Embodied Cognition as a Practical Paradigm: Introductionto the Topic, The Future of Embodied Cognition
Joshua Ian Davis,a Arthur B. Markmanb
aDepartment of Psychology, Barnard College of Columbia UniversitybDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
Received 10 August 2012; accepted 12 August 2012
Abstract
Embodied cognition pertains to the consequences on thought and emotion of living with our par-
ticular human sensory and motor systems. The consequences are quite varied, and researchers across
the cognitive sciences have made great discoveries in line with this principle. However, while we
offer this principle, it is necessarily broad, and searching for a single unifying theme has not brought
researchers together behind a clearly defined endeavor. Rather than attempt to do so, we embrace the
variation and specificity in research endeavors across the cognitive sciences to forge a practical sense
in which embodied cognition can be a useful paradigm within which to think and work. This topic,
The Future of Embodied Cognition, includes contributions from eight sets of authors communicating
how embodied cognition has and will influence specific approaches within their disciplines. Through
this format, the lessons from each contribution can be easily shared with colleagues across disci-
plines. As these lessons continue to be shared, a paradigm that is of practical use will emerge, and its
coherence across disciplines will follow. To illustrate the practical aspect of this approach, in this
introductory paper, we take one lesson from each contribution that must be shared and illustrate how
each lesson can apply to a single, specific topic of study.
Keywords: Interoception; Social psychology; Cognitive psychology; Developmental psychology;
Philosophy; Robotics; Cognitive linguistics; Application
Although a number of studies and theoretical accounts of embodied cognition have
appeared in the recent literature, there is a question about whether embodied cognition is
comprehensible as a single idea, and thus whether it is a worthwhile framework. Some argue
that although we can point to shared insight, there has not been enough substance to pull the
work together. The rise of embodied cognition across the cognitive sciences has been driven
Correspondence should be sent to Joshua Ian Davis, Department of Psychology, Barnard College of Colum-
bia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: [email protected]
Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012) 685–691Copyright � 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN: 1756-8757 print / 1756-8765 onlineDOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01227.x
by the understanding that the mind cannot be understood as a computer-like information
processor alone, independent of the particular sensory input and motor output systems to
which it is connected. Rather, there is value in considering how we think and emote as a
result of our particular sensory and motor systems.
It is hard to evaluate broad proposals for embodied cognition, however, because they
often make few specific testable predictions (e.g., Barsalou, 2008; Glenberg, 2010). As an
alternative, the approach of this collection of papers is to embrace the diversity in the topics
we study across disciplines, to focus on specific research programs in those disciplines, and
to provide a forum in which insights from across disciplines can inspire colleagues from
other disciplines. As researchers develop their ideas on these shared presuppositions, a
coherent paradigm will emerge, and this paradigm will likely allow us to see solutions to
our respective research questions in novel ways.
This collection of papers, The Future of Embodied Cognition, provides lessons of specific
kinds from each of eight sets of authors. These lessons concern (a) the way embodied cogni-
tion is used in their disciplines, (b) the trends that currently exist in these disciplines, and (c)
the direction that embodied cognition is taking in these disciplines. In this introductory
paper, we highlight one lesson of immediate value from each discipline, which we believe
has not yet adequately entered the shared thought lexicon.
When first reading each lesson, it may not be clear how one might apply it. Thus, to illus-
trate, we offer an example topic and point toward how each lesson might influence thinking
on that topic, as we introduce that lesson. As our example, consider the role of the amygdala
in emotion. The amygdala has been shown to be active in fear (LeDoux, 1996). One could
ask whether fear therefore happens in the amygdala, whether the amygdala is responsible
for the experience, whether it computes the degree of threat, whether it detects unusual pat-
terns, or so on. How does one determine what the amygdala computes? To begin, we turn to
lesson 1, from this Topic’s discussion of Interoception (Herbert & Pollatos, 2012).
Lesson 1, Interoception as mechanism: If we take embodied cognition seriously, then a
variety of states of the body should influence psychological processing, which includes our
ability to sense changes in bodily state. The sense of the physiological condition of the body
is now being implicated in a host of phenomena, from normal emotional experience, to body
image disorders, to having a sense of self. Neuroimaging based on our understanding of in-
teroception has been a key to illuminating which processes make use of this sense. Research
on interoception is poised to help reveal mechanisms behind the phenomena described in
each of the other disciplines.
Rather than focus on what part of fear the amygdala computes, an alternative approach
recognizes that the amygdala is ideally suited to coordinated autonomic responses (Schwaber,
Kapp, & Higgins, 1980). When activated by the site of smoke in the next room, and
thoughts of feeling trapped, it might trigger an autonomic response. That autonomic activity
will, in turn, activate sensory nerves eventually projecting to the anterior insula (Craig,
2002), which is often active during emotional responding (Kober et al., 2008), and from
there, one can further trace projections, and so on. In this context, the amygdala is an essen-
tial piece of the emotional reaction of fear, but its role makes most sense in the context of
the streams of processing through which it is situated.
686 J. I. Davis, A. B. Markman ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012)
Lesson 2, from Social Psychology (Meier, Schnall, Schwarz, & Bargh, this issue), Indi-vidual differences: Many lines of research have asked whether bodily movements, bodily
capacities, or body-related metaphors can influence thoughts and emotions. However, there
may be a great deal of individual difference in the degrees to which people are affected by
these factors. Thus, the real story can often lie in examining which beliefs, tendencies, and
motivations lead a person to be more or less influenced by body-related processes.
To illustrate how this can be relevant, consider that there are individual differences in the
degree to which people have biases toward members of their in-group (e.g., based on race,
politics, or sports) and away from members of an out-group. Consider someone who sees
another person across the room. The person is less likely to be perceived as a threat if he or
she is part of that individual’s in-group than part of an out-group (Hugenberg & Bodenhau-
sen, 2003). Stimuli associated with threat activate the amygdala. Individual differences in
strength of in-group ⁄ out-group biases may offer a parametrically varying construct of
empirical value to our example. This kind of individual difference provides an opportunity
to explore what brain or cognitive processes play a role in potentiating or decreasing amyg-
dala reactivity in fear. A researcher might examine which processes correspond to both
amygdala reactivity and differences in strength of group-related bias. Through that, we can
discover more about factors that ready the amygdala to potentiate a fear sequence.
Lesson 3, from Cognitive Psychology (Anderson, Richardson, & Chemero, this issue),
Information processing remains, but what information is processed changes: The informa-
tion processing model that has dominated cognitive psychology needs to be expanded to
include interactions between the body and the environment. These body-environment inter-
actions place constraints on the way that information is processed.
The amygdala might be said to ‘‘compute’’ fear, in the sense that inputs enter in the
form of properties of a stimulus, and then output is in the form of a degree of fear one
should experience. Alternative computations, however, can be described. To aid in this
discussion, consider the case of being trapped in an alley. The ways that an individual can
interact with the alley and other inhabitants greatly determine both the possible responses
one might have, as well as the amount of fear one might experience. Rather than comput-
ing a degree of fear, the amygdala can be viewed as computing whether input from a
number of sources (pertaining, e.g., to one’s self-defense training, one’s level of exhaus-
tion, and the relative size of alley and inhabitants) should sum sufficiently to activate an
endocrine, autonomic, and skeletomuscular reaction to fight, scream, run, or even laugh.
Thus, there is clearly a computation that can be described, but the embodied approach sug-
gests a different kind of computation. It is, moreover, a computation that would be mean-
ingless without unique information about the individual, the environment, and their
potential and kinetic interrelation.
Lesson 4, from Development and Learning (Kontra, Goldin-Meadow, & Beilock, this
issue), Action’s role in learning: Action plays a role in learning. There are many ways it
does so, including building references for conceptual knowledge, preparing for expert per-
ception, and guiding the comprehension of new material. It is also a primary component of
learning, in that it begins to be important in infancy, and the mechanisms by which action is
important in learning appear to be the same throughout life.
J. I. Davis, A. B. Markman ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012) 687
How might this apply to our example? One proposed role of the amygdala is to associate
a stimulus with a fear response (LeDoux, 1996). There is a sense in which this is seen as a
relatively passive process. For example, when the stimulus co-occurs with a fear response,
with the right timing, and lack of alternative stimuli, then conditioning will occur. However,
stimulus-fear pairings may not be entirely passive. Consider an ambiguous social situation
in which a foreign traveler is trying to learn about whether to trust or fear different people
he or she encounters. His or her actions quite likely influence his or her understanding of a
situation. Whomever he or she approaches might be trusted more as a result, as approach-
related actions can yield positive evaluation (Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993). In what
ways, the amygdala researcher might ask, does an approach action involve neural circuitry
that inhibits certain amygdala responses?
Lesson 5, from Philosophy (Kiverstein, this issue), Assumptions about the role of compu-tation influence which hypotheses we test: A distinction has emerged between two views of
what it means to say that the mind is embodied. The first view is a view of the body as a
source of information to central processors, and the second view is one that the body is an
important part of the processing structure of cognition. Testing which of these views is
correct (or when each is) is a thorny challenge in psychology (e.g., Meier, Schnall, Schwarz,
& Bargh, this issue). And yet philosophical arguments illustrate how one view may reduce
to the other when we consider each a type of computation.
The study of the amygdala, as involved in fear, provides a level of specificity with which
a modeler can compare what these two kinds of computations might look like. The notion of
bodily input as a source of information is likely to guide the modeler to attempt to fully
describe types of bodily input without reference to how that information will be used by the
fear processor. In contrast, the notion of bodily input as part of the computation is likely to
lead the modeler to attempt to describe the ways in which bodily input serves as content for
variables, or as steps in a procedure, or other subprocedural aspects of a computation. The
amygdala researcher pondering this question might see the amygdala in terms of a system
that interprets information about the body, or as one that serves more as steps in a subproce-
dure. If a modeler were to undertake to describe both alternatives, the degree to which the
two alternatives differ in meaningful ways (or not) would become apparent.
Lesson 6, from Robotics (Hoffman, this issue), Human-like fluency as a guiding princi-ple: When embodied robotics first began, researchers attempted to perform simple tasks like
obstacle avoidance and navigation using only low-level connections between perceptual and
motor systems without complex internal representations (e.g., Brooks, 1991). More recent
work in this area contains more sophisticated representations that are rooted in the relation-
ship between sensor and effector systems. These robots display human-like fluency in their
physical interactions with people, because of the representations they construct to represent
their surroundings. These representations are more enduring than in older robots and reflect
a principle of integrating representations of sensory input with those of motor control.
Lessons from robotics may inform our example. Amygdalar-mediated fear reactions are
quick and coordinated. That is the essence of fluency. Thus, it is likely that the amygdala
takes advantage of processes that aid fluency. A researcher considering such processes
might shift focus from the stimulus itself to the perceptual symbol systems that may marry
688 J. I. Davis, A. B. Markman ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012)
expectations with sensory input. A representation emerging from the latter is likely what
gets paired with a fear reaction during fear learning. After all, the same stimulus (e.g., a
gun-shaped object) is not the same in a toy store and a battleground. From a cognitive van-
tage point, the researcher is then apt to include context, prior experience, and perceptual
similarity, and so on in the description of the eliciting event. From a neural perspective, the
researcher is likely to include greater consideration of the points of neural convergence on
the pathway from sense organ to amygdala, in the description of important steps.
Lesson 7, from Cognitive Linguistics (Lakoff, this issue), Combining neural principleswith theories of metaphor: Neuroscience is now pointing the way toward understanding
what it can mean to claim that embodied conceptual metaphors have a clear source domain
(donating meaning) and clear target domain (appropriating meaning). This is a critical piece
of an argument that embodied experience is a source of conceptual structure, rather than just
one side of a linguistic (or neural) coincidence.
The amygdalar circuitry involved in coordinating fear reactions is phylogenetically old
and has likely been strengthened by a good deal of use by the time one reaches adulthood.
Thus, it is an excellent potential source of meaning in a fear-related metaphor, which can
help bring meaning to a target domain. Considering the amygdalar circuitry as a metaphor
source domain suggests that, while there are many and varied fear-related metaphors,
reasoning based on each will share structural similarities that follow the processing dynam-
ics of the amygdala and its associated circuitry. For example, a person might view his or her
job as one in which his or her superiors are always hunting him or her, and he or she is run-
ning scared. In contrast, a person might be asked to take on more work when already over-
whelmed and feel like a deer caught in the headlights. These metaphors are quite different,
and they can lead to different inferences about how to approach work. And yet some proper-
ties, such as the urgency, lack of perspective, and reliance on away, rather than toward,
motivation, may be activated in very similar ways.
Lesson(s) 8, from the essay on application of embodied cognition (Davis, Benforado,
Esrock, Turner, Dalton, van Noorden, & Leman, this issue), Ramifications of embodied cog-nition in applied areas suggest new basic science questions: People are profitably reevaluat-
ing the humanities, arts, law, and creative realms of cognition in light of embodied
cognition. Legal thinking suggests that our notions of culpability and fairness are likely to
change as a result of the embodied cognition paradigm taking hold. Built spaces are likely
going to be designed to maximize the way a human makes sense of a space. That sense has at
its core a resonance with aspects of the environment that are linear and straight with respect
to a person’s body when he or she moves through the space. Art and literature may partially
derive meaning for an observer from a process of substituting bodily reactivity for some of
the content, to provide a felt sense of the content. Findings on embodied music cognition
suggest that people respond especially to rhythms of 2 Hz because of our biomechanics.
Building on just one of these points, consider the lessons from an application of embod-
ied cognition to law. One could extrapolate from it that our notions of responsibility for our
actions are shifting as a result of the new paradigm. If so, then it makes sense to explore in
greater depth just what aspects of the sequence from stimulus to fear reaction we do have
control over, to what degree, and what we mean by control.
J. I. Davis, A. B. Markman ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012) 689
Viewed all together, embodied cognition is about the consequences on thought and
emotion of existing as a human body. We have not said ‘‘in a human body’’ nor ‘‘having a
body,’’ but existing as one. We use this phrasing to highlight that having a body is not a
state, but rather an active element of cognitive processing. Such consequences of existing as
a human body have been explored in many different ways, and we have reached a point in
the cognitive sciences where there is so much work being done within each discipline that
the intradisciplinary findings do not always seem to make contact with those from other dis-
ciplines. As a result, it can be difficult to find a common thread among the different research
programs in this area.
For example, linguists have noted the regular use of embodied metaphors to describe the
world (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Roboticists recognized the value of offloading mental
work onto the environment (Brooks, 1991). Neuroscientists discovered shared use of
‘‘motor’’ systems in perception and social understanding (Keysers & Gazzola, 2006;
Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese, & Fogassi, 1996). Computer scientists designed neural networks
that could act more human than could computers that were based on serial computation
(Medler, 1998). Developmental psychologists illustrated how bodily interactions form a
basis for learning (Smith & Gasser, 2005), and the list goes on. It is hard to find a discipline
within the cognitive sciences in which such discoveries have not been made.
By focusing within independent disciplines, scholars have discovered distinct lessons that
must be shared across disciplines. In our view, different work across disciplines will start to
be recognizably part of the same endeavor, when we share the lessons from each discipline
with each other at regular intervals. From our vantage point, these insights continue to
reflect a shift in basic assumptions about what constitutes the mind. Unlike the cognitive
revolution, this embodied revolution has not been sudden and jarring, but gradual and subtle
until a larger framework became clear. The mind is becoming re-tethered to biology. As we
cross-germinate one another’s fields with the important lessons from our own, this paradig-
matic change will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We close by suggesting that this shift may have profound consequences beyond our aca-
demic discussions. Consider that being overweight is not just a body issue. It changes one’s
movement and blood flow and many factors that we know are part of systems involved in
thought and emotion. Or consider psycho-somaticisms, placebo effects, and pain manage-
ment. They shift from the realm in which our questions are of the form ‘‘is this possible?’’
to the realm of mechanism––what bodily ⁄ neural processes are influenced by or influence
placebo-expectations, emotions, error detection in the environment, health consequences of
social rejection, and so on? The answers to these questions will have considerable practical
significance. The embodied cognition paradigm is redirecting what it is that must be
explained by the cognitive sciences. That is no small shift.
Note
We dedicate this topic to the memory of our dear colleague, Alasdair Turner.
690 J. I. Davis, A. B. Markman ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (2012)
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation grant BCS––
1002595 (to J.I.D.).
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