Crash-testing the Sensorimotor Hypothesis: the Case of Spatial Competence

The study of capabilities a perceptual system can acquire from systematic exposure to sensorimotor correlations, i.e. the regular co-occurrence of motor patterns and sensory states, has become a major research trend in current cognitive science. Defendants of the sensorimotor approach have claimed that the study of sensorimotor learning can provide a coherent and parsimonious framework for understanding how specific perceptual capabilities are acquired and used. Yet, lacking a solid characterization of key theoretical notions like ‘sensorimotor invariant’, these alternative approaches can hardly provide more accurate explanations than those of mainstream perceptual research. In this paper, we fix a number of general constraints that any sensorimotor theory must meet in order to provide a valid alternative to traditional models. By focusing on the case-study of spatial competence, i.e. what knowledge a system must possess in order to behave spatially, we address the issue of what distinguishes sensorimotor theories from traditional approaches. We show how, in the case of spatial cognition, the sensorimotor approach can provide a viable and promising scientific programme for explaining the acquisition and use of spatial capabilities without making use of internal representations of external space. We finally suggest possible research directions related to the study of spatial competence in terms of fixation of sensorimotor invariants.