Swing it to the left, swing it to the right: enacting flexible spatial language using a neurodynamic framework

Research is continually expanding the empirical and theoretical picture of embodiment and dynamics in language. To date, however, a formalized neural dynamic framework for embodied linguistic processes has yet to emerge. To advance embodied theories of language, the present work develops a formalized neural dynamic framework of spatial language that explicitly integrates linguistic processes and dynamic sensory-motor systems. We then implement and test our spatial language architecture on a robotic platform continuously linked to real-time camera input. In a suite of tasks using everyday objects we demonstrate the framework’s capacity for both contextually-dependent behavioral flexibility and the seamless integration of spatial, non-spatial, and symbolic representations. To our knowledge this is the first unified, neurally-grounded architecture integrating these processes and behaviors.