What’s embodied cognition?

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Embodied cognition proposes that the human mind is influenced by the state and actions of the body. It takes a different approach to cognition, stating that it is a situated activity that requires considering the being to which the mind is attached. The fields of artificial intelligence and robotics have led to widespread consideration of embodied cognition, with some researchers proposing that machines may need a human body to think. The body is not a peripheral of the human mind, and cognition often depends on the body.

Embodied cognition is an area of ​​scientific inquiry with its roots deeply rooted in philosophy starting with Kant, a 20th century philosopher. The theory proposes that the human mind is particularly susceptible to, if not entirely determined by, the state and actions of the human body. Research from various scientific and philosophical perspectives intersects with the embodied mind. These fields of study include psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary epistemology, biology, philosophy, and the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics. With new theories being proposed about the mind-body influence from each of these fields, especially artificial intelligence, researchers often conclude that the influence is not just the body on the mind, but also the influence of the motor system on cognition Human.

Different approaches to cognition focus on the operational theory of the mind interacting with symbols in its environment to perform actions; however, embodied cognition takes a radically different approach. Instead, the theory proposes that cognition is a situated activity that requires first taking into consideration the being to which the mind is attached. Complex social environments, as theorized, are where most thinking actually occurs, so thinking is a process firmly rooted in the actions of human social interactions. As such, abstract thinking results from actions and neural networks in the brain that are connected to the same neural systems responsible for analyzing and processing information and sensory experiences. For example, the term cold often conveys the notion of hostility with many research efforts showing that when people are repulsed in social situations, the physical temperature seems colder to them at the time, than when included in social activities. although there is no change in physical temperature.

While deeply rooted in philosophical arguments, it is the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics that are responsible for eliciting widespread consideration of embodied cognition in various scientific disciplines. One of the toughest challenges in the field is gaining a solid understanding of how the human mind works and finding ways to replicate that functioning so that a machine can think, rather than just do as programmed. Industry researchers have concluded that such machines may need a human body to think. After extensive efforts, some researchers in the field of artificial intelligence have concluded that robots should perform only minimal thought, but instead all actions should be embodied and situated. Other researchers have gone so far as to propose that this is the only way to achieve reliable AI.

Rather than the body being a peripheral of the human mind, cognition often actually depends on the human body. Therefore, seeing the body as a mere periphery is considered a fatal flaw according to embodied cognition theorists. For familiarity with how this works, research has shown that communication and language processing typically depend on hand gestures to facilitate both processes.




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