Spontaneous gestures that accompany speech are related to both verbal and spatial processes. We argue that gestures emerge from perceptual and motor simulations that underlie embodied language and mental imagery. We first review current thinking about embodied cognition, embodied language, and embodied mental imagery. We then provide evidence that gestures stem from spatial representations and ...

We explore implications of new results from control theory – the Data Rate Theorem – for theories of embodied cognition. A conceptual extension of the theorem can be applied to models of cognitive interaction with a complex dynamic environment, providing a spectrum of necessary conditions dynamic statistical models that should be useful in empirical studies. Using a large deviations argument, p...

Social cognition is the scientific study of the cognitive events underlying social thought and attitudes. Currently, the field's prevailing theoretical perspectives are the traditional schema view and embodied cognition theories. Despite important differences, these perspectives share the seemingly uncontroversial notion that people interpret and evaluate a given social stimulus using knowledge...

To accept that cognition is embodied is to question many of the beliefs traditionally held by cognitive scientists. One key question regards the localization of cognitive faculties. Here we argue that for cognition to be embodied and sometimes embedded, means that the cognitive faculty cannot be localized in a brain area alone. We review recent research on neural reuse, the 1/f structure of hum...

Barsalou’s (1999, 2003) perceptual symbol systems hypothesis describes how semantic knowledge is grounded in sensorimotor experience. According to the theory, knowledge is acquired through sensorimotor simulations. This challenges the classical view supported by the disembodied cognition hypothesis, which generally favours an abstract and symbolic system. We propose a unified perspective, in wh...

To accept that cognition is embodied is to question many of the beliefs traditionally held by cognitive scientists. One key question regards the localization of cognitive faculties. Here we argue that for cognition to be embodied and sometimes embedded, means that the cognitive faculty cannot be localized in a brain area alone. We review recent research on neural reuse, the 1 ⁄ f structure of h...

The role of the body in the generation of behavior is a topic that has sparked the attention of many fields from philosophy to science and more recently robotics. We address the question of how an embodied agent should be modeled in order to change the traditional dualist approach of creating embodied agents. By looking at behavior generation as a shared process between mind and body, we are ab...

The traditional efforts to mimic basic human behavior in embodied agents use an approach that draws a clear line between the “mind” and the “body” of those agents. However, recent findings in neuroscience show that our bodies have an active role in what we call “intelligence”. We studied several processes related with our body and propose a model to integrate them in generic embodied agents. Th...

Conceptual distinctions between perception, action, and cognition are convoluted in real world proceedings, as we meander through life, tied to past thoughts and actions, oriented toward future goals, guided by current perceptions. The research topic " Perception, Action, and Cognition " aimed to go beyond the already established perception-action links to study the role of cognitive mechanisms...