Embodied cognition

There is a movement afoot in cognitive science to grant the body a central role in shaping the mind. Proponents of embodied cognition take as their theoretical starting point not a mind working on abstract problems, but a body that requires a mind to make it function. These opening lines by Clark (1998) are typical: " Biological brains are first and foremost the control systems for biological bodies. Biological bodies move and act in rich real-world surroundings " (p. 506). Traditionally, the various branches of cognitive science have viewed the mind as an abstract information processor , whose connections to the outside world were of little theoretical importance. Perceptual and motor systems, though reasonable objects of inquiry in their own right, were not considered relevant to understanding " central " cognitive processes. Instead, they were thought to serve merely as peripheral input and output devices. This stance was evident in the early decades of cognitive psychology, when most theories of human thinking dealt in proposi-tional forms of knowledge. During the same time period, artificial intelligence was dominated by computer models of abstract symbol processing. Philosophy of mind, too, made its contribution to this zeitgeist, most notably in Fodor's (1983) modularity hypothesis. According to Fodor, central cognition is not modular, but its connections to the world are. Perceptual and motor processing are done by informationally encapsulated plug-ins providing sharply limited forms of input and output. However, there is a radically different stance that also has roots in diverse branches of cognitive science. This stance has emphasized sensory and motor functions, as well as their importance for successful interaction with the environment. Early sources include the view of 19th century psychologists that there was no such thing as " imageless thought " (Good-win, 1999); motor theories of perception such as those suggested by William James and others (see Prinz, 1987, for a review); the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, which emphasized the emergence of cognitive abilities out of a groundwork of sensorimotor abilities; and the ecological psychology of J. J. Gibson, which viewed perception in terms of affordances— potential interactions with the environment. In the 1980s, linguists began exploring how abstract concepts may be based on metaphors for bodily, physical concepts (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). At the same time, within the field of artificial intelligence, behavior-based robotics began to emphasize routines for interacting with the environment rather than internal representations used for abstract thought (see, e.g., Brooks, 1986). This kind of approach has recently attained high visibility , under the banner of embodied cognition. There is a growing commitment to the idea that the mind must be understood in the context of its relationship to a physical body that interacts with the world. It is argued that we have evolved from creatures whose neural resources were devoted primarily to perceptual and motoric processing, and whose cognitive activity consisted largely of immediate, on-line interaction with the environment. Hence human cog-nition, rather than being centralized, abstract, and sharply distinct from peripheral input and output modules, may instead have deep roots in sensorimotor processing. Although this general approach is enjoying increasingly broad support, there is in fact a great deal of diversity in the claims involved and the degree of controversy they attract. If the term embodied cognition is to retain meaning-625 The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) off-line cognition is body based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims.

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2015

The thesis of embodied cognition has developed as an alternative to the view that cognition is mediated, at least in part, by symbolic representations. A useful testing ground for the embodied cognition hypothesis is the representation of concepts. An embodied view of concept representation argues that concepts are represented in a modality-specific format. I argue that questions about representational format are tractable only in the context of explicit hypotheses about how information spreads among conceptual representations and sensorimotor systems. When reasonable alternatives to the embodied cognition hypothesis are clearly defined, the available evidence does not distinguish between the embodied cognition hypothesis and those alternatives. Furthermore, I argue, the available data that are theoretically constraining indicate that concepts are more than just sensory and motor content. As such, the embodied/nonembodied debate is either largely resolved or at a point where the embodied and nonembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This situation merits a reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. I suggest that it is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition specialand that independence is made possible by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

2015

Embodied cognition has received a fair amount of attention in philosophical, neuroscientific, and robotic research during the past several decades, yet the precise nature of its goals, methods, and claims are unclear. This dissertation will ascertain and examine the primary themes in the field of embodied cognition as well as why, and if, they offer significant challenges to traditional cognitive science models. Though many theories believe they are providing accounts that should replace traditional models, to do so they will have to overcome the very difficult challenge of arguing that mental content and capabilities derived from sensorimotor activity can continue to function independent from the sensorimotor processes necessary for their instantiation. In short, they have to rule out brain-in-a-vat scenarios. Upon examination, most embodiment theorists either do not attempt to address this fundamental issue or they fail to provide a successful account of how it can be achieved thr...

Frontiers in psychology, 2012

Recent years have seen a large amount of empirical studies related to "embodied cognition." While interesting and valuable, there is something dissatisfying with the current state of affairs in this research domain. Hypotheses tend to be underspecified, testing in general terms for embodied versus disembodied processing. The lack of specificity of current hypotheses can easily lead to an erosion of the embodiment concept, and result in a situation in which essentially any effect is taken as positive evidence. Such erosion is not helpful to the field and does not do justice to the importance of embodiment. Here we want to take stock, and formulate directions for how it can be studied in a more fruitful fashion. As an example we will describe few example studies that have investigated the role of sensori-motor systems in the coding of meaning ("embodied semantics"). Instead of focusing on the dichotomy between embodied and disembodied theories, we suggest that the field move forward and ask how and when sensori-motor systems and behavior are involved in cognition.

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 2014

It is currently debated whether the meanings of words and objects are represented, in whole or in part, in a modality-specific formatthe embodied cognition hypothesis. I argue that the embodied/disembodied cognition debate is either largely resolved in favour of the view that concepts are represented in an amodal format, or at a point where the embodied and disembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This merits reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. We know that the conceptual system engages, online, with sensory and motor content. This frames a new question: How is it that the human conceptual system is able to disengage from the sensorimotor system? Answering this question would say something about how the human mind is able to detach from the present and extrapolate from finite experience to hypothetical states of how the world could be. It is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition specialand that independence is guaranteed by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

Journal of Physiology-Paris

Many studies have demonstrated that the sensory and motor systems are activated during conceptual processing. Such results have been interpreted as indicating that concepts, and important aspects of cognition more broadly, are embodied. That conclusion does not follow from the empirical evidence. The reason why is that the empirical evidence can equally be accommodated by a 'disembodied' view of conceptual representation that makes explicit assumptions about spreading activation between the conceptual and sensory and motor systems. At the same time, the strong form of the embodied cognition hypothesis is at variance with currently available neuropsychological evidence. We suggest a middle ground between the embodied and disembodied cognition hypotheses -grounding by interaction. This hypothesis combines the view that concepts are, at some level, 'abstract' and 'symbolic', with the idea that sensory and motor information may 'instantiate' online conceptual processing.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2013

The most exciting hypothesis in cognitive science right now is the theory that cognition is embodied. Like all good ideas in cognitive science, however, embodiment immediately came to mean six different things. The most common definitions involve the straightforward claim that "states of the body modify states of the mind." However, the implications of embodiment are actually much more radical than this. If cognition can span the brain, body, and the environment, then the "states of mind" of disembodied cognitive science won't exist to be modified. Cognition will instead be an extended system assembled from a broad array of resources. Taking embodiment seriously therefore requires both new methods and theory. Here we outline four key steps that research programs should follow in order to fully engage with the implications of embodiment. The first step is to conduct a task analysis, which characterizes from a first person perspective the specific task that a perceiving-acting cognitive agent is faced with. The second step is to identify the taskrelevant resources the agent has access to in order to solve the task. These resources can span brain, body, and environment.The third step is to identify how the agent can assemble these resources into a system capable of solving the problem at hand. The last step is to test the agent's performance to confirm that agent is actually using the solution identified in step 3. We explore these steps in more detail with reference to two useful examples (the outfielder problem and the A-not-B error), and introduce how to apply this analysis to the thorny question of language use. Embodied cognition is more than we think it is, and we have the tools we need to realize its full potential.

Frontiers in Cognition, 2011

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are “dis-embodied” in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects.

Hybris, 2017

The body is a highly complex, coordinated system engaged in coping with many environmental problems. It can be considered as some sort of opportunity or obstacle, with which internal processing must deal. Internal processing must take into account the possibilities and limitations of the particular body. In other words, even if the body is not involved in the realization of some cognitive explicit task, it is not a neutral factor of our understanding of why a system solves a task in one way or another. Therefore, when conducting research on embodiment and the body’s cognitive system we should not neglect internal, cognitive processing. I appeal to Goldman’s research on embodied cognition to sketch the broader framework for internal processing in embodied cognition. I believe that even if we don’t accept Goldman’s approach as the viable proposal for embodied cognition in general, it’s a quite natural starting point for our analysis. Goldman (2012; 2014, and with de Vignemont 2009) argue for the essential role of the bodily formats or bodily codes (respectively: B-formats and B-codes) in embodied cognition. B-codes are here described as the processing of regions or sub-regions of the central nervous system. They are primarily employed for body control or monitoring, and reused for cognitive tasks. Beyond doubt, this conception provides an excellent starting point for analyzing the internal (mostly neural) processing in cases of embodied cognition. At the end of this paper, I will argue that the embodiment of cognition needs a conceptual twist. Following Keijzer’s (2015) interest in the evolution of the nervous system, and the minimal forms of cognition, I argue that in investigating embodied cognition, we should investigate the role played by cognitive processing for specific kinds of organisms, meaning organisms with a body of a particular morphology (size, shape, kinds, and distribution of sensors and effectors). Doing that, I refer to some conceptual and empirical considerations. I will also try to show that research on embodied cognition is still not sufficiently anchored in evolutionary and comparative studies on cognition, nor on the nervous system and body morphology. Bigger reliance on these kinds of studies, will make it make possible to gain a deeper understanding of internal processing in embodied cognition.

Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing. In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious mistake. Sometimes the nature of the dependence of cognition on the body is quite unexpected, and suggests new ways of conceptualizing and exploring the mechanics of cognitive processing. Embodied cognitive science encompasses a loose-knit family of research programs in the cognitive sciences that often share a commitment to critiquing and even replacing traditional approaches to cognition and cognitive processing. Empirical research on embodied cognition has exploded in the past 10 years. As the bibliography for this article attests, the various bodies of work that will be discussed represent a serious alternative to the investigation of cognitive phenomena. Relatively recent work on the embodiment of cognition provides much food for thought for empirically-informed philosophers of mind. This is in part because of the rich range of phenomena that embodied cognitive science has studied. But it is also in part because those phenomena are often thought to challenge dominant views of the mind, such as the computational and representational theories of mind, at the heart of traditional cognitive science. And they have sometimes been taken to undermine standard positions in the philosophy of mind, such as the idea that the mind is identical to, or even realized in, the brain.