Different bodies, different minds: Biology as a central driving force in the building of cognitive functions
When: January 27th, 11h
Where: Amphi Massiani
Marie MONTANT, Maîtresse de Conférence, Multisense & Body team
Abstract: By focusing on language, I will try to show that cognitive architectures are built from goal-driven perceiving and acting bodies in their physical environment, a perspective that holds for humans as well as other animals. To illustrate this theoretical position, firstly, I will show in humans that words conveying time information are tightly linked to body mouvements (Camille Grasso’s PhD thesis), that syntax is probably built on domain-general fine motor planification (Raphaël Py’s PhD thesis), that our lexica are grafted onto sensorimotor networks (Melissa Yavuz’s PhD thesis, Anna Poberezhnaia master’s thesis, Anne Kavounoudias collab.). Secondly, I will describe the approaches of Lise-Habib Dassetto (PhD) and Paul Best (Postdoc) that address the questions of how communicative systems appeared during evolution and what kind of method we can develop to conduct fair comparisons between humans and baboons (Lise H.D.) or pilot-whales (Paul B.).