Embodied cognition investigates how cognition changes when situated in a physical environment. In the embodied approach to cognitive science, the mind and environment are a single intelligent system.
Like the traditional theory where cognition is representation, Simple embodied cognition assumes that cognitive systems are designed to operate on a physical world; at the other end of the spectrum, Radical embodiment claims that the mind cannot be meaningfully studied in isolation from the physical world (Clark, 1999). Between simple and radical embodied cognition is a “medium,” which assumes that the state of the world and our bodies shape cognition in a meaningful way, but not to the degree of transforming cognitive science.
Key terms
- Semantic efficacy = “the view that the meaning or content of mental states makes a causal difference to what agents do and how they affect their environments.”
- Semantic externalism = “the view that the meaning or “content” of a mental state depends on how one is situated in one’s environment.”