Mobile Brain/Body Imaging: Challenges and opportunities for the implementation of research programs based on the 4E perspective to cognition
Aitana Grasso‐Cladera, Stefanella Costa‐Cordella, Alejandra Rossi, Nikolas Fabian Fuchs, Francisco J. Parada
Abstract
Cognitive dynamics are multimodal, and they need to integrate real-time feedback to be adaptive and appropriate. However, cognition research still relies on mostly unimodal paradigms using simple motor tasks in laboratory-based static situations. This paper addresses this limitation by presenting the Mobile Brain/Body Imaging approach based on the Embodied, Embedded, Extended, and Enactive perspective, which complements traditional laboratory work while also facilitating ecologically valid applications. First, we briefly review Mobile Brain/Body Imaging technologies used to obtain functional and structural images of the Brain/Body System during natural cognition. Specifically: mobile cognitive electrophysiology, mobile functional neurovascular dynamics, and mobile behavioral measurements. Second, we review the development of Mobile Brain/Body Imaging/4E in Chile. Finally, we discuss challenges and opportunities. We conclude that although this new epistemic/methodological approach is promising, there is a need for greater portability, robust equipment, and data-analysis tools that can integrate signals from the brain/body-in-the-world system. Future experimental designs need to re-consider their underlying logic and increase their ecological validity by-perhaps-modifying the physical spaces in which experiments are conducted.