This thesis looks at a relatively new line of research in Cognitive Science – embodied cognition. Its relation to the computational-representational paradigm, primarily symbolicism, is extensively discussed. It is argued that embodied cognition is compatible with the established paradigm but challenges its research focus and traditionally assumed segregation of cognition from bodily and worldly activities Subsequently the impact of embodied cognition on philosophy of Cognitive Science is considered. The second chapter defends the applicability of mechanistic explanation to cases of embodied cognition. Further, it argues that a proposed alternative, dynamic systems theory, is not a substitute to the mechanistic approach. The last chapter critically examines the thesis that mind is extended beyond the bodily boundary and into the world. It is concluded that arguments in favour of the extended mind thesis are inadequate. Considerations in favour of the orthodox view that the does not “leak” out into the world are also presented.

How, at a fundamental level, do people construe their social world? Mainstream perspectives on social cognition posit that we do so largely by applying hierarchically structured concepts (or schemas) about similar classes of people and events to selectively interpret and elaborate on the complex array of social information. In this dissertation I propose a complementary perspective according to which people lend meaning to the social world in large part through conceptual metaphors that use the structure of familiar, typically concrete concepts to reason about and evaluate information in dissimilar, typically more abstract conceptual domains. I describe a model of metaphor-enriched social cognition (MESC) that provides a preliminary framework for understanding the role of conceptual metaphor in everyday social thought and action. I review research supporting hypotheses derived from the model with respect to the effects of conceptual metaphor on social perception, attitudes, and behavior, and I present four studies designed to further test these hypotheses. Study 1 shows that the sensation of being physically burdened increased the subjective obligatory nature of everyday activities. Study 2 shows that images depicting historically significant people and events (both positively and negatively valenced) were perceived as larger in size than those depicting historically insignificant people and events. In Study 3, priming participants with the beneficial consequences of physical covering led to more permissive attitudes toward the government withholding information from the public, and this effect was specific to those with ambivalent prior attitudes toward the value of governmental secrecy. Study 4 showed that a heightened motivation to protect one's own body from contamination led to harsher attitudes toward immigrants entering the United States among those subtly primed to conceptualize the country as a body but not those primed with a literal conception of the country. Although further research and theoretical refinement are necessary, the MESC model is a step toward acquiring a richer, more general conception of everyday social meaning-making and its implications for social life.

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abstract: Categories are often defined by rules regarding their features. These rules may be intensely complex yet, despite the complexity of these rules, we are often able to learn them with sufficient practice. A possible explanation for how we arrive at consistent category judgments despite these difficulties would be that we may define these complex categories such as chairs, tables, or stairs by understanding the simpler rules defined by potential interactions with these objects. This concept, called grounding, allows for the learning and transfer of complex categorization rules if said rules are capable of being expressed in a more simple fashion by virtue of meaningful physical interactions. The present experiment tested this hypothesis by having participants engage in either a Rule Based (RB) or Information Integration (II) categorization task with instructions to engage with the stimuli in either a non-interactive or interactive fashion. If participants were capable of grounding the categories, which were defined in the II task with a complex visual rule, to a simpler interactive rule, then participants with interactive instructions should outperform participants with non-interactive instructions. Results indicated that physical interaction with stimuli had a marginally beneficial effect on category learning, but this effect seemed most prevalent in participants were engaged in an II task. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2014

Embodied accounts of action-language processing propose that meaning is constructed with the assistance of relevant sensory-motor representations (eg., Fischer & Zwaan, 2008). In support of this view, comprehending an action-sentence can slow the production of an overt action, when features of that action are incompatible with corresponding sentence features (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002). Additionally, performing an overt action can impede the comprehension of incompatible action-sentences (Zwaan & Taylor, 2006). Action-sentence comprehension can even be disrupted by watching visual displays with incompatible directional features. Namely, comprehending a sentence describing a movement in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction is less efficient when simultaneously viewing a stimulus moving in an incompatible direction, even when no overt manual rotation action is performed. Embodied accounts contend that such action-sentence compatibility effects arise as a result of covert simulations of specific motor programs developed through one’s physical experiences with particular objects. I present evidence that these effects could also be generated by a more abstract type of knowledge, that is not tied to a particular object. I am referring here to the idea of a population stereotype, which is the natural tendency of people to associate the direction of certain actions with the conceptual properties of a physical display (e.g., a clockwise device rotation implies an increase in device output). Such population stereotypes typically are consistent with specific motor experiences. For example, turning down the volume of a stereo in many cases involves a counterclockwise rotation of a dial, and this experience is consistent with a population stereotype that implies that reducing a quantity is achieved by a counterclockwise action. If comprehension of a sentence describing reducing the volume on a stereo is faster while turning a dial in a counterclockwise direction, it can not be determined if a resulting compatibility effect reflects compatibility between the described action and the stereotype, or between the described action and real motor experiences. I will present a case in which a population stereotype is not compatible with everyday experiences and establish that population stereotypes make a substantial contribution to action-sentence compatibility effects. I will also report a number of unsuccessful attempts to replicate previous studies of action-sentence compatibility and discuss replication attempts made by others. / Graduate

Previous research shows that bodily experiences can unconsciously influence perception, judgment, and behavior. However, inconsistency among recent findings in the embodied cognition literature suggests a need for theoretical boundary conditions. While research appears to assume that embodied effects are necessarily implicit (Schnall, 2017), the extant literature has not directly manipulated the role that conscious awareness of bodily states plays in embodied cognition. Dual process theories of social cognition assert that information processing falls along a continuum, from processing that is relatively automatic, effortless, and experiential, to processing that is relatively deliberate, controlled, and rational. Importantly, information processed along the dimensions of this continuum can lead to different outcomes. Thus, if the body influences social cognition in a more implicit manner, experimentally manipulating conscious awareness of a bodily state may lend further insight into when embodiment is attenuated. Six studies tested this possibility in the case of the demonstrated effect of weight sensations on judgments of an abstract idea’s importance (e.g., Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010; Jostmann, Lakens, Schubert, 2009). Studies 1 and 2 revealed a curvilinear relationship between increased clipboard weight and ratings of importance such that participants rated a topic as more important when holding a moderately heavy, compared to light, clipboard; however, the importance ratings decreased when the clipboard was very heavy. This curvilinear relationship was not caused by a negative evaluation of the topic or the activation of a different metaphor (burden). In Study 3, ratings of importance increased with a moderately heavy clipboard compared to a light clipboard, but this difference was eliminated by explicitly drawing perceiver's attention to the weight of the clipboard. Study 4 extended the model and showed that even a very heavy clipboard can act as an embodiment of importance when participants are prevented from deliberately processing the weight of the clipboard via a cognitive load manipulation. Study 5 provided limited evidence establishing the role of cognitive motivation in embodiment as measured by need for cognition. However, experimentally manipulating cognitive motivation in Study 6 showed that individuals with higher cognitive motivation were more likely to show the embodied effect when the heft of the clipboard was subtle (i.e., holding a moderately heavy clipboard) whereas those with lower cognitive motivation were more likely to show the embodied effect when the heft of the clipboard was blatant (i.e., holding a very heavy clipboard). Collectively, these studies suggest that embodiment is subject to dual-processes whereby if something in the context draws conscious attention to a stimuli that activates an embodied metaphor, perceivers will no longer use their body as a source of information when processing the stimuli.

Inconsistency among findings in the embodied cognition literature suggests a need for theoretical boundary conditions. The current research proposes that conscious attention of a bodily state can moderate its influence on social judgment. Three studies tested this possibility in the case of the demonstrated effect of weight sensations on judgments of an abstract idea's importance. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants rated a topic as more important when holding a moderately heavy, compared with light, clipboard. However, when the clipboard was very heavy, participants rated the survey topic as less important compared with when the clipboard was moderately heavy. The differences in importance ratings were not caused by derogation of the topic or the activation of a different metaphor. In Study 3, the importance rating difference between light and moderately heavy clipboards was eliminated by explicitly drawing perceiver's attention to the clipboard's weight. Implications and future directions are discussed.

This study investigates the role of emotional linguistic input in learning novel words with abstract and concrete denotations. It is widely accepted that concrete concepts are processed more easily than abstract ones. Several theories of vocabulary acquisition additionally propose that learning of concrete concepts puts greater weight on sensorimotor information while abstract concepts put greater weight on emotional information. In this study, proficient adult speakers of English read novel words denoting concrete and abstract concepts (e.g., boat vs religion) embedded in informative passages with different emotional valence (positive, neutral and negative). After five exposures to each novel word in an emotionally consistent context, participants were tested on orthographic and semantic vocabulary learning and provided valence judgments of these novel words. Readers successfully learned orthographic form and meaning of novel words, with a concreteness advantage seen in both tasks measuring semantic learning. Critically, valence of linguistic contexts was more influential for novel words with concrete denotations. In line with previous reports, the transfer of context emotionality to novel words (i.e., semantic prosody) took place in concrete stimuli and not abstract stimuli, even though they were both embedded in emotional contexts. An equal advantage was seen for semantic learning of novel words with both concrete and abstract denotations seen in positive contexts. These findings provide counter-evidence to theories advocating greater reliance of abstract concept learning on emotional information. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / “The girl walked her plurk down the street.” Did you think of a dog? Adults are constantly learning new words by inferring the meaning through context. By making small changes to word and sentence stimuli we can study how semantic properties such as emotion (positive, neutral, or negative) and concreteness (e.g., "lamp" is a physical object that can be touched, making it high in concreteness, while "hope" cannot be touched and is therefore low in concreteness, or abstract) interact. In the current study, we manipulate contexts to vary in emotionality and words to vary in concreteness. Participants read short passages containing new words and were given a surprise test after that measured how well they learned the emotionality, forms, and meanings of the new words. This study presents new insight for theories of how new words are learned and stored in the brain and have implications for language learning materials.

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