A new computational model integrates executive functions and metacognition to explain goal-directed behavior. The model, tested with the Metacognitive Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, reproduces data from healthy individuals and those with Anorexia Nervosa or Schizophrenia. Results reveal hidden similarities between the disorders—motivational impairment and over-confidence—alongside differences: perseveration and poor self-improvement in Anorexia Nervosa, distraction and poor self-evaluation in Schizophrenia. Simulations predict that metacognitive-based psychotherapy benefits differ by condition, highlighting the need for personalized interventions. The digital-twin method offers a framework for neuropsychological profiling and prediction.
Consciousness helps align mental representations with goals, enabling more flexible and effective behavior. A new theoretical framework integrates cognitive neuroscience and AI/robotics, extending a previously validated model of goal-directed flexible cognition tested in over 20 human populations. The theory bridges major accounts of consciousness and goal-directed action, offering implications for designing experimental tasks, interpreting clinical data, and improving machine learning and robotic systems, including applications in digital-twin healthcare and roboethics.
The paper proposes integrating the extended mind view and the embodied-grounded view of cognition by introducing the idea of "Words As social Tools" (WAT). It argues that words, due to their social and public nature, function as quasi-external devices that extend cognition, similar to how tools enlarge bodily space and modify the sense of body. The authors review literature on tool-use and words as tools, presenting evidence that word use extends space close to the body. They outline neural processes that may underpin this bodily space extension and discuss how combining both perspectives overcomes limitations of each view alone.