Embodied cognition: A perspective on spatial representations

By Léo Dutriaux, Valérie Gyselinck
English

Embodied cognition is a framework that has been developed in contrast to traditional cognitivism. This theory claims that, instead of conceiving the mind as a computer, it must be understood in the context of its relationship to a physical body that interacts with the world. Surprisingly, spatial cognition has received very little interest from this field. The aim of this article is to discuss an embodied view of spatial representations in such a way that 1. spatial representations are for guiding actions, and 2. spatial representations are grounded on sensorimotor systems, that is, they share processing resources with these systems rather than being strictly separated from them. To achieve this aim, we will review experiments that show that the systems at the source of spatial representations, perception, memory, and language, are themselves embodied in this way. Finally, we will discuss research that focuses more directly on spatial representations.

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