Commentary: The poverty of embodied cognition
Frontiers in Psychology May 23, 2017 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00845 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 26 |
| Key points | Argues that Goldinger et al.'s methodological critique of embodied cognition is inadequate, while agreeing that radical embodiment rejecting mental representation is a blind alley. |
Abstract
According to classic cognitive science, higher cognitive processes involve amodal mental representations (Fodor, 1975), and are carried by brain regions other than sensorimotor areas (Bechtel et al., 1998). Over the last few decades, this view has been questioned. Numerous researchers argue that cognitive processes are fundamentally rooted in sensorimotor activity and that the body both constrains and enables cognition (Wilson, 2002; Clark, 2009). Such a view is called “the embodied cognition” (EC) and it is widely applied in various fields of cognitive science, from linguistics to robotics. Recently, Goldinger et al. (2016), however, questioned its applicability. They emphasized that some assumptions of EC are unacceptable, and others proffer nothing new. Primarily, they claim that EC offers no useful insight into the classic problems of experimental psychology. Although, we agree with some theses presented in the article (e.g., radical embodiment that rejects the existence of mental representation is a blind alley), it appears the authors’ methodological view on EC is inadequate.