de Carvalho Eros Moreira, Rolla Giovanni
Department of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
Front Psychol. 2020 Apr 21;11:588. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00588. eCollection 2020.
Information is a central notion for cognitive sciences and neurosciences, but there is no agreement on what it means for a cognitive system to acquire information about its surroundings. In this paper, we approximate three influential views on information: the one at play in ecological psychology, which is sometimes called information for action; the notion of information as covariance as developed by some enactivists, and the idea of information as a minimization of uncertainty as presented by Shannon. Our main thesis is that information for action can be construed as covariant information, and that learning to perceive covariant information is a matter of minimizing uncertainty through skilled performance. We argue that the agent's cognitive system conveys information for acting in an environment by minimizing uncertainty about how to achieve intended goals in that environment. We conclude by reviewing empirical findings that support our view by showing how direct learning, seen as an instance of ecological rationality at work, is how mere possibilities for action are turned into embodied know-how. Finally, we indicate the affinity between direct learning and sense-making activity.
信息是认知科学和神经科学的核心概念，但对于认知系统获取其周围环境信息意味着什么，目前尚无定论。在本文中，我们概述了三种有影响力的信息观点：生态心理学中起作用的那种观点，有时被称为行动信息；一些具身认知论者提出的作为协变的信息概念，以及香农所提出的作为不确定性最小化的信息概念。我们的主要论点是，行动信息可以被理解为协变信息，并且学会感知协变信息是通过熟练表现来最小化不确定性的问题。我们认为，主体的认知系统通过最小化关于如何在该环境中实现预期目标的不确定性，来传达在环境中行动的信息。我们通过回顾实证研究结果来得出结论，这些结果通过展示直接学习（被视为生态理性发挥作用的一个实例）是如何将仅仅是行动的可能性转化为具体的实践知识来支持我们的观点。最后，我们指出直接学习与意义建构活动之间的相似性。
