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Updated: Jun 20, 2026
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Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
The embodied nature of spatial perspective taking: embodied transformation versus sensorimotor interference
Klaus Kessler1, Lindsey Anne Thomson
1Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (CCNi), University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QB, UK. k.kessler@psy.gla.ac.uk
Cognition
|September 29, 2009
Summary
Spatial perspective taking (SPT) involves understanding others' viewpoints. Our research suggests SPT develops from physical alignment and is an embodied cognitive process, using the body schema for transformations.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Embodied Cognition
Background:
- Humans possess the ability to mentally adopt others' spatial perspectives.
- Theories propose spatial perspective taking (SPT) as an embodied cognitive process.
- The developmental origins of SPT, particularly its embodied nature, require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the embodied mechanisms underlying spatial perspective taking (SPT).
- To contrast different theoretical accounts of SPT embodiment.
- To determine if SPT involves body schema transformations.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments were conducted to contrast embodied and non-embodied accounts of SPT.
- Participants' performance was analyzed to identify underlying cognitive and motoric processes.
- Object rotation tasks were used as a control condition.
Main Results:
- Substantial evidence indicates that SPT transformations heavily involve the body schema.
- These body schema involvements were not observed during object rotation.
- Results support an embodied transformation account over sensorimotor interference models.
Conclusions:
- SPT is best conceptualized as the self-initiated emulation of body movement (endogenous motoric embodiment).
- Findings align with embodied cognition theories, suggesting SPT's roots in physical perspective alignment.
- SPT may represent an evolutionary precursor to complex socio-cognitive perspective-taking.
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