Periodic Reporting for period 2 - XSCAPE (Material Minds: Exploring the Interactions between Predictive Brains, Cultural Artifacts, and Embodied Visual Search)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-05-01 al 2024-10-31
XSCAPE Project asks in what ways the worlds we build and inhabit alter our own minds and the ways we process information. To answer this question, the project brings together a unique team from archaeology, vision science, and cognitive philosophy. Using a carefully curated set of materials, spanning a range of cultures and a wide sweep of archaeological, historic, ethnoarchaeological and contemporary settings, we aim to test, for the first time, the hypothesis of materiality-driven cognitive change. The project will develop and deploy a new synergistic methodology that combines multiple real-world case studies with state-of-the-art visual neuroscience, and agent-based simulations.
With the over 40 world-wide case studies to be conducted, this project will constitute the largest ecological experiment on embodied visual perception ever attempted. It will also use the emerging paradigm known as ‘active inference’ (or ‘predictive processing’) which offers a principled means of linking perception, attention, and actions with cognitive change and learning.
Using this unique combination of archaeological materials, visual neuroscience, and simulation- based studies, we aim to deliver the first fully-integrated framework for understanding the potent, yet ill-understood, cycles by which we, humans, make and transform the structured worlds that make and transform our minds.
The project focuses on the potential for action of reification in world history. This is of great relevance, especially in today's world, where communication takes place less and less via writing and where perception plays a key role in digital technologies. Our results could potentially have profound implications for society, touching upon various aspects of human life and prompting us to rethink fundamental assumptions about cognition, technology, ethics, and social organization. First, our results would likely drive innovation in technology, leading to the development of more intuitive and adaptive tools and interfaces. Second, in doing so, they will question issues about ownership, privacy, and access to external cognitive resources. Third, our experiments could inform new approaches to rehabilitation and therapy for individuals with cognitive impairments. Forth, they could also lead to significant changes in educational practices; leading to more personalized and effective learning strategies tailored to small groups or individual needs.
With the over 40 world-wide case studies to be conducted, this project will constitute the largest ecological experiment on embodied visual perception ever attempted. It will also use the emerging paradigm known as ‘active inference’ (or ‘predictive processing’) which offers a principled means of linking perception, attention, and actions with cognitive change and learning.
Using this unique combination of archaeological materials, visual neuroscience, and simulation- based studies, we aim to deliver the first fully-integrated framework for understanding the potent, yet ill-understood, cycles by which we, humans, make and transform the structured worlds that make and transform our minds.
The project focuses on the potential for action of reification in world history. This is of great relevance, especially in today's world, where communication takes place less and less via writing and where perception plays a key role in digital technologies. Our results could potentially have profound implications for society, touching upon various aspects of human life and prompting us to rethink fundamental assumptions about cognition, technology, ethics, and social organization. First, our results would likely drive innovation in technology, leading to the development of more intuitive and adaptive tools and interfaces. Second, in doing so, they will question issues about ownership, privacy, and access to external cognitive resources. Third, our experiments could inform new approaches to rehabilitation and therapy for individuals with cognitive impairments. Forth, they could also lead to significant changes in educational practices; leading to more personalized and effective learning strategies tailored to small groups or individual needs.
During this reporting period, XSCAPE has set the foundations of the project; hiring the core team (more than 15 people, see below), building and equipping the main research facility of the project (the Material Minds Lab, at INCIPIT-CSIC, in Santiago de Compostela. 140 m2 fully devoted to the project), and kicking-off the different working packages (that involve the set-up of experimental protocols and the implementation of the first experiments). A complex project such as this is, which is developing novel approaches with challenging logistics in a very transdisciplinary environment, needs time to establish robust working protocols that allow the production of strong data. After completing this phase, the project is advancing steadily in every line of work. Preliminary results of the first experiments seem to confirm the hypothesis of the pilot study and open the path for new advances.
So far, the main achievement beyond the state of the art is the implementation of the experimental settings, both in terms of infrastructure (the Material Minds Lab is unique in its field) and working protocols (developing new standards). This will allow the project to advance steadily on its goals.
Our results will have the potential to not only illuminate how we understand our interaction with everyday objects and technology, our relationship with the natural and artificial world overtime, but also the way we relate to each other as a society. Not only leading to shifts in how we perceive and interact with others but also showing how collaboration and collective problem-solving approaches could leverage the distributed intelligence of groups.
Our results will have the potential to not only illuminate how we understand our interaction with everyday objects and technology, our relationship with the natural and artificial world overtime, but also the way we relate to each other as a society. Not only leading to shifts in how we perceive and interact with others but also showing how collaboration and collective problem-solving approaches could leverage the distributed intelligence of groups.