Daniel Rojas-Líbano,
  • Francisco J. Parada
Daniel Rojas-Líbano
Laboratorio de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Social, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Diego Portales

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Francisco J. Parada
Laboratorio de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Social, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Diego Portales
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Abstract

Neural mechanisms have been traditionally conceived as the internal information-processing operations which nervous systems carry out in their implementation of cognitive processes and motor commands. Several theoretical proposals have suggested that cognition is, fundamentally, a process that allows the appropriate coupling of the organism with its immediate surroundings, i.e., its world. We suggest that we currently lack characterizations of this body-world coupling in mechanistic terms. Accordingly, we propose to enlarge the notion of neural mechanisms so as to encompass the physical implementations of this body-world link. We conceptually describe these notions and their implications. We also draft a first proposal to explore these ideas empirically in concrete neuroscience experiments.