the theory
The aim is to investigate the theoretical implications underlying the cognitive abilities of plants. Plants offer the opportunity to address questions of great importance from a different point of view. The challenge is to overcome the counter-intuitiveness of some arguments by looking beyond what is most familiar (i.e., the animal world). The potential gain that comes from this endeavor lies in identifying the most promising epistemic tools that can enable us to understand how these organisms are differentially able to navigate (behave) in changing environments and recognize their ecological needs. We aim to clarify and explore the heuristic scope of this research via its various interdisciplinary ramifications and spillovers.
the methods
To obtain converging evidence on the architecture of the mechanisms and the processes that allow plants to implement and extract intentions from body motion during social interaction we will combine advanced methods in kinematics, customarily used in experimental psychology, together with plant physiology and molecular biology techniques. Our facilities are outlined within the “facilities” page of our website.