Week 8 Quiz: Embodied cognition and the sciences of the

mind
The due date for this quiz is Fri 2 Jan 2015 4:00 AM PET.

Welcome to the quiz for week 8, on embodied cognition and the sciences of the mind. Good luck!

In accordance with the Coursera Honor Code, I (Juan Carlos Vega Oliver) certify that
the answers here are my own work.

Question 1
How does the desert ant find its way home?

By aiming towards environmental features that it recognises, rather than by using a mental map
of any kind.
By asking a local for directions.

By building a mental map that it can use to navigate with, without any need to observe its
environment.

By looking for environmental features that it recognises, and then cross-referencing these with
a mental map.

Question 2
Why is it unsurprising that the brain makes use of the body to scaffold cognition?

Because it makes evolutionary sense for the brain to take advantage of any stable features of
its environment, such as the body.
Because without a body the brain would be unable to survive.

Help

Because Aristotle predicted this thousands of years ago.

This is a trick question: the brain does not make use of the body to scaffold cognitive
processes.

Question 3
How do we explain the impressive swimming capacities of the Bluefin tuna?
It is equipped with an outboard motor.
It is extremely muscular and very talented at swimming.

It is able to exploit features of its environment, such as currents and vortices, including those
that it has created itself.
It latches on to larger, faster fish and hitches a ride.

Question 4
How do ants build their nests?
They do not build nests, but instead occupy the abandoned nests of other species of insect.

By instinctively depositing small pebbles a certain distance from their larvae, and then
continuing to deposit pebbles next to those previously deposited, naturally forming a wall.
By carefully planning the structure of the walls before building the nest out of small pebbles.

They mindlessly follow the instructions of the queen ant, which is the only one who knows what
they are doing.

Question 5
How does Babybot learn about the world?

It crawls around until it finds something, and then spends a long period of time (hours or even
days) studying what it has found.

It moves its limbs around and catalogues the patterns of interactions that it experiences.
It comes pre-equipped with a complete set of facts about the world.
It asks its Motherbot a series of increasingly complicated questions.

Question 6
What is a rich, time-locked pattern of multimodal stimulation.

An integration of input from a single sense over an extended period of time, allowing for the
formation of a complex model of an object.

An integration of input concerning multiple objects over an extended period of time, allowing for
the formation of a representation capturing a whole scene.

An integration of simultaneous input from multiple senses, allowing for the formation of a
complex, multisensory model of an object.

Question 7
What is difficult about identifying a chair?

There is no stable set of features that can provide necessary and sufficient conditions for being
a chair.
They often blend in with their backgrounds, as directed by the principles of interior design.
They typically consist of only straight lines, which are hard for visual systems to perceive.

Whilst there is a stable set of features that provide necessary and sufficient conditions for
being a chair, it exists only in the platonic realm of forms, which we cannot access.

Question 8
What might a robot need to be able to do in order to identify a chair?

Possess a complex enough language to ask someone what a chair is.

Grasp the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a chair.
Integrate input from multiple sensory modalities.
Be able to use a chair, and thus identify chairs as those objects that it can use as chairs.

Question 9
What is a multilayer control system?

It is a control system that devotes most of its processing power to immediate processes, such
as avoiding oncoming traffic, whilst delaying long term planning until it has time to rest.

It is a control system that consists of many very simple processes that combine into a greater
whole.

It is a control system that leaves immediate processes, such as avoiding oncoming traffic, to
operate on their own, whilst higher level processes focus on longer term planning.

Question 10
What is the naked brain fallacy?
An approach to cognitive science that denies the existence of the brain.
An approach to cognitive science that denies the existence of the external world.

An approach to cognitive science that treats the brain as an embodied, rather than isolated,
system.

An approach to cognitive science that treats the brain as an isolated, rather than embodied,
system.

In accordance with the Coursera Honor Code, I (Juan Carlos Vega Oliver) certify that
the answers here are my own work.

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