Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Inductive Reasoning

Inductive Reasoning

Inductive reasoning is a form of logical thinking that uses related observations to arrive at a general conclusion. It is uncertain and operates in degrees to which the conclusions are credible. As such, inductive arguments can be weak or strong, rather than valid or invalid, and conclusions can be used to formulate testable, falsifiable hypotheses.
Inductive reasoning is common in descriptive science. A life scientist makes observations and records them. This data can be qualitative or...

Reason and Intuition

Reason and Intuition

The human brain processes information for decision-making using one of two routes: an intuitive system and a rational system (Epstein, 1994; popularized by Kahneman, 2011 as System 1 and System 2, respectively). The intuitive system is quick, impulsive, and operates with minimal effort, relying on emotions or habits to provide cues for what to do next, while the rational system is logical, analytical, deliberate, and methodical. Research in neuropsychology suggests that the brain can only use...

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the posterior columns...

Cognitivism

Cognitivism

Cognitive psychology emerged as a significant field in the mid-20th century. It focused on understanding humans' internal mental processes. This approach emphasizes how people perceive, remember, think, and solve problems—elements critical to human cognition.
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process information is...

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth perception is the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. It relies on two types of cues: binocular and monocular. Binocular cues depend on the combination of images from both eyes and how the eyes work together. Since the eyes are in slightly different positions, each eye captures a slightly different image. This disparity between images, known as binocular disparity, helps the brain interpret depth. When the brain compares these images, it determines the distance to an object.

Language and Cognition

Language and Cognition

Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Scale-invariant evolution: Comment on "homo informatio" by Michael Walker.

Physics of life reviews·2026

Same author

The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability.

Frontiers in systems neuroscience·2026

Same author

The dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia: a 30-year update.

World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)·2026

Same author

The methodological foundations of lesion network mapping remain sound.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

Insula Structure Is Linked to Autonomic Cardiac Dysregulation in Depression.

Biological psychiatry·2026

Same author

Correction: Dynamic causal models in infectious disease epidemiology-an assessment of their predictive validity based on the COVID-19 epidemic in the UK 2020 to 2024.

Frontiers in public health·2026

Same journal

Higher- and lower-level processing in strategic reading: Reconceptualising the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS).

Cognitive processing·2026

Same journal

More caution or more lenient: deciphering the role of negative affect in recognition and inference.

Cognitive processing·2026

Same journal

Cognitive offloading, critical thinking and attitudes towards artificial intelligence in the era of ChatGPT: a comparative study of artificial intelligence-assisted and manual task performance in young adults.

Cognitive processing·2026

Same journal

Emojis vs. black-and-white and colored drawings: comparing living and non-living things in oral naming.

Cognitive processing·2026

Same journal

The impact of facial expressions on space- and object-based attention by gaze cues.

Cognitive processing·2026

Same journal

Feature interaction in metaphor aptness: the impact of topic-and-vehicle applicable features and semantic distances.

Cognitive processing·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 19, 2026

Using Pharmacological Manipulation and High-precision Radio Telemetry to Study the Spatial Cognition in Free-ranging Animals

Using Pharmacological Manipulation and High-precision Radio Telemetry to Study the Spatial Cognition in Free-ranging Animals

Published on: November 6, 2016

Embodied inference and spatial cognition.

¹The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London, WC1N 3BG, UK. k.friston@ucl.ac.uk

Cognitive Processing

|July 31, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Minimizing surprise, or prediction error, explains perception and action by optimizing predictive coding and motor reflexes. This principle underlies how embodied agents actively sample their environment to reduce uncertainty and guide behavior.

More Related Videos

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

Published on: February 19, 2018

Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise

Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise

Published on: January 26, 2024

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 19, 2026

Using Pharmacological Manipulation and High-precision Radio Telemetry to Study the Spatial Cognition in Free-ranging Animals

Using Pharmacological Manipulation and High-precision Radio Telemetry to Study the Spatial Cognition in Free-ranging Animals

Published on: November 6, 2016

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

Published on: February 19, 2018

Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise

Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise

Published on: January 26, 2024

Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience

Background:

Embodied agents interact with their environment to sustain exchanges.
Self-organized behavior in agents is explored through basic principles.

Purpose of the Study:

To review attempts to understand embodied agent behavior.
To identify a single driving force behind perception and action.

Main Methods:

Review of recent research on embodied agents.
Analysis of perception and action through the lens of surprise minimization.

Main Results:

Minimizing surprise/prediction error drives perception (Bayes-optimal predictive coding) and action (motor reflexes).
This principle explains perceptual encoding of spatial trajectories for self-movement and other-movement recognition.
Prior beliefs about world states are crucial for active environmental sampling and uncertainty reduction.

Conclusions:

A single principle of surprise minimization unifies perception and action in embodied agents.
Prior beliefs about world dynamics are essential for active sensing and adaptive behavior.
This framework offers insights into foraging and visual search behaviors.