title: A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies.
abstract: According to the sensorimotor approach, perception is a form of embodied know-how, constituted by lawful regularities in the sensorimotor flow or in sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs) in an active and situated agent. Despite the attention that this approach has attracted, there have been few attempts to define its core concepts formally. In this paper, we examine the idea of SMCs and argue that its use involves notions that need to be distinguished. We introduce four distinct kinds of SMCs, which we define operationally. These are the notions of sensorimotor environment (open-loop motor-induced sensory variations), sensorimotor habitat (closed-loop sensorimotor trajectories), sensorimotor coordination (reliable sensorimotor patterns playing a functional role), and sensorimotor strategy (normative organization of sensorimotor coordinations). We make use of a minimal dynamical model of visually guided categorization to test the explanatory value of the different kinds of SMCs. Finally, we discuss the impact of our definitions on the conceptual development and empirical as well as model-based testing of the claims of the sensorimotor approach.
authors.affiliation: IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind, and Society, UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country , San Sebastian , Spain.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Buhrmann
authors.forename: Ezequiel Alejandro
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Di Paolo
authors.forename: Xabier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Barandiaran
keywords: dynamical systems; embodied cognition; minimal cognition; sensorimotor approach to perception; sensorimotor contingencies