tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post6936802514139407196..comments2024-03-09T09:06:35.288+00:00Comments on Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists: It's not just us, honestAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-70238433360987941252010-04-14T13:53:19.325+01:002010-04-14T13:53:19.325+01:00No. The bottom line of embodied cognition is not t...No. The bottom line of embodied cognition is not that behaviour reflects cognition, as evidenced by the fact that even non-embodiment people think this, because it's trivially the case that this is true. Embodied cognition is actually the hypothesis that the types of bodies we have have non-trivial consequences for the types of cognition we do. <br /><br />An example: The architecture of the arm 'processes' information required for control, not via computation but just by being built the way it is rather than any other way. It therefore only looks like its processing, and it changes what's required from a cognitive control system.<br /><br />I'm actually all for embodied cognition. But Lynden's experiment (besides having methodological flaws coming out of everywhere: I mean, one marker on the knee? Which bends forward when you sway back? And therefore is moving in the opposite direction their interpretation says? etc) is conceptually flawed too. Why on earth would a system sway forward when thinking about the future? If they were right and the sway was a linear function of how far forward you were thinking about, at what point do you fall over? <br /><br />The problem is that there is no naturalised reason to think that postural sway would reflect thinking about the past or future, because that's not the kind of thing postural sway is 'for' or 'about'. These effects, in which a movement supposedly reflects some metaphor embedded in the task, have the embodiment question completely backwards: it's not 'what does cognition do to bodies?', it's 'what do bodies do for cognition?'<br /><br />And while I do firmly believe 'embodied cognition' is going to form part of any overall theory of psychology, I was just identifying the problem that even the concept of embodied cognition suffers from the phenomena-based, investigator-ego problems Glenberg notes about psychology.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-80125802073516497992010-04-14T12:44:54.120+01:002010-04-14T12:44:54.120+01:00You'll need to expand on your dislike of embod...You'll need to expand on your dislike of embodied cognition - I don't understand what you think is rubbish? In Lynden's experiment is it the method you dislike, or only the Psych Science-esque spin put on the results? I mean, the bottom line of embodied cognition is that we can interpret what the brain is doing by examining behavior, no?Gavin Buckinghamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539613027114375642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-33688478595254886652010-04-14T11:50:14.643+01:002010-04-14T11:50:14.643+01:00I think it's really interesting that most peop...I think it's really interesting that most people don't identify the lack of theory as a weakness in psychology. Without theory, it seems to me, psychology isn't a science (in the capital S sense), it's a collection of phenomena that we study using scientific methods.Sabrina Golonkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10484205507927422316noreply@blogger.com