Embodiment
Several researchers at Florida State do research that takes an embodied
perspective on cognition. The embodied approach holds that the body's
systems of perception and action planning play a central role in shaping
the nature of cognitive processing.
One line of research in this area concerns the role of perception and
action planning in language comprehension. This work is aimed at understanding
how sensorimotor representations are used during language processing,
and how these sensorimotor representations give rise to linguistic meaning.
(See our Language section for further details).
Another area of research concerns the role of sensorimotor representations
in the retrieval of autobiographical memories. Starting from the premise
that information about the activity of our bodies (e.g., our posture
and movements) is an important part of the information that is remembered
about events in our daily lives, this research explores the mechanisms
through which the reinstatement of particular bodily states (such as
a given posture) affects one's ability to retrieve memories about events
from one's life.
Faculty:
Michael Kaschak
(Cognitive)
Publications:
Dijkstra, K, Kaschak, M.P., & Zwaan, R.A. (in press). Body posture
facilitates retrieval of autobiographical memories. Cognition.
Dijkstra, K. & Kaschak, M. P. (in press). Encoding in verbal, enacted,
and autobiographical tasks in young and older adults. Quarterly Journal
of Experimental Psychology.
Borreggine, K. L., & Kaschak, M. P. (in press). The Action-sentence
Compatibility Effect: Its all in the timing. Cognitive Science.
Kaschak, M.P., Zwaan, R.A., Aveyard, M., & Yaxley, R.H. (in press).
Perception of Auditory Motion Affects Language Processing. Cognitive
Science.
Zwaan, R.A., & Taylor, L.J. (2006). Seeing, acting, understanding:
motor resonance in language comprehension. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 135, 1-11.
Pecher, D., & Zwaan, R.A., (Eds.). (2005). Grounding cognition:
The role of
perception and action in memory, language, and thinking. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kaschak, M. P., Madden, C. J., Therriault, D. J., Yaxley, R. H., Aveyard,
M. E., Blanchard, A. A., & Zwaan, R. A. (2005). Perception of motion
affects language processing. Cognition, 94, B79-B89.
Zwaan R.A., & Yaxley, R.H. (2004). Lateralization of object-shape
information in semantic processing. Cognition, 94, B35-B43.
Zwaan, R.A., Madden, C.J., Yaxley, R.H., & Aveyard, M.E. (2004).
Moving words: Dynamic mental representations in language comprehension.
Cognitive Science, 28, 611-619
