Perceptual And Emotional Embodiment

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive overview of the multidisciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. With contributions from internationally acknowledged researchers from a variety of fields, Foundations of Embodied Cognition reveals how intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and environment. Covering early research and emerging trends in embodied cognition, Volume 1 Perceptual and Emotional Embodiment is divided into four distinct parts, bringing together a number of influential perspectives and new ideas. Part one opens the volume with an overview of theoretical perspectives and the neural basis of embodiment, before part two considers body representation and its links with action. Part three examines how actions constrain perception of the environment, and part four explores how emotions can be shaped and structured by the body and its activity. Building on the idea that knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval are intimately interconnected with sensory and motor processes, Foundations of Embodied Cognition is a landmark publication in the field. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students from across the cognitive sciences, including those specialising in psychology, neuroscience, intelligent systems and robotics, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology.

This two-volume set is the first comprehensive overview of the multi-disciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. This landmark publication will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students in the cognitive sciences and allied disciplines.

This edited volume seeks to integrate research and scholarship on the topic of embodiment, with the idea being that thinking and feeling are often grounded in more concrete representations related to perception and action. The book centers on psychological approaches to embodiment and includes chapters speaking to development as well as clinical issues, though a larger number focus on topics related to cognition and neuroscience as well as social and personality psychology. These topical chapters are linked to theory-based chapters centered on interoception, grounded cognition, conceptual metaphor, and the extended mind thesis. Further, a concluding section speaks to critical issues such as replication concerns, alternative interpretations, and future directions. The final result is a carefully conceived product that is a comprehensive and well-integrated volume on the psychology of embodiment. The primary audience for this book is academic psychologists from many different areas of psychology (e.g., social, developmental, cognitive, clinical). The secondary audience consists of disciplines in which ideas related to embodied cognition figure prominently, such as counseling, education, biology, and philosophy.

Gut Reactions is an interdisciplinary defense of the claim that emotions are perceptions in a double sense. First of all, they are perceptions of changes in the body, but, through the body, they also allow us to literally perceive danger, loss, and other matters of concern. This proposal, which Prinz calls the embodied appraisal theory, reconciles the long standing debate between those who say emotions are cognitive and those who say they are noncognitive. The basic idea behind embodied appraisals is captured in the familiar notion of a "gut reaction," which has been overlooked by much emotion research. Prinz also addresses emotional valence, emotional consciousness, and the debate between evolutionary psychologists and social constructionists.

Beginning with the view that human consciousness is essentially embodied and that the way we consciously experience the world is structured by our bodily dynamics and surroundings, the book argues that emotions are a fundamental manifestation of our embodiment, and play a crucial role in self-consciousness, moral evaluation, and social cognition.

This book philosophically explores the topic of emotional depth. The insights of James J. Gibson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the nature of perceived depth are compared and then extended to the dynamics of emotional experience and alterations in self-understanding.

The majority of research on human perception and action examines sensors and effectors in relative isolation. What is less often considered in these research domains is that humans interact with a perceived world in which they themselves are part of the perceptual representation, as are the positions and actions (potential or ongoing) of other acti