The Cognitive Space-Time. Introduction to the volume

The objective of this article is to introduce the approach of cognition defended in this special issue, that of embodied cognition, rooted in the interactions that the body maintains with the environment, emerging from these same interactions, and situated, because it originates in the present situation, thus allowing an appropriate functioning “here and now”. But I will try above all to show that for this incarnation to be possible and above all adapted, cognition must above all be mnesic, in the sense that it uses the past experiences of the individual to produce behaviors adapted to the present and to anticipate the future. This presupposes a memory capable of producing mental states reflecting specific past sensorimotor experiences, and at the same time allowing the emergence of general knowledge about the world, but nevertheless adapted to the specific situations and goals pursued. For this, I will evoke the idea of a projection of cognition in our cognitive space-time. Mental states (perceptions, memories, knowledge, feelings, etc.), giving meaning to the world, and more broadly cognition, do not come from the activation of pre-established representations, but are built in the present moment via our bodily interactions with the environment, from the sensorimotor recreation or simulation of previous states. This article will end with an evocation of the mechanisms regulating cognitive dynamics. While memory determines the potentialities for emergence of the cognitive system, the predictive and embodied nature of cognition makes it possible to consider self-regulation of this dynamic largely dependent on action and emotion.