Special Section: Can There Be Such a Thing as Embodied Embedded Cognitive Neuroscience?

Abstract

Contemporary cognitive neuroscience, for the most part, aims to figure out how cognitive processes are realized in the brain. This research goal betrays the field's commitment to the philosophical position that cognizing is something that the brain does. Since the 1990s, philosophers and cognitive scientists have started to question this position, arguing that the brain constitutes only one of several contributing factors to cognition, the other factors being the body and the world. This latter position we refer to as embodied embedded cognition (EEC). Although cognitive neuroscience's research practice and EEC do not seem to fit well together at present, it is pertinent to ask if a variant of cognitive neuroscience can be developed that sets itself research goals that are more congenial to the EEC view. In this paper we investigate this possibility. We put forth a new guiding metaphor of the role of the brain in cognitive behavior to replace the current cognitivist metaphor of the brain as an information-processing device. We also identify a research agenda that naturally arises from our metaphor. In this way we hope to provide an impetus for cognitive neuroscientists to pursue an EEC-inspired research program.

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“…The materialist version of EEC van Dijk, Kerkhofs, van Rooij, & Haselager, 2008; draws mainly from work in robotics (Beer, 2008;Brooks, 1991;Chiel & Beer, 1997). Behavior-based robots (Brooks, 1991) show how intelligent behavior arises from the coupling between a creature's body and the physical constraints of its immediate environment.…”

Like the breathability of air

“…One can learn a lot about humans by systematically manipulating and observing their shadows, but such an approach will never do justice to the full richness of human behavior and cognition. In my view, this is one of the most general and important messages of the Embodied Embedded Cognition approach (see, e.g., Thelen and Smith 1994;Clark 1997;Haselager et al 2008;van Dijk et al 2008) that gained momentum in the 90's. The title of Hutchinson's (1995) classic, Cognition in the Wild, best captures this idea.…”

Rethinking situated and embodied social psychology

“…This introduction should provide us with a broader picture wherein Cognitivism and Situated/Embodied Cognition do not fundamentally stem from rival and directly testable theories, but rather from differing philosophical worldviews (Van Dijk, Kerkhofs, Van Rooij, & Haselager, 2008). In section 3, we provide a theoretical introduction of the Embodied Simulation approach (most notably Barsalou's [1999Barsalou's [ , 2008 Perceptual Symbol Systems account) and show how this approach can be philosophically positioned, as compared to Radical Situated/Embodied Cognition, such as Ecological Psychology and Enactivism (Section 4).…”