The embodiment of focus: Investigating the impact of leaning behavior on our cognitive state and other's perception of our cognitive state.

Abstract

The emerging literature on embodied cognition highlights the role that the body plays in cognitive and affective processes. We investigated whether different body postures, specifically leaning postures thought to reflect different states of cognitive focus, can impact cognitive focus and task performance. In three experiments we confirmed that different postures are perceived reliably by others to convey distinct and different states of cognitive focus. However, the individuals who actually adopted the postures did not experience any subjective change in cognitive focus nor demonstrate any influence of leaning posture on performance across a range of tasks that varied in their naturalness and complexity. Only by instructing participants to adopt a posture associated with a focused or unfocused cognitive state did an association between performance and posture emerge. These data indicate that changes in one's body do not necessarily yield a reliable change in one's cognitive state, even when (a) those changes in body are reliably perceived by others as inducing a change in cognitive state, and (b) changes in cognitive state lead to robust changes in the body. In light of these findings, we propose two related accounts that point to leaning behavior as being the result of one's increasing need to focus. Thus, rather than influencing cognitive state, leaning behavior may instead reflect the embodiment of one's cognitive state of focus.

From Gestures to Gaming: Visible Embodiment of Remote Actions

“…In other words, these spontaneous natural behaviours can make the embodied nature of cognition visible (Chandrasekharan et al, 2010;Hostetter & Alibali, 2008). Critically, we argue that this is unlikely to be limited to gesture (Chisholm et al, 2013;Risko et al, in press). Here we expand this notion of natural behaviour providing a window into the embodied nature of cognition to a novel contextteleoperation.…”

“…a ready window into the relation between brain, body, and world. This approach has been used successfully in a number of different domains (e.g., Chisholm, Risko, & Kingstone, 2013;Goldin-Meadow, 2005;Kirsh, 1995;Risko & Kingstone, 2011;Risko, Medimorec, Chisholm, & Kingstone, in press;Schwartz & Black, 1996;Vallee-Tourangeau & Wrightman, 2010). In the present investigation, we apply this approach in the context of teleoperation in order to provide new insights into the representation of remote actions.…”

Rotating With Rotated Text: A Natural Behavior Approach to Investigating Cognitive Offloading

“…This strategy (e.g., forcing individuals to engage in a behavior, restricting that behavior) can provide critical information regarding a given behavior's contribution (or lack thereof) to cognitive function (e.g., Alibali et al., ; Chandrasekharan et al., ; Chu & Kita, ; Goldin‐Meadow et al., ). This strategy has been used in previous work investigating natural behavior (e.g., Carlson et al., ; Cary & Carlson, , ; Chisholm, Risko, & Kingstone, ; Goldin‐Meadow et al., ). In addition, restriction of physical rotation is, of course, the standard procedure in work on rotated object identification.…”

Everyday attention and lecture retention: the effects of time, fidgeting, and mind wandering

“…In a recent series of experiments Chisholm et al (2013) demonstrated that leaning forward and back are viewed consistently as indicating focused and unfocused attentional states. Another overt cue commonly used to infer another person's attentional state is fidgeting (Galton, 1885; Mehrabian and Friedman, 1986; Gligoric et al, 2012; Carriere et al, 2013).…”