Adaptive Behavior
August 1, 2020
Maxwell Jd Ramstead, Michael D Kirchhoff, Karl Friston
387 citations
The free-energy principle (FEP) and active inference are often conflated with predictive processing frameworks, leading to misunderstandings about their core constructs, generative models and variational densities. This article argues that these models have been systematically misrepresented as structural representations. Instead, under the FEP, generative and recognition models function to realize inference and control—the self-organizing, belief-guided selection of action policies—not as representations with the properties structural representationalists ascribe. The authors propose an enactive interpretation, termed enactive inference, as a more accurate account of these constructs.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2014
Daniel D. Hutto, Michael D Kirchhoff, Erik Myin
94 citations
Rejecting mental representation as the basis of cognition, radical enactive and embodied approaches challenge mainstream cognitive science. This paper argues that abandoning representationalism for pure empirical functionalism fails to provide a clear criterion for what counts as cognitive and lacks adequate ways to distinguish cognitive activity. It also contends that commonsense functionalism is undermined by how people actually use psychological concepts. Instead, the authors advocate for extensive enactivism, which differs from extended mind and distributed cognition theories by grounding cognition in embodied action without relying on internal representations.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2018
Daniel D. Hutto, Ian H. Robertson, Michael D Kirchhoff
89 citations
Basic Emotion Theory (BET) has been central to affective science for decades, guiding research on facial expressions, neuroimaging, and evolutionary psychology. Philosophers have recently called for abandoning BET entirely. This paper defends BET against those criticisms, arguing that the theory should be retained. It also addresses concerns that BET's reliance on affect programs makes it outdated. The authors propose that with minor adjustments, BET can overcome these objections when reinterpreted through a radically enactive account of emotions. Rather than discarding BET, the paper shows how its core ideas can be revised and preserved, concluding that the revised BET remains a valuable framework.
Consciousness and Cognition
April 1, 2019
Alan Jurgens, Michael D Kirchhoff
18 citations
The paper argues against the cognitivist view that social cognition is realized solely inside the head. It develops an enactive account in which embodied, face-to-face interaction plays a constitutive, not merely causal, role in social understanding. The authors first explain how diachronic embodied engagement can constitute social cognition. They then refute the causal-constitutive fallacy objection by showing that the constitution–causation distinction does not map onto an internal–external divide. A second objection—the poverty of the interactional stimulus argument—claims that anticipation requires an internal model or tacit theory. The paper dissolves this by proposing that anticipatory processes can be orchestrated and maintained by sensorimotor couplings between interacting individuals.
Synthese
March 1, 2025
Lorena Sganzerla, Daniel D. Hutto, Michael D Kirchhoff
5 citations
The extended mind thesis holds that cognitive processes can extend beyond the brain to include parts of the body and environment under certain conditions. This paper revives and clarifies the commitments of Radical Enactivism's Extensive Enactivism, compares it to related frameworks like embodied and distributed cognition, and provides new arguments for preferring it over other positions in the extended-distributed-enactive family.
The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition
October 9, 2018
Michael D Kirchhoff
5 citations
Predictive processing, a theory of brain function, can be reconciled with embodied cognition, which emphasizes the role of the body and environment in shaping thought. Embodied cognition typically includes four theses: that the body constitutes cognition, that cognition does not require internal representations, that cognition and emotion are inseparable, and that cognition is shaped by cultural and environmental factors. Predictive processing, often described in terms of inference and internal models, initially seems to conflict with these ideas. However, this tension can be resolved, and it is possible to accept predictive processing while endorsing all four embodied cognition theses.
Mind & Language
June 1, 2022
Axel Constant, Andy Clark, Michael D Kirchhoff et al.
Cognitive niche construction—the process by which organisms build and maintain cause-effect models of their environment to guide adaptive behavior—can be understood through active inference, a framework in which organisms embody predictive models of the world optimized by perception, action, and learning. This paper proposes that cognitive niche construction itself is a cognitive function that optimizes these generative models, a process termed extended active inference. The account integrates ideas from extended mind theory, which holds that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain into the world, and predictive processing, offering a unified perspective on how organisms shape their niches to improve prediction and adaptive fitness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Michael D Kirchhoff, Julian Kiverstein
A familiar, culturally constructed environment can feel like home, while culture shock makes that feeling vanish. This paper argues that such 'phenomenal attunement'—a taken-for-granted structure of conscious experience—is not produced by internal neural processes alone in a single moment. Instead, it is constituted over time through repeated cycles of embodied engagement with the world, guided by cultural practices. Because these cycles involve the environment and culture, not just the brain, an essential part of conscious experience is extended beyond skin and skull. The argument challenges the near-consensus that consciousness must be internally constituted, even among proponents of the extended mind theory.