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1Department of Psychology & Delta Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Cognition, Brain, Behavior : an Interdisciplinary Journal
|March 5, 2013
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Embodied Cognition
Background:
- Gestures during speech offer insights into cognitive processes and change.
- Previous research explored gestures in general communication and mathematical discourse.
- Susan Wagner Cook's work posits mathematical knowledge as embodied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To comment on the embodied cognition view of mathematical knowledge.
- To explore embodied cognition's implications for developmental psychology themes, specifically continuity vs. discontinuity.
- To present an embodied account of children's referential intent disambiguation in novel naming.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on gestures and cognitive change.
- Analysis of Susan Wagner Cook's research on gestures in mathematical talk.
- Summary of recent studies on children's embodied understanding of referential intent.
Main Results:
- Gestures provide a window into cognitive development and mathematical understanding.
- An embodied view of mathematical knowledge offers new developmental insights.
- Embodied cognition principles can elucidate mechanisms in understanding referential intent.
Conclusions:
- Mathematical knowledge can be conceptualized as embodied.
- Embodied cognition offers a framework for understanding developmental continuity/discontinuity.
- An embodied perspective illuminates how children learn to disambiguate speaker intent.
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