Date: February 6, 4:00 pm (Warsaw time)
Join online: zoom link
Join live: room 3099, Wydział Geologii UW, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 93
How bipedalism shapes humans’ actions with hand tools
Abstract
The task for an embodied cognitive understanding of humans’ actions with tools is to elucidate how the human body, as a whole, supports the perception of affordances and dexterous action with objects in relation to other objects. Here, we focus on the relationship between humans’ actions with handheld tools and bipedal posture. Posture plays a pivotal role in shaping animals’ perception and action dynamics. While humans stand and locomote bipedally, other primates predominantly employ quadrupedal postures and locomotion, relying on both hands and feet to support the body. Drawing upon evidence from evolutionary biology, developmental psychology and performance studies, we elucidate the influence of bipedalism on our actions with objects and on our proficiency in using tools. We use the metaphor of cascades to capture the dynamic, nonlinear transformations in morphology and behaviour associated with posture and the use of tools across evolutionary and developmental timescales. Recent work illustrates the promise of multifractal cascade analysis to reveal nonlinear, cross-scale interactions across the entire body in real-time, supporting the perception of affordances for actions with tools. Cascade analysis enriches our comprehension of real-time performance and facilitates exploration of the relationships among whole-body coordination, individual development, and evolutionary processes.
Dr. Madhur Mangalam earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Georgia Athens in December 2018, followed by rigorous three- year postdoctoral training in Neuroscience at Northeastern University Boston. Bringing a wealth of expertise in psychology, neuroscience, and statistical me- chanics, he assumed the role of Assistant Professor and Director of the Multi-scale Modeling Lab in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Department of Biomechanics in January 2023, building upon his five-month tenure as a Re- search Associate in the same department from August 2022. Dr. Mangalam’s research is sharply focused on investigating the intricate “choreography” of physiological fluctuations linked to complex behaviors, primarily emphasizing the role of movement variability in healthy human functioning. Employing state- of-the-art analytical techniques such as “multifractal analysis” and “multiscale probability density function analysis,” borrowed from statistical physics and fluid dynamics, his work explains how physiological fluctuations such as heart rate, neuronal activity, and bodily sway support healthy, adaptable behavior. Within the Department of Biomechanics, Dr. Mangalam’s objective is to elevate these methodologies, probing the unfolding of complex biomechanical phenomena across various timescales — from individuals to groups, populations, and spanning milliseconds to seconds to weeks.
Reading:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2023.0152