Niedenthal, P.M., Barsalou,L.W., Winkielman, P., Krauth-Gruber, S., & Ric, F. (2005)
Embodiment in Attitudes, Social Perception and Emotion
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 3, 184-211
Multi modality nature of experience a central part of the theory of embodiment described in this paper
Theoretically pitched against amodal theories of concept formation. For me it is an alternative but no convincing argument that it is THE alternative.
KRO comment experimental evidence that is reviewed ( both cognitive and social) relies heavily on approach ( as a positive inidcator ) and avoidance ( as a negative indicator).
Wide range of example of imitation and mimicry ( note described under social perception and to an extent emotion)
Raises the issue of unconscious processes
Prior/alternative theory - Amodal architectures
Computer metaphor influential
Makes two claims
p186
- ‘ software of the mind is independent of the hardware of the body’ i.e. ‘any sufficiently complex physical system could have human intelligence. In principle the software that constitutes the mind ( including the ‘social mind’) could run on anything – neurons, silicon or even wooden gears – as long as the elements were arranged in proper functional relations.’
- ‘’high level cognition ……. Is performed using abstract, amodal symbols that bear arbitrary relations to the perceptual states that produce them ( Newell & Simon, 1972). Mental operations on these amodal representations are performed by a central processing unit that is informationally encapsulated from the input ( sensory) and output ( motor) subsystems ( Fodor, 1983). The only function of the sensory unit is to deliver detailed representations of the external world to the central unit. The only function of the motor system is to dutifully execute the central executive’s commands.’ ‘For example, on interacting with a particular individual, amodal symbols redescribe the experienced perceptions, actions, and introspections to establish a conceptual representation of the interaction in long-term memory. As a person’s knowledge about such interactions grows, the underlying amodal symbols become organized into structures that represent concepts extracted across experience (e.g., Collins & Quillian, 1969).These abstracted concepts constitute the person’s knowledge’ schemata e.g. social scripts.
Authors note that there is no empirical evidence for such systems but nevertheless they have gained wide acceptance not least because they are a way of accounting for the operation of knowledge across a wide range of examples. Also the ideas have been successfully applied to the implementation of intelligent systems.
The authors position statement regarding embodied cognition
Recent theories of embodied cognition p185 ‘view knowledge acquisition ( KRO - ?simulators) and knowledge use (KRO ?simulation) as processes grounded in the brain’s modality-specific systems.’ (KRO note – on page 188 authors review experimental evidence to support their claim for embodied cognition and use neuropsychology reports of modality specific function to support their claims but do not explain why they support embodied cognition although I agree that they are compatible. However it can also be argued that they are compatible with amodal theories).
‘’Our view of what knowledge is determines how we conceptualise perception, memory, judgement, reasoning and even emotion. It is generally agreed that the processing of any mental content, including social and emotional content, involves internal symbols of some sort- mental representations. ‘ but ‘What are mental representations ? …. How do they derive their meaning?’
Embodiment effects in Cognitive Psychology
Online embodiment ( related term, situated cognition)
P187 ‘refers to the idea that much cognitive activity is intimately tied to relevant modality specific- processes required to interact with the environment effectively. For example, when meeting a new individual (e.g., a tall and imposing person), a perceiver spontaneously produces in vivo sensory and somatic responses (e.g., looking up and feeling apprehensive) as well as motor responses (e.g., stepping back to keep distance). The embodiment account views these sensory, somatic, and motor responses as necessary for the encoding and interpretation of the new individual……. A central tenet of recent theories is that the establishment of this repertoire plays a central role in higher cognition’.
Offline embodiment ( ? symbolic)
‘Just thinking about an object produces embodied states as if the object were actually there. (KRo implies that the object, or person, is already known). …. To establish the meaning of symbols during offline processing people rely on repertoires of modality-specific responses acquired previously during online e processing of these symbols’ referents’.
Embodiment effects in Social Psychology
Three areas reviewed for social psychology namely attitudes, social perception & emotion
Attitudes
Summary p 190 ‘ The studies described in this section on attitudes demonstrate two embodiment effects of interest. First, during online exposure to objects, the production of motor movements associated with positive attitudes leads to the later expression of positive attitudes, and the production of motor movements associated with negative attitudes leads to the later expression of negative attitudes. Second, during offline cognition, processing symbols that stand for absent attitude objects are most efficient when a congruent (KRO another example of the use of congruence/incongruence to test and support theory) motor behaviour is maintained, suggesting that representing conceptual knowledge involves the relevant behaviour’
Social Perception
Imitation and mimicry.
Reviews research that show that perceivers imitate the facial gestures of perceived others.
Importantly, imitation extends beyond facial behavior. Individuals engaged in conversation tend to synchronize their latency and rate of speech, the duration of their utterances, and other speech characteristics (e.g., Capella & Planalp, 1981; Matarazzo & Wiens, 1972; Webb, 1972). Listeners also tend to mimic talkers’ emotional prosody (e.g., Neumann & Strack, 2000), manual gestures (e.g., Bavelas, Black, Chovil, Lemery, & Mullett, 1988; Maxwell, Cook, & Burr, 1985), and even their syntactic constructions (e.g., Bock, 1986). Much research has focused on postural synchrony. For example, in one study Bernieri (1988) had judges code the postures of two individuals filmed while they were actually interacting with each other and the same two individuals who appeared to be interacting with each other but who were actually interacting with different people. Supporting the idea of imita tion, the results revealed greater postural synchrony for two individuals engaged in actual interaction than for two individuals in a contrived interaction (for related results, see Bernieri, Reznick,&Rosenthal, 1988; Bernieri & Rosenthal, 1991).
It is widely believed that synchrony facilitates cooperation and empathy among interaction partners (e.g., Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993; LaFrance, 1985; LaFrance & Ickes, 1981; Neumann & Strack, 2000; Semin, 2000). Consistent with this belief, enhancing mimicry increases smoothness of interaction and liking between partners (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).
Calls on mirror unit data to show that their conclusions about embodied cognition are consistent with neuroscience data.
Emotion
P192
“Emotion imitation appears to be relatively automatic and to even be elicted outside awareness,( Dimberg et al, 2000).
P192 ‘According to embodiment views, bodily responses should facilitate cognitive processing of emotion stimuli. In one demonstration of this effect, Wallbott (1991) had participants categorize the emotional facial expressions displayed in photographs of other people. As participants categorized the photographed expressions, their own faces were surreptitiously videotaped. Results showed that the participants tended to mimic the facial expressions as they categorized them. When they categorized happy faces, for example, they smiled themselves. Furthermore, participants’ accuracy in classifying the facial expressions was positively correlated with the extent of mimicry. The more participants mimicked the faces, the better they were at discerning what expression the face was displaying.’
P193 ( in the context of offline) reviewed experimental evidence to show that ‘participants’ memory performance was maximized when the motor behaviour, the emotional state, and the emotional meaning of the material were all compatible’
Theory/Frameworks for Embodied cognition
Perceptual Symbol Systems (PSS) account ( Barsalou, 1999) note: central assumption that simulation underlies conceptual processing eg stereotypes as a social psychology exemplar of conceptual processing ( KRO not sure how emotion fits in other than as a modality)
Takes a starting point Damasio’s (1989) theory of convergence zones (CZ) which rely for functioning on sensory specific feature detectors.
P194-195
The theory that informs ideas of CZ architecture assumes that systems of feature maps reside in the other sensory–motor modalities and in the limbic system for emotion. All these maps operate in parallel, so that while a face is being represented in visual feature maps, sounds produced by the face are being coded in auditory feature maps, affective responses to the face are being coded in limbic feature maps, bodily responses to it are being coded in motor feature maps, and so forth.
CZ theory further proposes that conjunctive neurons in the brain’s association areas capture and store the patterns of activation in feature maps for later representational purposes in language, memory, and thought. Damasio (1989) referred to these association areas as convergence zones.
CZs capture only conjunctions of lower-level zones (so that CZs can later coordinate their feature level reactivation)—they do not constitute some form of “grand” representation that independently represents all lower levels of the representational hierarchy. Second, during knowledge use (e.g., conceptual processing and recall), the cognizer activates the multiple modality-specific regions that encoded the experience, rather than, as traditionally assumed, only the “final” abstract regions at the end of the processing streams.
Two important claims made by this theory
P195
1. ‘ The modality –specific processing that occurred in reaction to a previously encountered stimulus can be reenacted without the stimulus being present.’ Ie facilitates offline embodiment. ……..’ this reentrant mechanism is now widely viewed as underlying mental imagery in working memory (e.g., Farah, 2000; Grezes & Decéty, 2001; Kosslyn, 1994)….
2. Unlike typical assumptions about imagery it does not require the reenactment process to be conscious.’
To explain how the cognitive system uses this distributed knowledge PSS relies on two central constructs, simulators and simulations.
Simulators – integrate modality specific information across a category’s instances.
P195 ‘ assumes that when different instances of the same category are encountered over time and space, they activate similar neural patterns in feature maps.( Farh & McClelland, 1991). In time CZ respond to these regular patterns so that the repetition establishes a multimodal representation ( simulators) of the category, a concept.
P196 ‘simulators can combine to construct complex representations that are componential, relational and hierarchical’
Simulations
Simulation involves using CZ architectures to trigger feature map information. ( Thus simulation is also a distributed representation, see them as residing in long term memory ) p196
‘According to PSS, the simulation process is highly dynamic and context dependent. It is dynamic in that a given simulator can, in principle, produce an infinite number of simulations. Depending on the current state of the simulator, the current state of associated simulators, the current state of broader cognitive processing, and so forth, a unique simulation results (Barsalou, 1987, 1989, 1993, 2003b). The simulation process is context dependent in that the simulation constructed on a given occasion is tailored to support situated action (Barsalou, 2002, 2003b).
Using simulators and simulations
P197-198it is often argued that modality-specific approaches fail because they cannot represent abstract concepts such as truth. As we have seen, however, PSS establishes simulators, not only for components of the external world, but also for components of introspection, including emotions, motivational states, cognitive operations, and so forth. Barsalou (1999) proposes that abstract concepts are abstract because they focus heavily on introspections and complex situational events. In contrast, concrete concepts are concrete because they focus on physical entities, settings, and simple behaviors in the external world. Because simulators can be established for introspections and events (not just for concrete objects), they can in principle represent the conceptual content of abstract concepts (not just the content of concrete concepts). including emotions, motivational states, cognitive operations, and so forth. Barsalou (1999) proposes that abstract concepts are abstract because they focus heavily on introspections and complex situational events. In contrast, concrete concepts are concrete because they focus on physical entities, settings, and simple behaviors in the external world. Because simulators can be established for introspections and events (not just for concrete objects), they can in principle represent the conceptual content of abstract concepts (not just the content of concrete concepts). To assess this hypothesis, Barsalou and Wiemer- Hastings (in press) used the property listing task to assess the content of abstract concepts (truth, freedom, invention) and of concrete concepts (car, sofa, bird). After participants listed the properties of these concepts, detailed coding schemes were applied to assess the content produced. Most notably, the general types of content for abstract and concrete concepts were highly similar. For all concepts, participants tended to describe situations that included objects, people, settings, behaviors, events, mental states, and relations. For both types of concepts, participants situated their conceptualizations of them, not just representing the focal category content, but also representing extensive background situational content relevant to understanding and using the category. The two types of concepts differed in their focus on this content. Whereas concrete concepts focused on entities, settings, and simple behaviors, abstract concepts focused on introspections, social entities, and complex events. Furthermore, the abstract concepts were more complex, including greater relational structures, organized in greater hierarchical depth. This exploratory study did not assess how participants represented this content. In principle, though, it seems possible that all of this content—for both concrete and abstract concepts—could be simulated. Everything that participants mentioned is something experienced either in the external or internal world.
Situated conceptualization is a central construct in the PSS framework. P198 ‘ A situated conceptualization simulates the focal category entity, along with simulation of likely setting, actions and introspections. Because the simulation includes the conceptualizer’s actions and introspections, the simulation creates the impression of ‘being there’ with the category member. As a result the conceptualizer is well prepared to interact with the entity in the anticipated situation.’……..
‘Later, these embodiments, when experienced, can trigger the situated conceptualization via the inference process of pattern completion. Specifically, the experienced embodiment
activates a larger pattern that contains it, with non perceived aspects of the pattern constituting inferences about the situation. Conversely, if through linguistic conversation, the situated conceptualization becomes active, it can, in turn, produce corresponding embodiments via the same inference process.’ ….
The PSS framework, with its construct of multimodal, situated conceptualization, accounts for the diverse collection of social embodiment effects reported in the literature. Consider priming effects on behavior, as when exposure to words associated with the elderly stereotype produces slower walking (Bargh et al., 1996). On the PSS account, stereotypes are situated
multimodal conceptualizations of social categories. In the case of the elderly stereotype, its content includes embodiments of slow motor movements.
Support for PSS ( Simulation hypothesis)
1. Modality switching costs
P200 ‘when the modality of property description changed from first to second trial participants were slower to verify
2. Instructional equivalence
Compare situations when simulation is emphasized and when it is not emphasized ( KRO relevance to guiding people in how best to interact online) Sets this up as a contrast with what amodal theories would predict. Need to read this section again p200.
3. Perceptual effort
Related views
Zajonc & Markus (1984) chapter entitled affect and cognition. Authors focused primarily on the interaction between emotion & cognition. They argued that bodily movement has representational content.
For example, Zajonc and Markus (1984) proposed that people’s particularly good memory for faces reflects their ability to imitate perceived faces and to create hard muscular representations that complement soft representations
Z& M theory was primarily associative and lacked the dynamic aspects of PSS
Criticisms of embodiment theories
Selective embodiment
P204 ‘Embodiment theories need to solve the problem of how some cognitive activity can proceed without involvement of bodily states and modality-specific simulations. PSS addresses this issue with the distinction between shallow versus deep processing. ( KRO)– however this would not apply to text based CMC) A perceiver simulates primarily when needed. When conceptual tasks can be solved using shallow strategies, such as word association, simulations of conceptual content are not recruited or play only peripheral roles’
Dynamic use of embodiment
P204 ‘ When an external factor compromises validity of a simulation in one modality, people can switch to a simulation in an alternative modality’ ( KRO I’m not convinced by this argument how is a judgement of lack of validity made)
Representational limitations of the body
P204 ‘Embodiment theories must address the problem of the body’s representational capacity. Starting with Cannon (1927, 1929), critics have argued that bodily feedback is too undifferentiated and too slow to serve as the basis of experience. Furthermore, there is the
problem that the same bodily state may be associated with different cognitive and emotional representations (Zajonc & McIntosh, 1992). These issues are actually quite old and have been effectively used by Cannon and many others to argue against the James–Lange theory
of emotion (James, 1896/1994). Several responses to this criticism are possible. Zajonc and Markus (1984) note that the motor system can support extremely subtle distinctions, as the sophistication of sensory-motor processing in spoken language illustrates. Further, even a limited number of bodily states can support a very large number of representational
distinctions. (Consider how many melodies can be played with 88 piano keys—a number much lower than the number of muscles in the body.) More important, recent embodiment approaches, such as PSS, CZ theory, and Somatic Marker Theory (Damasio, 1999), avoid the “body-is-too-crude-too slow- and-too-varied” criticisms by focusing on the brain’s modality-specific systems, instead of on actual muscles and viscera. The circuits in modality-specific brain areas are as fast and refined as any other form of cortical representation and are thus able to flexibly process a large number of modal states at the same time (Damasio, 2003)’
Higher cognitive functions
In particular whether or not the theory is able to represent abstract concepts. Argues that this is achieved through simulations of introspective experience.
Regressing to behaviorist or mere associations
Authors ascertain that this is not the case however they don’t provide a refutation just a statement that it is not the case.
Correlational or causal.
Some criticisms involved a challenge about cognitive embodiment as causal in conceptual processing ( see my own critique of Niedenthal ( 2007). Authors argue that evidence reviewed demonstrate causality but I am not convinced without detailed scrutiny of alternative explanation especially since most of the evidence is based on an experimental paradigm.
Amodal theories make the same prediction.
P205 most of the author’s rebuttal rests on the following ‘ Just because ampodal theories can be configured post hoc to explain any embodiment effect is not impressive. What would be more impressive is if they predicted these effects apriori’
Also see previous description of amodal theories namely that conceptual system is functionally & physically separate from the modality-specific systems and that knowledge abstracts over the dtail of the experience.
