What makes a metaphor an embodied metaphor?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Casasanto ◽  
Tom Gijssels
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
Embodied Metaphor ◽  
Influential Theory

AbstractWhat does it mean for metaphors to be “embodied”? Here we describe an influential theory of embodied cognition according to which thoughts are implemented in perceptuo-motor simulations, in the brain’s modality-specific systems. This theory is invoked in nearly every paper on “embodied metaphor,” across linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. There appears to be overwhelming support for the conclusion that representations of metaphorical “source domains” are embodied in perceptuo-motor simulations. Here we show, however, that when the data are evaluated appropriately there is very little evidence that metaphors are embodied in this sense. The kind of data that offer compelling support for the embodiment of concrete, literal ideas like “grasping the ball” are nearly absent for abstract, metaphorical ideas like “grasping the explanation.” There is now abundant evidence that metaphors structure our thoughts, feelings, and choices in a variety of conceptual domains. But evidence for metaphorical mental representation is not necessarily evidence for embodiment. If any metaphorical source domains are embodied in modality-specific simulations, they may be the exception rather than the rule.

Exploring the Boundaries of the Number–Temporal Order Association

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Ganor-Stern
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Numerical Comparison ◽  
Negative Number ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Negative Numbers ◽  
The Past

Past research has shown that numbers are associated with order in time such that performance in a numerical comparison task is enhanced when number pairs appear in ascending order, when the larger number follows the smaller one. This was found in the past for the integers 1–9 ( Ben-Meir, Ganor-Stern, & Tzelgov, 2013 ; Müller & Schwarz, 2008 ). In the present study we explored whether the advantage for processing numbers in ascending order exists also for fractions and negative numbers. The results demonstrate this advantage for fraction pairs and for integer-fraction pairs. However, the opposite advantage for descending order was found for negative numbers and for positive-negative number pairs. These findings are interpreted in the context of embodied cognition approaches and current theories on the mental representation of fractions and negative numbers.

Neurofilmology of the Moving Image

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano D'Aloia
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Perceptual Psychology ◽  
Contemporary Cinema

A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void… Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator’s sense of equilibrium. The ‘tensive motifs’ of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams, and offer imaginary forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition, along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of ‘Neurofilmology’—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—, this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.

scholarly journals Embodied cognition and emotional disorders

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. pr.035714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bergljot Gjelsvik ◽  
Darko Lovric ◽  
J. Mark G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Emotional Disorders ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Low Mood ◽  
Affective Disturbance ◽  
Hub Model ◽  
Important Basis ◽  
Vast Area

Research into embodied cognition (EC) in cognitive neuroscience and psychology has risen exponentially over the last 25 years, covering a vast area of research; from understanding how ability to judge speech sounds depends on an intact motor cortex, to why people perceive hills as steeper when carrying a heavy backpack. Although there are many theories addressing these phenomena, increasing evidence across EC studies suggests simulation (i.e., re-enactment of the motor-sensory aspects of meaning) as an important basis of knowledge. The authors 1) review evidence for the EC paradigm’s claim to simulation effects in cognition, suggesting that simulation exists within a “distributed plus hub” model, 2) discuss the implications of simulation for the understanding of cognitive dysfunctions in emotional disorders, particularly depression, 3) suggest that emotional disorders arises as a result of failed simulation processes, hypothesizing that semantic processing reactivates motor-sensory simulations previously associated with low mood ( enactment/re-enactment networks), and that truncation of such simulation by means of over-use of language-based, abstract processing, motivated by a wish to reduce the affective disturbance associated with episodic, embodied representations, maintains psychopathology, 4) review evidence for effects of truncated simulation on emotional pathology, and 5) discuss the relevance of EC to treatments of emotional pathology.

Is a field theory of perseverative reaching compatible with a Piagetian view?

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-53
Author(s):  
Lorraine McCune
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
The Relationship

This commentary is a brief reflection on the relationship between the embodied cognition analysis and a Piagetian theoretical position. In particular, the place of A-not-B in the larger Piagetian framework and the importance of the concept of mental representation, in contrast with perceptual understanding, are noted.

scholarly journals Disembodying cognition

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjan Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Real World ◽  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Neuronal Ensembles ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Motor Information

AbstractThe idea that concepts are embodied by our motor and sensory systems is popular in current theorizing about cognition. Embodied cognition accounts come in different versions and are often contrasted with a purely symbolic amodal view of cognition. Simulation, or the hypothesis that concepts simulate the sensory and motor experience of real world encounters with instances of those concepts, has been prominent in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Here, with a focus on spatial thought and language, I review some of the evidence cited in support of simulation versions of embodied cognition accounts. While these data are extremely interesting and many of the experiments are elegant, knowing how to best interpret the results is often far from clear. I point out that a quick acceptance of embodied accounts runs the danger of ignoring alternate hypotheses and not scrutinizing neuroscience data critically. I also review recent work from my lab that raises questions about the nature of sensory motor grounding in spatial thought and language. In my view, the question of whether or not cognition is grounded is more fruitfully replaced by questions about gradations in this grounding. A focus on disembodying cognition, or on graded grounding, opens the way to think about how humans abstract. Within neuroscience, I propose that three functional anatomic axes help frame questions about the graded nature of grounded cognition. First, are questions of laterality differences. Do association cortices in both hemispheres instantiate the same kind of sensory or motor information? Second, are questions about ventral dorsal axes. Do neuronal ensembles along this axis shift from conceptual representations of objects to the relationships between objects? Third, are questions about gradients centripetally from sensory and motor cortices towards and within perisylvian cortices. How does sensory and perceptual information become more language-like and then get transformed into language proper?

The strong versions of embodied cognition: Three challenges faced

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Khatin-Zadeh ◽  
Zahra Eskandari ◽  
Sergio Cervera-Torres ◽  
Susana Ruiz-Fernandez ◽  
Reza Farzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Sensory Processes ◽  
Concrete Concepts

The aim of this article is to discuss three challenges to the so-called “strong” versions of embodiment. The strong versions of embodied cognition (SVEC) have been successful in explaining how concrete concepts (e.g., pencil) may be understood based on sensory processes, yet they have failed to offer a comprehensive understanding of abstract concepts (e.g., freedom). In this regard, this article pinpoints three areas where the SVEC face limitations. First, the SVEC fail to fully support the active or passive perspective that an agent may assume when processing abstract concepts via embodied metaphorical representations. Second, the SVEC do not offer a compelling explanation for three different types of mental simulation proposed for the representation of non-actual motion semantics: enactive perception, perceptual scanning, and imagination. Third, the SVEC fail to account for inter-individual, cross-cultural, and context-dependency in the representation of abstract concepts. To summarize, we argue that the findings from the SVEC should be integrated into broader “weak” embodiment theoretical perspectives, which propose that sensory-motor and modality-independent systems are involved in conceptual representations. Finally, we discuss the implications of our core argument in cognitive neuroscience.

scholarly journals Looping Effects and the Cognitive Science of Mindfulness Meditation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Directed Action ◽  
The Brain

Cognitive neuroscience tends to conceptualize mindfulness meditation as inner observation of a private mental realm of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and tries to model mindfulness as instantiated in neural networks visible through brain imaging tools such as EEG and fMRI. This approach confuses the biological conditions for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which, as classically described, consists in the integrated exercise of a whole host of cognitive and bodily skills in situated and ethically directed action. From an enactive perspective, mindfulness depends on internalized social cognition and is a mode of skillful, embodied cognition that depends directly not only on the brain, but also on the rest of the body and the physical, social, and cultural environment.

scholarly journals A Deflationary Account of Mental Representation

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-53
Author(s):  
Frances Egan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Bayesian Approaches ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Pragmatic Account ◽  
And Function

Among the cognitive capacities of evolved creatures is the capacity to represent. Theories in cognitive neuroscience typically explain our manifest representational capacities by positing internal representations, but there is little agreement about how these representations function, especially with the relatively recent proliferation of connectionist, dynamical, embodied, enactive, and Bayesian approaches to cognition. This paper sketches an account of the nature and function of representation in cognitive neuroscience that couples a realist construal of representational vehicles with a pragmatic account of representational content. The resulting package is called a deflationary account of mental representation, and the chapter argues that it avoids the problems that afflict competing accounts.

Neurofilmology of the Moving Image

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano D'Aloia
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Perceptual Psychology ◽  
Contemporary Cinema

A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void … Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator's sense of equilibrium. The 'tensive motifs' of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams, and offer imaginary forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition, along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of 'Neurofilmology'—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—, this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.

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