Enduring Debates on Psychology and Language in the 20th Century

Research in the psychology of language has been dogged by some enduring controversies, many of which continue to divide researchers. Furthermore, language research has been riven by too many dichotomies and too many people taking too extreme a position, and progress is only likely to be made when researchers recognize that language is a complex system where simple dichotomies may not be relevant. The enduring controversies cover the width of psycholinguistics, including the work of Chomsky and the nature of language, to what extent language is innately determined and the origin of language and how it evolved. Chomsky’s work has also influenced our conceptions of the modularity of the structure of the mind and the nature of psychological processing. Advances in the sophistication of brain imaging techniques have led to debate about exactly what these techniques can tell us about the psychological processing of language. There has also been much debate about whether psychological processing occurs through explicit rules or statistical mapping, a debate driven by connectionist modeling, deep learning, and techniques for the analysis of “big data.” Another debate concerns the role of prediction in language and cognition and the related issues of the relationship between language comprehension and language production. To what extent is language processing embodied, and how does it relate to controversies about “embedded cognition”? Finally, there has been debate about the purpose and use of language.

LARPnography: an embodied embedded cognition method to probe the future

PurposeThis paper aims to propose LARPnography as a more holistic method to probe the emergence of plausible futures, drawing on embodied embedded cognition literature and the emerging consumer practice of live-action role-playing (LARP). Current research methods for probing the future of markets and society rely mainly on expert judgment (i.e. Delphi), imagery or simulation of possible futures (i.e. scenario and simulation) and perspective taking (i.e. role-playing). The predominant focus on cognitive abstraction limits the insights researchers can extract from more embodied, sensorial and experiential approaches.Design/methodology/approachLARPnography is a qualitative method seeking to immerse participants within a plausible future to better understand the social and market dynamics that may unfold therein. Through careful planning, design, casting and fieldwork, researchers create the preconditions to let participants experience what the future may be and gather critical insights from naturalistic observations and post-event interviews.Practical implicationsOwing to its interactive nature and processual focus, LARPnography is best suited to investigate the adoption and diffusion of innovation, market emergence phenomena and radical societal changes, including the rise of alternative societies.Originality/valueDifferent from previous foresight methods, LARPnography creates immersive and perceptually stimulating replicas of plausible futures that research participants can inhabit. The creation of a fictional yet socio-material world ensures that socially constructed meaning is enriched by phenomenological and visceral insights.

Communication as Fundamental Paradigm for Psychopathology

Theoretical positions in cognitive sciences either emphasize the role of internal representations within the cognitive system of the person or focus on the person’s interaction with the environment. The latter position has been recently explicated in different ways under the formula of 4E cognition (extended, embodied, enactive, embedded). Focusing on the aspect of socially embedded cognition, the dyad of two interaction partners in a social encounter is proposed as the fundamental unit of analysis. This interactive approach centered around the concept of communication is also of relevance for the understanding of psychopathological norm deviations. Despite a rich tradition that reconstructs different psychopathological syndromes as disorders of communication, this account of psychopathology has not been fully acknowledged. It is the aim of this chapter to present the core ideas of this perspective and to stimulate the discussion that has potentially substantial influence on various research topics in psychopathology and psychiatry.

What Cognitive Science of Religion Can Learn from John Dewey

I use three ideas from philosopher John Dewey that are of service for Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). I discuss how Dewey’s ideas on embodied cognition, embedded cognition can be put to work to get a fuller understanding of religious cognition. I also use his ideas to criticize CSR’s reliance on the modularity of mind thesis

The mind beyond the head: Two arguments in favour of embedded cognition

In this paper I defend situated approaches of cognition, and the idea that mind, body and external world are inseparable. In the first section, I present some anti-Cartesian approaches of cognition and discuss the intuition they share that there is a constitutive interaction between mind, body and external environment. In the second section, I present the fallacy of the Cartesian theater of the mind and explain its theoretical premises. In the third section, I present a spatial argument against it, and argue that some case studies could give support to the idea of the mind stretching over the boundaries of the skull. In the fourth section, I present a temporal argument, and argue that even in this case the idea of an interaction between our cognitive life and the external world has at least a very strong intuitive palatability.

On the embedded cognition of non-verbal narratives

Acknowledging that narratives are an important resource in human communication and cognition, the focus of this article is on the cognitive aspects of involvement with visual and auditory non-verbal narratives, particularly in relation to the newest immersive media and digital interactive representational technologies. We consider three relevant trends in narrative studies that have emerged in the 60 years of cognitive and digital revolution. The issue at hand could have implications for developmental psychology, pedagogics, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, ethology and evolutionary studies of language. In particular, it is of great importance for narratology in relation to interactive media and new representational technologies. Therefore we outline a research agenda for a bio-cognitive semiotic interdisciplinary investigation into how people understand, react to, and interact with narratives that are communicated through non-verbal modalities.