Perspective and Embodiment

Abstract

Embodied cognition is a rapidly expanding research program that emphasizes the formative role of interactions with the environment in how cognitive processes develop and function. A variety of theoretical accounts have been formulated in the different cognitive science sub-fields (cognitive development/psychology, cognitive robotics, psycholinguistics, social cognition, and philosophy of mind), enriching this interdisciplinary research arena and at the same time underlining the need for more dialogue across fields, theories, and methodologies. Recent research attempts to account for embodiment not only in terms of an individual’s interactions with the environment but also with other minds and other bodies. This brings to the fore issues concerned with perspective taking, both in spatial and in more general conceptual terms. Indeed, much of the research in embodied cognition has a spatial dimension.


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