Abstract:In recent years, there has been rapidly growing interest in Embodied Cognition, a multifaceted theoretical proposition that (1) cognitive processes are influenced by the body, (2) cognition exists in the service of action, (3) cognition is situated in the environment, and (4) cognition may occur without internal representations. Many proponents view embodied cognition as the next great paradigm shift for cognitive science. In this article, we critically examine the core ideas from embodied cognition, taking a … Show more
“…As will be discussed below, Barsalou (this issue; see also Barsalou, 1999; 2008a) has argued that the critical issue is one of ‘neural reuse’—i.e., the idea that the same neural regions that are involved in perception and action are involved in conceptual processing. Barsalou (1999; 2008a) was diligent in his framing of the theory to argue how key phenomena of human conceptual processing (e.g., compositionality, productivity) could arise from the quasi-symbolic operation of perceptual symbols (for other proposals within the embodied or grounded framework see Gallese and Lakoff, 2005; Kiefer and Pulvermüller, 2012; Pulvermüller, 2005; 2013; Prinz, 2002; Glenberg, 2015a; b; Glenberg and Kaschak, 2002; Zwaan, 2004; Martin et al, 2000; for broader discussion, see Chatterjee, 2010; Machery, 2007; Dove, 2009; Mahon, 2015a; b; c; Goldinger et al, this issue; Hickok, 2014). …”
Section: Background and Introduction To The Questionmentioning
How are the meanings of words, events and objects represented and organized in the brain? This question, perhaps more than any other in the field, probes some of the deepest and most foundational puzzles regarding the structure of the mind and brain. Accordingly it has spawned a field of inquiry that is diverse and multi-disciplinary, has led to the discovery of numerous empirical phenomena and spurred the development of a wide range of theoretical positions. This volume brings together the most recent theoretical developments from the leaders in the field, representing a range of viewpoints on issues of fundamental significance to a theory of meaning representation. Here we introduce the special issue by way of pulling out some key themes that cut across the contributions that form this volume and situating those themes in the broader literature. The core issues around which research on conceptual representation can be organized are: representational format, representational content, the organization of concepts in the brain, and the processing dynamics that govern interactions between the conceptual system and sensorimotor representations. We highlight areas where consensus has formed; for those areas where opinion is divided, we seek to clarify the relation of theory and evidence and to set in relief the bridging assumptions that undergird current discussions.
“…As will be discussed below, Barsalou (this issue; see also Barsalou, 1999; 2008a) has argued that the critical issue is one of ‘neural reuse’—i.e., the idea that the same neural regions that are involved in perception and action are involved in conceptual processing. Barsalou (1999; 2008a) was diligent in his framing of the theory to argue how key phenomena of human conceptual processing (e.g., compositionality, productivity) could arise from the quasi-symbolic operation of perceptual symbols (for other proposals within the embodied or grounded framework see Gallese and Lakoff, 2005; Kiefer and Pulvermüller, 2012; Pulvermüller, 2005; 2013; Prinz, 2002; Glenberg, 2015a; b; Glenberg and Kaschak, 2002; Zwaan, 2004; Martin et al, 2000; for broader discussion, see Chatterjee, 2010; Machery, 2007; Dove, 2009; Mahon, 2015a; b; c; Goldinger et al, this issue; Hickok, 2014). …”
Section: Background and Introduction To The Questionmentioning
How are the meanings of words, events and objects represented and organized in the brain? This question, perhaps more than any other in the field, probes some of the deepest and most foundational puzzles regarding the structure of the mind and brain. Accordingly it has spawned a field of inquiry that is diverse and multi-disciplinary, has led to the discovery of numerous empirical phenomena and spurred the development of a wide range of theoretical positions. This volume brings together the most recent theoretical developments from the leaders in the field, representing a range of viewpoints on issues of fundamental significance to a theory of meaning representation. Here we introduce the special issue by way of pulling out some key themes that cut across the contributions that form this volume and situating those themes in the broader literature. The core issues around which research on conceptual representation can be organized are: representational format, representational content, the organization of concepts in the brain, and the processing dynamics that govern interactions between the conceptual system and sensorimotor representations. We highlight areas where consensus has formed; for those areas where opinion is divided, we seek to clarify the relation of theory and evidence and to set in relief the bridging assumptions that undergird current discussions.
“…Researchers have to determine how cognitive phenomena are constituted by internal processes and components of (neuro) cognitive mechanisms if the explanation is supposed to be causal and mechanistic. Unless the practitioners of embodied and embedded cognition can show that they can explain all individual differences in performance by appealing to the external environment and bodily structures, their reliance on environmental interaction as the only explanatory factor will count as mere ideology, whose poverty is already heavily criticized [8]. The mechanistic story, instead of recommending symbolic models of cognition, stresses that approaches to cognition must be flexible and pluralistic to be empirically valid.…”
Section: Looking Inside and Around: Not All Detail Countsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In this sense, the theory is a first approximation, which is to be refined by introduction of the sensory and other biological limits as additional constraints upon behavior. [19] (p. 866) Here Newell and Simon claim something that seems to correspond to the recent survey of results obtained under the broad umbrella of the embodied cognition: even if embodied experimental designs lead to interesting discoveries, the embodied cognition has little or no role in explaining a number of cognitive processes [8]. It is precisely because in the weak sense, it is trivial that off-line cognition is body-based: people are not made of supernatural substance, after all; and in a strong sense, it is simply false: it is not only the body that is crucial in explaining most individual differences in solving cryptarithmetic tasks.…”
Section: Six Views On Embodied Cognition and Simon's Two Environmentsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Is theory in cognitive science not up-to-date? Or maybe, the role of embodiment is actually overhyped, as some argue [8].…”
Abstract:In this paper, the role of the environment and physical embodiment of computational systems for explanatory purposes will be analyzed. In particular, the focus will be on cognitive computational systems, understood in terms of mechanisms that manipulate semantic information. It will be argued that the role of the environment has long been appreciated, in particular in the work of Herbert A. Simon, which has inspired the mechanistic view on explanation. From Simon's perspective, the embodied view on cognition seems natural but it is nowhere near as critical as its proponents suggest. The only point of difference between Simon and embodied cognition is the significance of body-based off-line cognition; however, it will be argued that it is notoriously over-appreciated in the current debate. The new mechanistic view on explanation suggests that even if it is critical to situate a mechanism in its environment and study its physical composition, or realization, it is also stressed that not all detail counts, and that some bodily features of cognitive systems should be left out from explanations.
“…This hypothesis, while suitable for accommodating different research methods used in empirical musicology (Godøy and Leman, 2010), may be regarded as inherently rather abstract. In the light of recent critical accounts on the foundations of embodied approaches to cognition as such (e.g., Goldinger et al, 2016, point out that premises like “perception is influenced by the body” are unacceptably vague), EMC hypothesis begs for further specification. Anticipating it, Leman and Maes (2014) suggested that the process of disambiguating what EMC hypothesis stands for, may take two forms.…”
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