Prof. Gün R. Semin (Utrecht, The Netherlands)

What is embodiment FOR?
The current revival of embodiment in psychology has emerged as a reaction to cognitivistic approaches that have conceptualized human thought and behavior as language-like, symbolic, or representational manipulations. The focal concern of the new perspective is a systematic investigation of the role of the body in cognition, or the significance of bodily experience (perceptual, affective, and action-related states and processes) for how we think, know and make sense of the world.
While the concern of this emerging vision on the bodily-grounded nature of cognition has acquired prominence, the implicit assumption driving this work has relied on an analytic unit, with a traditional Western focus on the isolated, thinking individual. Such an analytic incision offers itself readily, given the biological finitude of the individual. However, it does not necessarily lend itself as readily for conceptualizing what it means to be a ‘social species’ and the analysis of social cognition in general. Consequently, the proper understanding of embodied cognition requires a framework that drives coupled units and jointly recruited processes, namely communication. In my talk, I shall present a functional framework focusing on the regulatory functions of embodiment in communication and examine the implications of such a perspective for the grounding of concrete and abstract concepts.

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18.08.2009/cb