Embodied Cognition With and Without Mental Representations: The Case of Embodied Choices in Sports
Frontiers in Psychology August 7, 2019 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01825 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
This conceptual analysis examines how embodied cognition can operate with or without mental representations, using judgment and decision-making in sports as a lens. The authors do not advocate for a single theoretical approach but instead present two contrasting perspectives: one that assumes mental representations mediate between athlete and environment, and another that assumes direct contact without representation. They outline definitions and constructs, detail the underlying theories, and comment on two published empirical studies to illustrate each approach. The paper concludes by discussing commonalities, divergences, and the consequences of adopting each perspective in sports research.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Medicine Psychology |
| Citations | 67 |
| Key finding | Embodied cognition in sports can be understood through two contrasting approaches—one involving mental representation and one involving direct contact with the environment—each offering legitimate but divergent explanations for empirical results. |
Abstract
In this conceptual analysis contribution to the special issue on radical embodied cognition, we discuss how embodied cognition can exist with and without representations. We explore this concept through the lens of judgment and decision-making in sports (JDMS). Embodied cognition has featured in many investigations of human behavior, but no single approach has emerged. Indeed, the very definitions of the concepts “embodiment” and “cognition” lack consensus, and consequently the degree of “radicalism” is not universally defined, either. In this paper, we address JDMS not from a rigid theoretical perspective but from two embodied cognition approaches: one that assumes there is mediation between the athlete and the environment through mental representation, and another that assumes direct contact between the athlete and the environment and thus no need for mental representation. Importantly, our aim was not to arrive at a theoretical consensus or set up a competition between approaches but rather to provide a legitimate scientific discussion about how to explain empirical results in JDMS from contrasting perspectives within embodied cognition. For this, we first outline the definitions and constructs of embodied cognition in JDMS. Second, we detail the theory underlying the mental representation and direct contact approaches. Third, we comment on two published research papers on JDMS, one selected by each of us: (1) Correia et al. (2012) and (2) Pizzera (2012). Fourth, following the interpretation of the empirical findings of these papers, we present a discussion on the commonalities and divergences of these two perspectives and the consequences of using one or the other approach in the study of JDMS.