This book is dedicated to exploring how much of higher cognitive function can be explained by reduction to simpler sensorimotor processes. It uses a series of specific cognitive domains to examine the sensorimotor bases of human cognition. The first section deals with the common neural processes for primary and ‘cognitive’ processes. It examines the key neural systems and computational architectures at the interface between cognition, sensation, and action. The second section deals with specific themes in abstract cognition: the origins of action, and the conceptual aspects of sensory, particu ... More

This book is dedicated to exploring how much of higher cognitive function can be explained by reduction to simpler sensorimotor processes. It uses a series of specific cognitive domains to examine the sensorimotor bases of human cognition. The first section deals with the common neural processes for primary and ‘cognitive’ processes. It examines the key neural systems and computational architectures at the interface between cognition, sensation, and action. The second section deals with specific themes in abstract cognition: the origins of action, and the conceptual aspects of sensory, particularly somatosensory, processing. It looks at how mental and neural processes of abstraction are vital to the cognitive–sensorimotor interface. It also covers topics such as tool use, bodily awareness, and executive organization of action patterns, and probes the extent to which principles of sensorimotor information processing extend to further hierarchical representations. The next section deals with the representation of the self and others. The questions of self-consciousness and of attribution to other minds have a fundamental place, and a long history, in psychology. At first sight, few aspects of cognition could seem more abstract, more refined than these. However, recent research suggests that sensorimotor systems are good ‘social levellers’: your sensory and motor apparatus is much like mine. Can people vicariously experience the sensory and motor events of other individuals? Which aspects of social representation are explained by sensorimotor sharing, and which are not? The chapters in this section offer strongly contrasting perspectives. The final section deals with upper limits of cognition.