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Language, embodiment, and the cognitive niche.

Andy Clark1

  • 1School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, David Hume Tower, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JX, UK. andy.clark@ed.ac.uk

Trends in Cognitive Sciences
|July 18, 2006
PubMed
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Language acts as a cognition-enhancing, animal-built structure. Materializing thought in words creates external scaffolding, improving perception, manipulation, and reasoning for embodied agents.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Embodied Cognition

Background:

  • Embodied agents leverage physical actions and environmental interactions to enhance cognition.
  • The role of language within this framework of embodied, ecologically efficient agents is not well-defined.
  • Existing research often overlooks the structural and material aspects of language.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore language as a cognition-enhancing, animal-built structure.
  • To conceptualize language as a self-constructed cognitive niche.
  • To investigate the benefits derived from the materiality of linguistic scaffolding.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis of language as an external cognitive tool.
  • Theoretical integration of embodied cognition principles with linguistic structures.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Examination of how materializing thought in words facilitates cognitive processes.

    • Main Results:

    • Language is proposed as a material scaffolding that enhances thinking and reasoning.
    • Materializing thought in words creates external structures amenable to perception and manipulation.
    • This linguistic scaffolding functions as a self-constructed cognitive niche, supporting advanced cognition.

    Conclusions:

    • Language is a crucial, yet underappreciated, component of embodied cognition.
    • The material nature of language provides unique cognitive benefits by externalizing thought.
    • Viewing language as a constructed niche offers a new perspective on its role in human reason.