Embodiment

Question 1

How did Descartes introduce the idea of embodied cognition?

Answer 1

As understanding the mind and body as separate entities “disembodied mind”

Question 2

What two things does embodiment mean? (Rosch et al)

Answer 2

1) depends on experience of having a body with sensori-motor capacities
2) sensori-motor capacities are embedded in a biological, psycho, social context
- Embodiment is bidirectional.

Question 3

Explain weak/strong embodiment

Answer 3

Strong: determined by links to perception and sensori motor systems
Weak: grounding is a bonus feature not determining

Question 4

Fodor 1983 argued against embodiment…

Answer 4

words are just words- arbitrary and conventionally assumed.

Question 5

Is artificial intelligence actually intelligent?

Answer 5

yes- Searle: able to be cleber and converse in natural conversation; Turing test: it does if humans are unable to tell if it is human from its responses.
no- Searle, no it can produce but cannot understand output (chinese room experiment) [generally accepted]

Question 6

what is ‘symbollic grounding’

Answer 6

semantic interpretation of language made intrinsic to a system (harnard 90)- more than just symbol association– use multimodal connections

Question 7

Barsolou 03: amodal vs perceptual

Answer 7

amodal: visual input elicits semantic associations.
perceputual: ground in neural systems of sensori-motor and perceptual systems, in memory use ‘simulation’ to partially reactive and further ground it -

Question 8

perception uses _____and involves simulation of associated _____

Answer 8

experience , memories

Question 9

Evidence for embodiment- Glenberg

Answer 9

Bean experiment: prime motion for sentences (concrete away “i gave cake”, or abstract toward “joe deligated me the task”). if direction moved beans was congrunet with sentence then faster to respond

Question 10

Evidence for embodiment- Zwaan and Stanfield 01

Answer 10

showed differing orientation of visual rep by picture then, sentence action direction- respond faster if congruent direction

Question 11

Evidence for: Zwaan et al 04:

Answer 11

Ball coming towards– two pictures of object consecutively (one image smaller= further away)
-Faster if congruent to pictures

Question 12

Evidence for: Jostmann 09:

Answer 12

holding heavy clipboard lead to higher judgements of monetary value (importance is heavy)

Question 13

fmri evidence?

Answer 13

Tettamanti 05: activation in motor mapped parts of brain when associated action is used

Willems 10: matched handedness to cerebral lateralisation of actions using hands or feet (compared to control bilateral actions)

Question 14

Further brain imaging..?

Answer 14

Aziz-zadih 06: concrete words “grasped cake” different to “grasped opportunity” – concrete actions activate premotor cortex, abstract doesn’t.

Hauk et al 04: lick activates tongue region.

Question 15

what can neurodegenerative disorders tell us about

Answer 15

Cardona 14: NMO (deficits in non-brain motor areas eg spinal cord) vs Parkinsons (direct link to motor area)
parkinsons impaired on embodied cognition but not nmo so action language is subserved in cortical systems

Question 16

Does influence flow both ways?

Answer 16

yes ! Glenberg and kazchak 02: beans, ‘Action-sentence compatability effect’ language is meaningful simulation

Question 17

Arguments against EC

Answer 17

not significant experiments! Miles 10 said sway forward when think of future and VV. but this was 2mm so not valid!
Also in lab setting not natural language; may be statistically sig but not really.

Question 18

Reliability of EC as a concept

Answer 18

definition of EC changes over different studies so can’t generalise to same cause (Wilson and Galonka)

Question 19

How might this be rectified?

Answer 19

Wilson 02 paper classifying these into categories- direction of future research?

Question 20

are there any real life applications?

Answer 20

yes; marley 2010: reading comprehension can be helped by acting out in kids learning new words and effect maintained at 1w follow up and replicated on computer systems (but not good for teachers)

Question 21

is there support for strong or disembodied theories?

Answer 21

no! mid point; agreed that semantic represntations involve convergence zones and activation of modal content

Question 22

binding problem

Answer 22

domasio 1989:

features> entities>events “recordable modification of a persons somatic state”