Derived Embodiment In Abstract Language

How does knowledge of phenomena and events we have no direct experiences of emerge? Having a brain that learns from being in the world, how can we conceive of prehistoric dinosaurs, Atlantis, unicorns or even ‘desire’? This book is about how abstract knowledge becomes anchored in direct experiences through well-formed conversations. Within the framework of evolutionary biology and through the lens of contemporary studies in cognitive science, the neurosciences, sociology and anthropology, this book traces topics such as our inborn sensitivity to the environment, bottom-up and top-down processes in knowledge formation and the importance of language when we learn to categorise the world. A major objective of this monograph is to identify the key determinants of the specific interactivity mechanisms that control the cognitive processes while we are linguistically immersed. The emphasis is on real-life interactions in conversations. While the concrete word-object paradigm depends relatively more on direct experiences, the successful acquisition of abstract knowledge depends on the emphatic skills of the interlocutor. He or she must remain sensitive to the level and quality of the imagination of the child while making mental tableaus that are believed to elicit images to which the child associates the concept. Derived embodiment in abstract thought is a landmark synthesis that operationalizes contemporary neuroscience studies of acquisition of knowledge in the real life conversational context. The result is an exciting biology-based contribution to theories of knowledge acquisition and thinking in sociology, cognitive robotics, anthropology and not at least, pedagogy.

This book analyzes future directions in the study of expertise and experience with the aim of engendering more critical discourse on the general discipline of science and technology studies. In 2002, Collins and Evans published an article entitled “The Third Wave of Science Studies,” suggesting that the future of science and technology studies would be to engage in “Studies in Expertise and Experience.” In their view, scientific expertise in legal and policy settings should reflect a consensus of formally-trained scientists and citizens with experience in the relevant field (but not “ordinary” citizens). The Third Wave has garnered attention in journals and in international workshops, where scholars delivered papers explicating the theoretical foundations and practical applications of the Third Wave. This book arose out of those workshops, and is the next step in the popularization of the Third Wave. The chapters address the novel concept of interactional experts, the use of imitation games, appropriating scientific expertise in law and policy settings, and recent theoretical developments in the Third Wave.

This concise volume addresses the question of whether or not language, and its structure in literary discourses, determines individuals’ mental ‘vision,’ employing an innovative cross-disciplinary approach using readers’ drawings of their mental imagery during reading. The book engages in critical dialogue with the perceived wisdom in stylistics rooted in Roger Fowler’s seminal work on deixis and point of view to test whether or not this theory can fully account for what readers see in their mind's eye and how they see it. The work draws on findings from a study of English and Dutch across a range of literary texts, in which participants read literary text fragments and were then asked to immediately draw representations of what they had seen envisioned. Building on the work of Fowler and more recent theoretical and empirical language-based studies in the area, Klomberg, Schilhab and Burke argue that models from embodied cognitive science can help account for anomalies in evidence from readers’ drawings, indicating new ways forward for interdisciplinary understandings of individual meaning construction in literary textual interfaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in stylistics, cognitive psychology, rhetoric, and philosophy, particularly those working in embodied cognition.

We read e-books and printed books. But are there differences in how and where we read? And what opportunities does a digital reading environment bring for writers and designers? The materiality of reading explores the experience of reading by examining the interaction between the reader and the object of reading. Bringing together an array of disciplinary perspectives such as neurobiology, embodied reading and typography, we aim to understand how the materiality of the text enhances reader engagement with digital and physical books. The papers of this anthology are the result of academic discussions and empirical explorations at universities in Zadar, Vilnius, Reading and Stavanger as the authors are all members of the European research initiative, ‘Evolution of Reading in the Age of Digitisation’ (E-READ).

How are abstract concepts and words represented in the brain? That is the central question addressed by the authors of “Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View on Abstract Concepts”. First, they focus on the difficulties in defining what abstract concepts and words are, and what they mean in psycholinguistic research. Then the authors go on to describe and critically discuss the main theories on this topic with a special emphasis on the different embodied and grounded theories proposed in cognitive psychology within the last ten years, highlighting the advantages and limitations of each of these theories. The core of this Brief consists of the presentation of a new theory developed by the authors, the WAT (Words As social Tools) view, according to which both sensorimotor (such as perception, action, emotional experiences) and linguistic experiences are at the basis of abstract concepts and of abstract word representation, processing and use. This theory assigns a major role to acquisition: one of the assumptions the authors make is that the different ways in which concrete and abstract words are acquired constrain their brain representation and their use. This view will be compared with the main existing theories on abstractness, from the theory of conceptual metaphors to the theories on multiple representation. Finally, the volume illustrates recent evidence from different areas (developmental, behavioral, cross-cultural, neuropsychological and neural) which converge with and support the authors' theory, leading to the conclusion that in order to account for representation and processing of abstract concepts and words, an extension of embodied and grounded theories is necessary.

While Embodied Cognition has now been accepted as mainstream in Cognitive Science, the study of its potential contribution to understding child developemnt and ageing, as well as its potential applications, is still in its infancy. This collection of articles explores the contribution of Embodied Cognition to studying the lifespan and potential applied fields. The contributions are theoretical and empirical and offer an important framework for future research and its applications.

This book addresses the gap in the literature concerned with global case studies of successful Digital, Mobile and Open Education. The book shares experiences from international teaching and learning projects at all levels of Education, and provides advice for future policy and investment in digital teaching and learning and Open Education projects. It also provides an expectation on the future capacity and sustainability of Open Education.

Volume II of the handbook offers a unique collection of exemplary case studies. In five chapters and 99 articles it presents the state of the art on how body movements are used for communication around the world. Topics include the functions of body movements, their contexts of occurrence, their forms and meanings, their integration with speech, and how bodily motion can function as language. By including an interdisciplinary chapter on ‘embodiment’, volume II explores the body and its role in the grounding of language and communication from one of the most widely discussed current theoretical perspectives. Volume II of the handbook thus entails the following chapters: VI. Gestures across cultures, VII. Body movements: functions, contexts and interactions, VIII. Gesture and language, IX. Embodiment: the body and its role for cognition, emotion, and communication, X. Sign Language: Visible body movements as language. Authors include: Mats Andrèn, Richard Asheley, Benjamin Bergen, Ulrike Bohle, Dominique Boutet, Heather Brookes, Penelope Brown, Kensy Cooperrider, Onno Crasborn, Seana Coulson, James Essegby, Maria Graziano, Marianne Gullberg, Simon Harrison, Hermann Kappelhoff, Mardi Kidwell, Irene Kimbara, Stefan Kopp, Grigoriy Kreidlin, Dan Loehr, Irene Mittelberg, Aliyah Morgenstern, Rafael Nuñez, Isabella Poggi, David Quinto-Pozos, Monica Rector, Pio Enrico Ricci-Bitti, Göran Sonesson, Timo Sowa, Gale Stam, Eve Sweetser, Mark Tutton, Ipke Wachsmuth, Linda Waugh, Sherman Wilcox.