« Prev Next »
For my friend Khalil - community manager of community managers, consistent blogger, legend.
Here's a hypothesis. Take a random sample of hobby bloggers. Split them in two groups. Ask one group to reflect on their blog post frequency and, in particular, their kindly community manager whom they have been strategically avoiding due to a self-induced guilt complex. Then ask both groups to estimate the weight of the keyboard in their hands. Result: the weight estimates of those who reflected on their blog post frequency will be significantly heavier than those who didn't reflect on their blogs. Science!
Cognitive embodiment is a clever little phenomenon, being in my top 5 list of "Cognitive Phenomena I Should Have Intuited Before I Studied Them But Didn't". It is a complex and fascinating research area with a vast literature whose nuances go beyond a single post. But the main implication, in sum, is that cognition is a situated activity. That is to say, our bodies (and surroundings) influence our cognition, just as the mind influences bodily function.
A classic example is a study done by Yale psychologist John Bargh, where participants holding warm as opposed to cold cups of coffee were more likely to judge a someone as trustworthy. A more recent British study found that volunteers who washed their hands rated a moral dilemma as being less severe than did volunteers who didn't wash their hands.
And then there's always this woefully simplified list of other example associations:
- Guilt = physical ‘heaviness', uncleanliness
- Future thinking = forward movement
- Happiness = high, ‘up'
- Sadness = ‘down'
Etc, etc.
Serendipitously for this theme, I went to a conference in Istanbul last summer. I ate Turkish delight, I talked shop with psychologists ("mirror neurons are so 2008"), I failed to properly pronounce a single word in Turkish (thus adopting the communication strategies of human babies / non-human primates - surprisingly effective), I was sweaty, real sweaty, and I ate lots of Turkish delight. And, lo and behold, while there I saw a nice poster that investigated cognitive embodiment and morality. (Heavy!) I managed to find a video abstract online and I think it provides a nice example of the phenomenon.
And with that, I now attempt to return to more frequent, regular blogging. I feel lighter already.
++
ML Anderson, "Embodied Cognition: A Field Guide" Artificial Intelligence, 2003.
G Lakoff, M Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago, 1980.
Embodied Cognition, IEP.
Apropos: There was a recent controversy about a classic cognitive emobdiment study, mostly resulting in messy virtual name calling and tweet wars. You can read a storify about the tweets, or a good summary and analysis by Sanjay Srivastava.
