Cognition Futures
Research group focused on embodied intelligence, affordance perception, spatial cognition, and the future of mind.
On Break Through Summer 2026
Cognition Futures is a research team within Orthogonal Research and Education Laboratory (OREL). We aim to advance the study of cognition by adding nuance to existing models and theories of experience, focusing on ontogeny, developmental-evolutionary perspectives, embodied intelligence, and phenomenology. Our work also explores the historical and philosophical foundations of traditional cognitive science, emphasizing the epistemic trajectories that have shaped contemporary academic inquiry and identifying fertile areas for future development.
People
Leadership
- Jesse Parent — Director, Cognition Futures (OREL; JOPRO; University of California, San Diego)
- Bradly Alicea — Director of Science, OREL (OREL; OpenWorm Foundation)
Core Team
- Avery Lim — Project Lead, Senior Contributor (OREL; JOPRO; Plot Twisters)
- Amanda Nelson — Project Lead, Senior Contributor (OREL; University of Michigan)
- S. Hussain Ather — Contributor (OREL; University of Toronto)
- Morgan Hough — Senior Contributor (OREL; NeuroTechX)
Alumni & External Partners
- Brian McCorkle — Research Assistant (OREL; University at Albany, SUNY)
- Sadena Ahmed — Intern (University at Albany, SUNY)
- Samantha Carollo — Intern (University at Albany, SUNY)
- A. R. Ordis — Intern (OREL; Columbia University)
- Anusha Sharma — Research Assistant (Boston University; Boston Children’s Hospital)
Applicant Information
Cognition Futures is a subgroup within Orthogonal Research and Education Lab (OREL), and will require acceptance into OREL in order to work with our team. OREL & JOPRO are inclusive communities, with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary research, combined with support and mentoring for early career researchers.
If you are interested in joining our research group, reach out to OREL Director Bradly Alicea (bradly.alicea @ outlook.com) and Cognition Futures Director Jesse Parent (cognitionfutures @ jopro.org). Please provide a small statement of research interest indicating topics or projects you’d like to work on, in addition to your CV.
Projects
Towards an Ontological Taxonomy of Information Affordances
Theory and case study converted into heuristic prompts and appropriate tool routing towards relevant external representations of information
Reimagining Cybernetics
Cognition Futures Paper Series
Affordance perception as a common currency of embodied intelligence
Developomental-AI
Dev-AI: Developmental approaches and components squared with machine learning and computation
Embodied Neurophenomenology
First-person experience, embodiment, and the structure of consciousness
PhASiC
Physical Intelligence, Augmentation Systems, and Complexity
Mind/Brain Analogies & Technological Development
Historical and cross-cultural investigation of how societies analogize the mind, and how those analogies track technological change
Spatial Cognition & Virtual Reality
Exploring how virtual environments reshape spatial cognition, cognitive mapping, and philosophical questions about realism
Allostatic Kinds
A taxonomy of permutations of subject-object directionality in causation
Publications
A 'good' regulator may provide a world model for intelligent systems
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A
"The Mind as a '___'": Past, Present, and Futures of Analogies of Mind & Brain and its Relationship to Technological Development
Embodied Intelligence 2024
Navigating Reality: Exploring Spatial Cognition, Virtual Environments, and Philosophical Implications
Embodied Intelligence 2024 (Morphological Computation track)
Our Virtual Lives and Digital Companionship: Opportunities and Challenges of Shared Experience in an Augmented Century
Towards Sharing Cognitive Environments: Methodology and Theory
WeRobot 2022
Our Virtual Lives and Digital Companionship: Opportunities and Challenges of Shared Experience in an Augmented Century
WeRobot 2022
Braitenberg Vehicles as Developmental Neurosimulation
Artificial Life, 28(3), 1–27
Gibsonian Information: A New Approach to Quantitative Information
Studies in Computational Intelligence, 1032, 15–19
Research Methods in Cognition Studies & Phenomenology: Challenges and Opportunities
Neuromatch 5
Terminology & Taxonomy: of Agent-Environment Analyses & Recent Work at Orthogonal Research and Education Lab
International Conference on Embodied Intelligence 2022
Allostasis Machines: a model for understanding internal states and technological environments
PsyArXiv
Mapping Cyborg Cognition Futures: From Partitioned Pasts to a Symbiotic Century
Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE 2021), Prague
Allostatic Kinds: Towards a Taxonomy of Permutations of Subject-Object Directionality in Causation
Venues
Where this group's work has appeared.