Interdisciplinary approaches to embodied cognition research
Arianna Felisatti, Oliver Lindemann, Samuel Shaki, Jaime A. Riascos
August 23, 2023 DOI: 10.4324/9781003290698-15 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that embodied cognition and adjacent disciplines enrich each other: philosophy contributes mutual theoretical development, comparative psychology shows organism-environment interaction shapes adaptive behaviour in evolution, anthropology shows culturally determined learning shapes cognition in development, and robotics illustrates that body perception grounds how information is extracted from the world and how cognitive and learning-related neural structures develop. |
Abstract
This chapter offers an overview on the bidirectional enrichment between the cognitive science of embodied cognition and other disciplines. First, the dynamic discourse between philosophy and embodied cognition is presented to convey mutual theoretical developments. Then, comparative psychology is described as a fruitful experimental domain to inform about the crucial role of organism–environment interaction in the evolution of adaptive behaviours during phylogeny. Third, the anthropological approach is introduced to inform about the influence of culturally determined learning on cognition during ontogeny. In the end, the field of robotics is briefly discussed to highlight how perception of the body constitutes a fundamental framework for extracting information from the world, and thus for the development of neural structures responsible for cognition and learning.