Opinion
Is social cognition embodied?

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Theories of embodied cognition abound in the literature, but it is often unclear how to understand them. We offer several interpretations of embodiment, the most interesting being the thesis that mental representations in bodily formats (B-formats) have an important role in cognition. Potential B-formats include motoric, somatosensory, affective and interoceptive formats. The literature on mirroring and related phenomena provides support for a limited-scope version of embodied social cognition under the B-format interpretation. It is questionable, however, whether such a thesis can be extended. We show the limits of embodiment in social cognition.

Introduction

A spectre is haunting the laboratories of cognitive science, the spectre of embodied cognition (EC). For decades, the reigning paradigm of cognitive science has been classicism. On this approach, higher cognitive functions are analogized to the operations of a computer, manipulating abstract symbols on the basis of specific computations. As embodiment theorists tell the story, classical cognitivism (CC) claims that mental operations are largely detached from the workings of the body, the body being merely an output device for commands generated by abstract symbols in the mind (or the ‘central system’ of the mind). Embodiment theorists want to elevate the importance of the body in explaining cognitive activities. What is meant by ‘body’ here? It ought to mean: the whole physical body minus the brain. Letting the brain qualify as part of the body would trivialize the claim that the body is crucial to mental life, simply because the brain is the seat of most, if not all, mental events.

Proponents of EC are found in virtually all sectors of cognitive science. They include artificial intelligence [1], psychology 2, 3, 4, 5, cognitive neuroscience 6, 7, linguistics [8] and philosophy 9, 10, 11, 12. However, embodiment seems to mean widely different things to different EC theorists, and their views range from the radical to the not so radical. In view of this diversity, it is impossible to canvass all varieties of EC (for review see Ref. [13]).

We begin by laying out four general constraints on a conceptually satisfying and empirically fruitful definition of EC. (i) A definition should assign central importance to the body (understood literally), not simply to the situation or environment in which the body is embedded. Many theorists more or less equate EC with situated cognition; we focus entirely on the former. (ii) The definition should concentrate on the cognizer's own body, not the bodies of others. Perception of another person's body should not automatically count as EC. (iii) Any substantial EC thesis should be a genuine rival to CC. (iv) It should also make a clear enough claim that its truth or falsity can be evaluated by empirical evidence. After assessing candidate definitions of EC in terms of the foregoing desiderata, we shall choose our favorite candidate (not necessarily excluding others) and apply it to social cognition. We shall ask how strongly the current empirical evidence supports EC as a thesis about social cognition.

Section snippets

Interpretations of embodiment

We shall formulate four definitions or conceptions of embodiment (Figure 1). Because many pre-existing formulations of embodiment are rather opaque, we hope that our proposals will bring increased clarity to this matter. For any conception of embodiment, of course, it could be claimed that ‘all’ of cognition is embodied, or that ‘90%’ of cognition is embodied, etc. Nobody is in a position to address this quantificational issue with any precision and we shall leave this question open here,

Evidence for embodied social cognition

It is worth noting that the mere fact that most social activities involve the perception of bodily behaviors does not qualify them as embodied. Which types of social-cognitive activities, then, are prime candidates for being embodied? According to proponents of embodied social cognition (ESC) 10, 21, 22, 23, there are six favorite candidates, including behavior imitation, joint action, emotional contagion, empathy, mindreading and language understanding (for language understanding, see Box 1).

Beyond embodiment

Our brief literature review makes an empirical case for the causal role of B-formats in a variety of social-cognitive activities. Because of the low-level nature of B-formats, such a pattern was never anticipated by CC. As noted, however, EC enthusiasts often make all-encompassing claims about the extent to which embodiment pervades cognition. Although our review identifies previously unsuspected relationships between B-formats and social cognition, it leaves it quite open how far B-reps extend

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