EEG, fNIRS and the Materiality of Representational Spaces
EEG, fNIRS and the Materiality of Representational Spaces
How can representational spaces be investigated scientifically?
Throughout this series, we have developed a simple yet profound proposal:
The Body-Territory continuously constructs internal representational spaces.
These spaces organize perception.
Organize attention.
Organize memory.
Organize belonging.
Organize lived time.
Organize technologies.
Organize the very experience of existence.
We use the term Utupe to describe these internal representations.
When these representations become integrated with emotional experience, we use the term Pei Utupe.
When they manifest their attraction, brilliance, and capacity to reorganize attention and experience, we use the term Xapiri.
These concepts help describe lived phenomena.
An inevitable question then emerges:
How can these spaces be investigated scientifically?
The Challenge of the Sciences of Experience
No researcher directly observes a memory.
No researcher directly observes an emotion.
No researcher directly observes a belief.
No researcher directly observes a thought.
What researchers observe are traces.
Physiological changes.
Behavioral changes.
Metabolic changes.
Electrical changes.
Motor changes.
The science of mind has always worked through inference.
Representational spaces follow the same logic.
The goal is not to observe the space itself.
The goal is to observe how the space reorganizes the Body-Territory.
Space as a Scientific Hypothesis
In this framework, representational spaces constitute a theoretical hypothesis.
A useful hypothesis capable of integrating multiple dimensions of human experience:
perception;
attention;
memory;
emotion;
language;
belonging;
technology;
consciousness.
A representational space is not defined as a specific anatomical structure.
It represents a dynamic organization of the Body-Territory.
A tree.
A language.
A loved one.
A scientific theory.
A childhood memory.
A professional identity.
A community.
Each may occupy a representational space.
Each mobilizes different physiological configurations.
Each reorganizes the Body-Territory in unique ways.
The Botanist's Tree and the Indigenous Elder's Tree
Imagine a centuries-old tree.
A botanist approaches it.
Their representational space recruits:
taxonomy;
plant physiology;
ecological relationships;
growth patterns;
genetics.
An Indigenous elder approaches the same tree.
Their representational space may recruit:
ancestry;
territory;
collective memory;
narratives;
belonging;
spirituality.
The physical tree remains unchanged.
The Body-Territory reorganizes differently.
Science can investigate those differences.
The Brain Participates. The Body Participates. The Territory Participates.
One of the central contributions of this framework is expanding the unit of analysis beyond the brain alone.
The brain participates.
The body participates.
The environment participates.
Culture participates.
Territory participates.
Experience emerges through the interaction of all these elements.
This perspective aligns with contemporary approaches to:
embodied cognition;
situated cognition;
distributed cognition;
ecological neuroscience.
The Body-Territory becomes the minimum indivisible unit of analysis.
EEG: The Temporal Dynamics of Spaces
EEG offers a privileged window into the temporal dynamics of representational spaces.
When a space becomes active:
attention reorganizes;
memories are recruited;
expectations are updated;
decisions begin to form.
Neural oscillations.
Event-related potentials (ERPs).
Microstates.
Functional connectivity.
All may reveal different forms of neural organization.
The scientific question shifts from:
Which brain area is active?
to:
How has the Body-Territory reorganized itself in response to this representational space?
This shift opens entirely new experimental possibilities.
fNIRS: The Metabolism of Spaces
While EEG primarily captures electrical dynamics, fNIRS allows observation of metabolic activity associated with experience.
When a representational space is recruited:
metabolic resources are allocated;
cognitive demands are distributed;
behavioral strategies are organized.
The prefrontal cortex frequently participates in these processes.
Yet the central question remains:
Which representational spaces are being sustained at this moment?
The same task may recruit entirely different spaces in different individuals.
Metabolism reveals part of this reorganization.
HRV, Respiration, and GSR: The Physiology of Experience
Every representational space has physiological consequences.
A space associated with safety generates one form of organization.
A space associated with urgency generates another.
A space associated with belonging generates another.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV), respiration, and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) allow observation of these physiological reorganizations.
Physiology becomes a language of the Body-Territory.
EMG: Spaces Also Live in Muscles
Representational spaces do not exist exclusively in neural activity.
They reorganize posture.
Facial expressions.
Movement.
Muscle tone.
Micro-adjustments throughout the body.
EMG provides a means to investigate these transformations.
A musician.
An athlete.
A scientist.
A teacher.
Each develops spaces that eventually inhabit the body itself.
Learning leaves muscular traces.
Belonging leaves muscular traces.
Experience leaves muscular traces.
Eye Tracking: Where Spaces Direct the Gaze
Attention rarely distributes itself randomly.
Active representational spaces guide visual exploration.
Guide search.
Guide curiosity.
Guide discovery.
Eye tracking allows observation of which elements receive priority.
Two individuals observing the same scene often follow different visual paths.
The difference lies in the spaces they carry.
The gaze becomes a visible expression of internal organization.
Hyperscanning: When Spaces Become Shared
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments in contemporary neuroscience is hyperscanning.
For the first time, researchers can observe multiple brains interacting simultaneously.
Today, EEG and fNIRS systems allow the study of entire groups.
Ten participants.
Twenty participants.
Thirty participants.
Learning.
Talking.
Cooperating.
Creating.
Making decisions.
Here we find a direct bridge to the concept of Jiwasa.
The scientific question shifts from:
What happens inside an individual?
to:
How do representational spaces become partially synchronized across multiple Body-Territories?
This methodological transformation may represent one of the most important shifts in contemporary neuroscience.
A New Scientific Question
Traditionally, neuroscience has asked:
Where is memory?
Where is emotion?
Where is attention?
Perhaps new questions are emerging:
Which spaces are being recruited?
How do these spaces reorganize the Body-Territory?
How do different spaces generate different modes of existence?
How do different Jiwasas generate different forms of collective synchronization?
These questions bring lived experience and scientific investigation closer together.
The Future of Decolonial Neuroscience
Decolonial Neuroscience does not seek to replace evidence-based science.
It seeks to expand its questions.
Representational spaces constitute an integrative hypothesis.
A bridge connecting:
Utupe;
Pei Utupe;
Xapiri;
attention;
memory;
consciousness;
technology;
belonging;
Jiwasa.
EEG.
fNIRS.
HRV.
Respiration.
GSR.
EMG.
Eye Tracking.
Behavior.
Multimodal Hyperscanning.
All provide tools for investigating the traces left by these spaces.
Direct observation of a representational space may never be possible.
The same applies to memories, emotions, and thoughts.
Yet their effects continuously organize human experience.
Final Reflection
Science advances through new questions.
Representational spaces offer one such question.
They invite researchers to look beyond isolated neurons, isolated brain regions, or isolated behaviors.
They invite observation of the dynamic organization of the Body-Territory.
Perhaps the next generation of neuroscience will move in this direction:
Understanding how the spaces we inhabit shape what we perceive, feel, remember, create, and share.
Because every experience unfolds within a space.
And every science begins when we learn how to ask meaningful questions about it.
References (Post-2021)
Barrett, L. F. (2024). Minds in Movement: Embodied Cognition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Grasso-Cladera, A. et al. (2024). Embodied Hyperscanning for Studying Social Interaction: A Scoping Review of Simultaneous Brain and Body Measurements.
Carollo, A. et al. (2024). Hyperscanning Literature After Two Decades of Neuroscientific Research.
Azhari, A. et al. (2025). A Systematic Review of Inter-Brain Synchrony and Social Interaction.
Chen, J. et al. (2024). A Cross-Disciplinary Review of EEG-fNIRS Dual-Modality Imaging.
Liu, C. et al. (2024). Neural, Genetic, and Cognitive Signatures of Creativity.
Yamakawa, H. (2024). Brain-Consistent Architecture for Imagination.
Vorreuther, A. et al. (2026). Reviewing Digital Collaborative Interactions with Multimodal Hyperscanning.
Speer, S. P. H. et al. (2024). Hyperscanning Shows Friends Explore and Strangers Converge During Conversation.
Dodig-Crnkovic, G. (2024). Rethinking Cognition: Morphological Info-Computation and the Embodied Paradigm in Life and Artificial Intelligence.
Parisi, G. (2021). In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems.
Bzdok, D., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2023). Grounding Cognitive Neuroscience in Real-World Contexts.
