Conflict: A reminder that it's not all in your head—Need to brush up on embodied cognition before the new year begins?

By now, readers of this blog, and also people who follow neuroscience even in a cursory manner, know that we don't just process information with our minds and brains. Our bodies get in the act and know a thing or two our brains do not.

The part played by the body is called "embodied cognition", a topic that must be understood by the conflict professional of the 21st century. Do you need to review the body's role in conflict? If so, here's a gift.

Stanford University has made embodied cognition accessible for all of us. Click to read the entry on its Web site; the article is aptly titled "Embodied Cognition. Excerpt:

Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing.

In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious

mistake. Sometimes the nature of the dependence of cognition on the body is quite unexpected, and suggests new ways of conceptualizing and exploring the mechanics of cognitive processing.

Embodied cognitive science encompasses a loose-knit family of research programs in the cognitive sciences that often share a commitment to critiquing and even replacing traditional approaches to cognition and cognitive processing. Empirical research on embodied cognition has exploded in the past 10 years. As the bibliography for this article attests, the various bodies of work that will be discussed represent a serious alternative to the investigation of cognitive phenomena.

For further review of the topic, here are some past blog posts on embodied cognition:

• Will the topic of neuroscience of conflict resolution soon be outdated?
• Embodied and grounded cognition: A short introduction
• Remember what embodied cognition is? Let Charles Manson refresh your memory
• Embodied cognition: Your body's processing (Be careful about what you and your body hear)
• "Mind over matter? How your body does your thinking": Another article about embodied cognition research
• We think with more than just our minds: Conflict reaches clear down to our toes
• More about embodied cognition: Moving your body helps you solve problems
• Play what you know and then play above that: The role of improvisation in mediation
• Interview with Joshua Ackerman re embodied cognition and the influence of metaphor: Listen to what he says about how environment affects negotiations

Comments

[Paul Endress]

Thank you for the information on embodied cognition, and the additional links that go into even greater detail. As a conflict resolution expert myself, it is refreshing to find new outlooks and new research to study.

[Divorce Attorney Los angeles]

Each person has about the same number of brain cells at birth as in adulthood, but those cells grow, reaching maximum size at about age six.