Embodied cognition argues that several factors both internal and external (such as the body and the environment) play a role in the development of an agent's cognitive capacities, just as mental constructs (such as thoughts and desires) are said to influence an agent's bodily actions. For this reason, embodied cognition is considered as a wide-ranging research program, rather than a well-defined and unified theory. Embodied cognition has gained the attention and interest of classical
cognitive science (along with all sciences it comprises) to incorporate embodiment ideas into its research. In linguistics,
George Lakoff (a
cognitive scientist and
linguist) and his collaborators
Mark Johnson,
Mark Turner, and
Rafael E. Núñez have promoted and expanded the embodiment thesis based on developments within the field of
cognitive science. Their research has provided evidence suggesting that people use their understanding of familiar physical objects, actions, and situations to understand other domains. All cognition is based on the knowledge that comes from the body and other disciplines are mapped onto humans' embodied knowledge using a combination of
conceptual metaphor,
image schema and
prototypes. The conceptual metaphors research have argued that people use metaphors all over Another study identified basic level categories that exemplify this situation in a more structured way. Accordingly,
basic level categories are categories that can be associated with basic physical motions; they are made up of prototypes that can be easily visualized. These prototypes are used for reasoning about general categories. On the other hand, Lakoff emphasizes that what is important in prototype theory, rather than class or type characteristics, is that the feature of the categories people use is a bodily experience.
Biology has also inspired
Gregory Bateson,
Humberto Maturana,
Francisco Varela,
Eleanor Rosch and
Evan Thompson to develop a closely related version of the idea, which they call
enactivism. The
motor theory of speech perception proposed by
Alvin Liberman and colleagues at the
Haskins Laboratories argues that the identification of words is embodied in perception of the bodily movements by which spoken words are made. In related work at Haskins, Paul Mermelstein,
Philip Rubin,
Louis Goldstein, and colleagues developed
articulatory synthesis tools for computationally modeling the physiology and aeroacoustics of the
vocal tract, demonstrating how cognition and perception of speech can be shaped by biological constraints. This was extended into the audio-visual domain by the "talking heads" approach of Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, Rubin, and other colleagues. The concept of embodiment has been inspired by research in
cognitive neuroscience, such as the proposals of
Gerald Edelman concerning how mathematical and computational models such as
neuronal group selection and neural degeneracy result in emergent categorization. From a neuroscientific perspective, the embodied cognition theory examines the interaction of sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective neurological systems. The embodied mind thesis is compatible with some views of cognition promoted in
neuropsychology, such as the theories of consciousness of
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran,
Gerald Edelman, and
Antonio Damasio. It is also supported by a broad and ever-increasing collection of empirical studies within neuroscience. By examining brain activity with neuroimaging techniques, researchers have found indications of embodiment. In an
Electroencephalography (EEG) study researchers showed that in line with the embodied cognition,
sensorimotor contingency and
common coding theses, sensory and motor processes in the brain are not sequentially separated, they are strongly coupled. Considering the interaction of the sensorimotor and cognitive system, a study from 2005 stresses how crucial sensorimotor cortices are for semantic comprehension of body–action terms and sentences. A functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study from 2004 showed that passively read action words, such as lick, pick or kick, led to a somatotopic neuronal activity in or adjacent to brain regions associated with actual movement of the respective body parts. Using
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a study in 2005 stated that the activity of the motor system is coupled to auditory action-related sentences. When the participants listened to hand–or foot-related sentences, the motor
evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from the hand and foot muscles were reduced. These two exemplary studies indicate a relationship between cognitively understanding words referring to sensorimotor concepts and activation of sensorimotor cortices. Along the lines of embodiment, neuroimaging techniques serve to show interactions of the sensory and motor system. Next to neuroimaging studies, behavioral studies also provides evidence supporting the embodied cognition theory. Abstract higher cognitive concepts such as the "importance" of an object or an issue also seem to stand in relation to the sensorimotor system. People estimate objects to be heavier when they are told that they are important or hold important information in contrast to unimportant information. Similarly, weight affects the way people invest physical and cognitive effort when dealing with concrete or abstract issues. For example, more importance is assigned to decision–making procedures when holding heavier clipboards. What this suggest is that the physical effort invested in concrete objects leads to more cognitive effort when dealing with abstract concepts. The work of cognitive neuroscientists such as
Francisco Varela and
Walter Freeman seeks to explain embodied and situated cognition in terms of
dynamical systems theory and
neurophenomenology, rejecting the idea that the brain merely uses representations to cognise (a position also espoused by
Gerhard Werner). There are several neuroscientific approaches to explain cognition from an embodied perspective as well as multiple methods such as neuroimaging techniques, behavioral experiments, and dynamical models that can be employed to support and further investigate embodied cognition. In the field of
Robotics researchers such as
Rodney Brooks,
Hans Moravec and
Rolf Pfeifer have argued that true
artificial intelligence can only be achieved by machines that have
sensory and
motor skills and are connected to the world through a body. The insights of these robotics researchers have in turn inspired philosophers like
Andy Clark and Hendriks-Jansen. In the light of these, a body is essential for cognition and, therefore, for intelligent behavior since the interaction between the body and the environment is fundamental for developing cognitive abilities. This type of knowledge is grounded in physical embodiment–the relationship humans have with their bodies. It is the concept of "the idea that the mind is not only connected to the body but that the body influences the mind". Researchers working on embodied AI are moving away from an algorithm-driven approach to robots interacting with the physical world. Embodied Artificial intelligence tries to figure out how biological systems work first, then construct basic rules of intelligent behavior, and finally apply that knowledge to create artificial systems, robots, or intelligent devices. Embodied artificial intelligence has a large scale of applications and research. For instance, the embodied artificial approach can be seen in micro- and nano-mechatronic systems and evolvable hardware, top-down bio-synthetic systems research, bottom-up chemo-synthetic systems, and biochemical systems. The majority of embodied artificial intelligence focuses on robot training and autonomous vehicle technologies. Autonomous vehicles have a significant interest in embodied artificial intelligence applications because this technology allows driving and making possible judgments based on what they see as humans do.
Perception " illusion. These two alternating images contain several differences that most people struggle to find right away. It emphasizes the fact that perception is active and demands attention. Traditional neuropsychological research widely acknowledged that when an
internal representation of the outside world is activated somewhere in the brain, it leads to a perceptual experience. Embodied cognition challenges this claim by stating that the existence of
cortical maps in the brain fails to explain and account for the subjective character of people's perceptual experiences. it entails an engaged perceiver and is influenced by the agent's experiences and intentions, its bodily states, and the interaction between the agent's body and the environment around it. One example of such active interaction between perception and the body is the case that distance perception can be influenced by bodily states. The way people view the outside world can differ depending on the physical resources that individuals have such as fitness, age, or glucose levels. For instance, in one study, people with chronic pain who are less capable of moving around perceived given distances as further than healthy people did. Another study shows that intended actions can affect processing in
visual search, with more orientation errors for pointing than for grasping. Because orientation is important when grasping an object, the plan to grasp an object is thought to improve orientation accuracy. This means that the presence of people (as compared to only objects) in a visual scene affects the perspective a viewer takes when making judgements on, for example, relations between objects in the scene. Some researchers state that these results suggest a "disembodied" cognition given the fact that people take the perspective of others instead of their own and make judgments accordingly. First experimental studies of the impact of body's sex, age and constitution (temperament) on language perception and use emerged in 1995-99 and expanded from 2010s The embodiment effect initially was called "projection through capacities" and emerged as a tendency of people attribute meaning to common adjectives and abstract and neutral nouns depending on their endurance, tempo, plasticity, emotionality, sex or age. and involves motor systems. Some researchers have investigated
mirror neurons to illustrate the link between the mirror neuron systems and language suggesting that some aspects of language (such as part of semantics and phonology) can be embodied in the sensorimotor system represented by mirror neurons. It is well known that language has a multi-component structure, one of which is language comprehension. Research on embodied cognition shows that language comprehension involves the motor system. In addition, various studies explain that understanding linguistic explanations of actions is based on a simulation of the action described. These action simulations also include evaluation of the motor system. An fMRI study examining the relationship of mirror neurons in humans with linguistic materials has shown that there are activations in the premotor cortex and Broca's area when reading or listening to sentences associated with actions. According to these findings, researchers state that there is a connection between the motor system and language. They also argue that the motor system together with mirror neurons mechanisms can process certain aspects of language. The nature of language acquisition extends cognitive capability itself due to the fact that it has multiple components which have embodied representations associated with language processing and provide a ground concept for language.
Memory The body has an essential role in shaping the mind. So, the mind must be understood in the context of its relationship with a physical body that interacts in the world. These interactions can also be cognitive activities in everyday life, such as driving, chatting, and imagining the placement of items in a room. These cognitive activities are limited by memory capacity. Researchers have drawn attention to the relationship between memory and action from an embodied cognition approach where memory is defined as integrated patterns of actions limited by the body. Researchers have also investigated the influence of body position on ease of recall in an
autobiographical memory study to examine the effect of embodied cognition on memory performance. The relationship between memory and body has also emphasised that memory systems depend on the body's experiences with the world. This is particularly evident in episodic memory because this type of memories in the episodic memory system are defined by their content and are remembered as experienced by the person who is remembering. Embodied memory research through the recalling of personal traumas and violent memories has reported that people who have experienced trauma or violence re-feel their experiences in their narratives throughout their lives. In addition, memories that threaten a person's life by directly affecting the body, such as injury and physical violence, recreate similar reactions again in the body while remembering the event. For example, people can report feeling smells, sounds, and movements when remembering childhood trauma memories. A proper evaluation of those memories and the corresponding physical and physiological phenomena associated with them could describe how those set of recalled memories are embodied. New perspectives on the neural structure and memory processes underlying embodied cognition, episodic memory, recall, and recognition have also been explored.
Learning Research on embodied cognition and learning suggests that learning could occur and be triggered by perception-action interactions of the body with the surrounding environment. An embodied cognitive approach to child development provides insights into how infants attain spatial knowledge and develop spatial skills that allow them to (successfully) interact with the world around them. Most infants learn to walk in the first 18 months of life, which draws on ample new opportunities for exploring things around them. In this exploration, infants learn spatial relations, and by carrying objects from one place to another, they may also learn affordances such as "transportability". Thereafter, new phases in exploration may occur through which infants can discover other even more elaborate
affordances. Further research indicates that mere observational experience by infants does not produce these results. Similarly, research has shown how action and bodily movements can be used as
scaffolds for learning. A study investigating whether infants at high risk for developing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) could benefit from action scaffolded interventions (reaching experiences) during early development indicates an increase in grasping activity following training. And thus, it provides evidence about the possibility for high-risk of ASD infants to learn and respond to action-based treatment interventions. Another study investigates how teaching methods can benefit from embodiment and proposes that a professor's movements and gestures contribute to learning by growing students' embodied experiences in the classroom, leading to an increased capacity to recall. The action-based language theory (ABL) states that aspects of embodiment are also relevant for language learning and acquisition. ABL proposes that the brain exploits the same mechanisms used in motor control for language learning. When adults, for example, call attention to an object and an infant follows the lead and attends to said object, canonical neurons are activated and
affordances of an object become available to the infant. Simultaneously, hearing the articulation of the object's name leads to the activation of speech mirror mechanisms in infants. This chain of events allows for
Hebbian learning of the meaning of verbal labels by linking the speech and action controllers, which get activated in this scenario. The role of gestures in learning is another example of the importance of embodiment for cognition. Gestures can aid, facilitate and enhance learning performance, or compromise it when the gestures are restricted or meaningless to the content that is being transmitted. In a study using the
Tower of Hanoi (TOH) puzzle, participants were divided into two groups. In the first part of the experiment, the smallest disks used in TOH were the lightest and could be moved using just one hand. For the second part, this was reversed for one group (switch group) so that the smallest disks were the heaviest, and participants needed both hands to move them. The disks remained the same for the other group (no-switch group). After the experiment ended, participants were asked to explain their solution while researchers monitored their gestures when describing their solution. The results showed that using gestures affected the performance of the switch group in the second part of the experiment. The more they used one-handed gestures to depict their solution in the first part of the experiment, the worse they performed in the second part. A study investigating the role of gestures in second language learning states that learning the vocabulary with self-performed gestures increases learning outcomes. The enduring benefits continued even after two and six months post-learning. In addition, the same study also investigated the neural correlates of learning a second language with gestures. The results indicate that
left premotor areas and the
superior temporal sulcus (a brain region responsible for visual processing of biological motion) were activated during learning with gestures. Similarly, an
fMRI study showed that children who learned to solve mathematical problems using a speech and gesture strategy were more likely to have activation in motor regions of the brain. The activation of motor regions occurred during scans in which children were not using gestures to solve the problems. These findings indicate that learning with gestures creates a neural trace of the motor system that goes beyond the learning phase and activates when children engage with problems they learned to solve with gestures. Embodied cognition has also been linked to both reading and writing. Research shows that physical and perceptual engagements congruent with the content of the reading material can boost reading comprehension. Findings also suggest that the benefits accrued from handwriting as compared to typing in letter recognition and written communication result from the more embodied nature of handwriting.
Reasoning Experiments investigating the relation between motor processes and high-level reasoning have suggested that bodily action and sensorimotor experience are linked to various aspects of reasoning. A study indicated that even though most individuals recruit visual processes when presented with spatial problems such as mental rotation tasks, motor experts (such as wrestlers) favor motor processes over visual encoding to manipulate the objects mentally, showing higher overall performance. Results indicate that motor experts' performance drops once the (hand) movement is inhibited. A related study showed that motor experts use similar processes for the mental rotation of body parts and polygons, whereas non-experts treated these stimuli differently. These results were not due to underlying confounds, as demonstrated by a training study that showed mental rotation improvements after a one-year motor training compared with controls. Similar patterns were also found in working memory tasks, with the ability to remember movements being significantly disrupted by a secondary verbal task in controls and by a motor task in motor experts, suggesting the involvement of different mechanisms to encode movements based on either verbal or on motor processes. The role of motor experience in reasoning has also been investigated through gestures. The Gesture as Simulated Action theory (GSA) provides a framework for understanding how gestures manifest their connection. According to GSA, gestures result from the embodied simulation of actions and sensorimotor states. Consequently, gesturing while expressing or reasoning ideas shows that embodied processes are involved in producing them. More significantly, gesturing heightens focus and increases activation of motor and perceptual information. Gestures are said to have a casual role in reasoning as gesturing leads to increased motor and perceptual information flow during the reasoning process. This does not necessarily translate into more effective reasoning, as such information is sometimes irrelevant for a specific problem. The effects of gestures on reasoning are not limited only to speakers; they convey information that also affects listeners' reasoning. For example, listeners could produce similar simulations to those of the speaker by attending to the speaker's gestures. Additionally, the use of dynamic depictive gestures are associated with better mathematical reasoning, and thus, directing learners to use such gestures facilitates justification and proof activities. Embodied cognition theory has been applied in behavioral law and economics theory to enlighten reasoning and decision-making processes involving risk and time, decisions, and judgment. Research has shown that the idea that mental processes are grounded in bodily states is not being captured in the standard view of human rationality and the link between them could be useful for understanding and predicting human actions that seem irrational. The concept of
"embodied rationality" results from expanding such ideas into law and highlights how findings stemming from embodied cognition offer a more encompassing insight into human behavior and rationality.
Emotion Embodied cognition theories have provided rigorous accounts of emotion and the processing of information about emotion. In this respect, experiencing and re-experiencing an emotion involve overlapping mental processes. Research has shown that one re-experiences emotion through the interconnections of the neurons that were active during the original experience. During the re-experience process, a partial multimodal reenactment of the experience is produced. One reason why only parts of the original neural populations are reactivated is that attention is selectively focused on certain aspects of the experience that are most salient and important for the individual. The first theory of embodiment effect on emotions is known as
James–Lange theory, after 19th century scientists
William James and
Carl Lange. They pointed out that physiological
arousal prior events generates a disposition to experience emotions, and so emotions are not just reactions to these events but are also reflections of dispositional body's states Re-experience of emotion is produced in the originally implicated sensory-motor systems as if the individual were there, in the very situation, the very emotional state, or with the very object of thought. For example, the embodiment of anger might involve muscle tension used to strike, the enervation of certain facial muscles to frown, etc. A remaining issue is the lack of consensus about the exact location of the mirror neurons, whether they constitute a system, and whether there actually are mirror neurons. Theories of embodiment propose that the processing of emotional states and the concepts used to refer to them are partly based on one's own perceptual, motor, and
somatosensory systems. Research has shown, through manipulations of facial expressions and posture under controlled laboratory settings, how the embodiment of a person's emotion casually affects the way emotional information is processed. Similar studies have evidenced that nodding the head while listening to persuasive messages led to more positive attitudes toward the message than when shaking the head. When people are led to adopt certain bodily positions indirectly associated with different feelings such as fear, anger, and sadness, these corporeal postures are said to modulate the experienced affect. In a series of experiments on the neurobiological basis of language, researchers investigated the role of embodiment in emotional language through
electromyographic (EMG) measurements of specific muscle regions. They found that action verbs that refer to positive emotional expressions (e.g., to smile) elicit smile muscle activation as compared to mere positive adjectives unrelated to actions (e.g., funny). Further research found that action verb stimuli also yield muscle activation and shape judgment only when muscle activation is not inhibited. Thus, these results suggest that language is embodied rather than symbolic. Given the significant role emotions (e.g., fear and hope) play in an individual's life, research has been done linking embodiment, motivation, and behavior to investigate the intrinsic tendencies to act towards or away from a given stimulus. The
approach and avoidance conflict (AAC) or
approach and avoidance task (AAT) describes a natural behavioral bias to approach pleasant stimuli and avoid unpleasant ones (congruent response) faster than approaching unpleasant stimuli and avoiding pleasant ones (incongruent responses). The AAT has been investigated in different scenarios and with different types of stimuli such as words and images. A study focusing on the AAT on embodied cognition, for example, examined people's response to positive and negative words presented on the center of a screen by moving them away or towards the center. The study concludes that participants moved the given positive words towards the center of the screen while moving the negative words away from the center of the screen. In
conformity with the AAT, participants showed an approach effect for positive words and avoidance effects for negative words. In a 2021 study on emotional or
affective priming, the AAT was used to demonstrate the interaction between emotions and visual exploration. Pictures of news pages were presented on the computer screen and eye movements were measured. Researchers found out that the participants' harmonious bodily interaction during the emotional preparation process shows that their interest in the image's content displayed on the computer screen increased. These findings demonstrate the effect of emotional priming in the approach and avoidance behavior. A study on the behavioral aspects of the AAT suggests that there is an embodied component that is crucial to it. To investigate the role of gestures in AAT, participants were asked to react to positive and negative stimuli by either pressing a (far or near) button on a response pad; or by pushing forward or pulling backward a joystick. Researchers reported a significant response time advantage for the congruent responses when performed with the joystick and none when performed with the response pad. The fact that participants are faster at responding to the stimuli with the joystick seems to suggest the role of a crucial embodied component. In contrast to the response pad, the joystick couples more naturally with the body (hand) for the performance of the action and facilitates the gesture of approaching or avoiding positive or negative stimuli.
Evolutionary psychologists view emotion as an important
self-regulatory aspect of embodied cognition, and
emotion as a motivator towards
goal-relevant action. Emotion helps drive
adaptive behavior. The evolutionary perspective considers both spoken and written language as forms of embodied cognition. In addition, abstract words strongly activate the anterior cingulate cortex, a site known to be relevant for emotion processing. Motor system activation for emotion-expressing body parts was found when adults processed abstract emotion words, indicating that, for one important class of abstract concepts, semantic grounding in emotion-expressing action can partly explain the meaning–symbol link.
Self-regulation The basic idea underlying findings on embodied cognition is that cognition is composed of experiences that are
multimodal and spread throughout the body, not in a way that
amodal semantic nodes are stored purely in the mind. In line with this idea of embodied cognition, the body itself can also be involved in self-regulation.
Self-regulation can be defined as the capacity of organisms to successfully implement goal-consistent responses despite distracting or countervailing influences. Most people undergo a dilemma when they encounter immediate pains to gain long-term benefits. When facing this dilemma, the body can help augment willpower by evoking nonconscious willpower-strengthening goals that boost people's ongoing conscious attempts to facilitate their pursuit of long-term goals. Studies have also shown that exposure to physical or conceptual thirst or dryness-related cues reduces perceived energy and, successively, decreases self-regulation. These studies suggest that embodied cognition can play a role in self-regulation. Some suggest that the embodied mind serves self-regulatory processes by combining movement and cognition to reach a goal. Thus, the embodied mind has a facilitative effect. To navigate the social world, one must approach helpful resources such as friends and avoid dangers like foes. Facial expression can be a signal for evaluation of whether a person is desirable or dangerous. Embodied cognition can aid in clarifying others' emotions when emotional signals may be ambiguous. In a study, participants were able to identify expression shifts faster when they mimicked them in contrast to participants holding a pen in their mouths that froze their facial muscles, therefore, unable to mimic facial expressions. Other goal-relevant actions may be encouraged by embodied cognition, as evidenced by the automated approach and avoidance of certain environmental cues. Embodied cognition is also influenced by the situation. If one moves in a way previously associated with danger, the body may require a higher level of
information processing than if the body moves in a way associated with a benign situation. The studies above may suggest that embodied cognition could serve a functional purpose by assisting in self-regulatory processes.
Social cognition In the field of phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty's
intercorporeity means that when meeting a person, one initially experiences the other person via their bodily expressions, which has an impact before cognitive reflections. This phenomenon is investigated in social psychology and is known as nonverbal synchrony. Synchrony during social interaction arises spontaneously and is often independent of conscious information processing. In a
dyadic social interaction study from 2014, same-sex participants interacted verbally in "cooperative", "competitive", and "fun task" conditions. The focus of this study was to investigate the connection between the participants' affectivity and nonverbal synchrony. Results showed that positive emotions were associated with positive synchrony while negative emotions were associated negatively. Other findings describe a causal relation between synchrony and emotions with synchrony leading to affect rather than vice versa. These two exemplary studies describe how nonverbal, behavioral synchrony of bodily movements influences the psychological experience of the interaction between people. These findings support the embodiment thesis idea of bodily experiences affecting people's psychological and emotional states. One aspect of social cognition concerns perspective-taking, which consists in perceiving a situation from another person's point of view. Two categories of perspective-taking include visual and spatial perspective-taking. Visual perspective-taking (VPT) is defined as viewing a situation from another person's point of view and understanding how they see the world. Spatial perspective-taking (SPT) involves the ability to access what spatial information another viewer is perceiving, such as the orientation of objects in relation to each other. Accordingly, VPT has two different levels. VPT1 refers to understanding what is in someone else's point of view; VPT2 entails adopting this point of view and understanding how the world is represented from this point of view. Both levels are grounded and situated, yet it is only VPT2 that is embodied; it is only VPT2 that relies on deliberate movement simulation. In the case of SPT, research has shown that not only the presence of another person in the position of potential actions on objects leads to SPT in participants, but also phrasing the query in terms of actions increases the number of people who participate in SPT. The embodiment of SPT is also dependent on sex and social skills. Males and people with lower social skills are said to have lower levels of embodiment in SPT as compared to females and people with higher social skills. Research suggests that aging affects social cognition and perspective-taking. In one study, four experiments evaluated implicit and explicit VPT as well as executive and social cognition measures in healthy young and older adults. Congruency effect (the detrimental effect of congruency of the alternative perspective on response time and accuracy) was detected in both egocentric and allocentric conditions in explicit VPT1 and VPT2. Incongruencies in VPT1 less influenced older adults. In VPT2, older adults showed a more significant congruency effect and influence of allocentric perspective during egocentric judgment. These results could explain the impairment of older adults in social tasks that rely on perspective-taking.
Sensorimotor contingencies As a part of the embodied cognition theory, proponents suggest that an organism's
sensory and the
motor systems are
dynamically integrated. This idea is known as
sensorimotor coupling which allows
sensory information to be efficiently used during action. Similarly, the concept of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs) states that the quality of
perception is determined by the knowledge of how sensory information changes when one acts in the world. As an example, to look underneath an object, one has to bend down, shift one's head, and change the gaze direction. Proponents of the SMCs theory argue that every
stimulus modality / sensory modality such as light, sound pressure, etc. follow specific rules (i.e. sensorimotor contingencies) that govern those changes of sensory information. Consequentially, since those rules differ between modalities, also the
qualitative experience of them differs. The core idea is that sensorimotor contingencies of one modality are transmitted via another modality. Sensory augmentation aims for the perception of a new sense via already existing perceptual channels. In this case, sensory augmentation allows for new sensorimotor contingencies to be formed. In the field of robotics, researchers investigate, for example, how visual SMCs are learned on a neural level with the help of a robotic arm and dynamic neural fields. == Applications ==