Incorporating Individual Differences into a Mechanistic Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience
PsyArXiv Preprints March 3, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2024.2405190 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Cognitive neuroscience Cognitive psychology |
| Key points | Argues that mechanistic explanations in cognitive neuroscience must account for individual differences in cognition arising from varied brain-body-environment experiences, and proposes that the definition of mechanistic models may limit their application to studying those differences. |
Abstract
The review article Theoretical strategies for an embodied cognitive neuroscience (Mougenot & Matheson, 2024) proposes that the embodied cognition framework can be applied to develop mechanistic explanations for cognitive neuroscience phenomena. In our commentary we argue that any mechanistic explanation of such phenomena must be able to account for individual differences in cognition that are an inevitable consequence of the varied brain-body-environment experiences that comprise embodied cognition. We propose that, while mechanistic accounts may be able to model individual differences, the definition of mechanistic models may limit their application to the study of individual differences.