A lifespan perspective on embodied cognition

PERSPECTIVE published: 01 June 2016 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00845 A Lifespan Perspective on Embodied Cognition Jonna Loeffler 1*, Markus Raab 1,2 and Rouwen Cañal-Bruland 3 1 Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany, School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, London, UK, 3 Department of Human Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2 Edited by: Emma Redding, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, UK Reviewed by: Matthew Rodger, Queen’s University Belfast, UK Vladimir Mirodan, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK *Correspondence: Jonna Loeffler Specialty section: This article was submitted to Performance Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 25 February 2016 Accepted: 20 May 2016 Published: 01 June 2016 Citation: Loeffler J, Raab M and Cañal-Bruland R (2016) A Lifespan Perspective on Embodied Cognition. Front. Psychol. 7:845. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00845 Since its infancy embodied cognition research has fundamentally changed our understanding of how action, perception, and cognition relate to and interact with each other. Ideas from different schools of thought have led to controversial theories and a unifying framework is still being debated. In this perspective paper, we argue that in order to improve our understanding of embodied cognition and to take significant steps toward a comprehensive framework, a lifespan approach is mandatory. Given that most established theories have been developed and tested in the adult population, which is characterized by relatively robust and stable sensorimotor and cognitive abilities, we deem it questionable whether embodied cognition effects found in this population are representative for different life stages such as childhood or the elderly. In contrast to adulthood, childhood is accompanied by a rapid increase of sensorimotor and cognitive skills, and the old age by a decline of such capacities. Hence, sensorimotor and cognitive capacities, as well as their interactions, are more fragile at both extremes of the lifespan, thereby offering a unique window into the emergence of embodied cognition effects and age-related differences therein. A lifespan approach promises to make a major contribution toward a unifying and comprehensive theory of embodied cognition that is valid across the lifespan and ‘gets better with age.’ Keywords: embodiment, lifespan, developmental, elderly, sensorimotor, cognition INTRODUCTION For a long time, cognition was considered to reflect an internal process, with information being received, organized, and retrieved by the mind (Fodor, 1975). For instance, problem-solving was thought to be entirely explained as a mental process of activating and combining prior knowledge (Newell and Simon, 1972). This approach, known as cognitivism, was dominant in the study of cognition until the early 1990s when embodied cognition research departed from traditional views and put forth the idea that sensorimotor processes have an undeniable influence on cognition (Varela et al., 1992). In contrast to cognitivism, embodied cognition views argue that sensorimotor processes are at the core of human cognitive functioning. Sensorimotor processes, in a general sense, refer to and include any processes that give rise to action such as, for example, sensorimotor coordination and sensorimotor contingencies (Engel et al., 2013). To remain with the example of problem-solving: recently, Werner and Raab (2014) showed that sensorimotor activities, in form of whole-body movements, directly impact problem-solving strategies, thereby providing further evidence for a tight link between sensorimotor and cognitive processes. On the one hand, embodied cognition Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 June 2016 | Volume 7 | Article 845 Loeffler et al. Lifespan Perspective on Embodied Cognition age groups. In addition, the accumulated evidence on embodied cognition effects that included age as a factor reports rather mixed findings and is, therefore, inconclusive (e.g., Dijkstra et al., 2007; Frick et al., 2009). To allow for a comparison between embodied cognition studies across the lifespan, a promising route to structure the available literature is to specify the processes underlying embodied cognition effects. We suggest that these processes can be categorized as driven by either new or reactivated associations (for similar classifications, see Craik and Bialystok, 2006; Shing and Lindenberger, 2011). In the paper at hand, we refer to associations as connections between conceptual entities or sensorimotor/cognitive states that derive from a similarity between those states or their proximity in space or time (Mifflin, 2001). At the same time, this definition implies concomitant processes on the neurological level like synaptic associations or firing of populations of neurons. In a nutshell, a sensorimotor change (e.g., a movement) can create new multimodal associations the moment it is executed. On the other hand, a sensorimotor change can reactivate previous associations. This type of embodied cognition effect is driven by previously generated associations and is, therefore, experience-based and memory-driven in nature. The rationale behind this categorization is that the likelihood for interference between new and reactivated associations is reduced to a minimum at the beginning of life, whereas in the later stages of life the impact of reactivated associations may reach their maximum. To reiterate, a lifespan approach promises to make a major contribution to theory formation in the field of embodied cognition. To sketch out the importance of a lifespan approach and to offer promising avenues for future research we critically discuss evidence for embodied cognition effects and their underlying mechanisms with respect to new versus reactivated associations, in three steps. First, we focus on embodied cognition effects in infants; second, we discuss embodied cognition effects in the elderly; and third, we examine the very few studies that have actually compared embodied cognition effects between age groups. research successfully enriched empirical work on numerous cognitive functions such as language (Casasanto, 2011), memory (Versace et al., 2014), and attention (Bradley, 2007); on the other hand, there are several theoretical accounts that are currently debated but that have not led to a comprehensive theoretical framework yet. A recent proposal for such a comprising framework was submitted by Gentsch et al. (2016, p. 88): they propose a meta-theoretical framework referred to as “grounded action cognition” that aims to accommodate three main families of embodied cognition accounts: common coding, internal models, and simulation theories. Additionally, more radical accounts on embodied cognition (e.g., O’Regan and Noë, 2001; Chemero, 2011) suggest that perce (...truncated)