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Embodied cognition incorporates that the human cognition is comprised and shaped by various aspects of the body, which eventually indicates that it exceeds from the dependency on brain. In this manner, cognition is observed to be dependent on the experiences that an individual receives from numerous sensorimotor capabilities of the body. These capabilities are considered to be highly integrated in accordance with the psychological, biological and cultural setting of an individual (Wilson & Foglia 2011). Embodied cognition also accounts for the feedback mechanism that takes place between an individual and the world and hence, the prevalence of action in the environment interacts with the body and shapes the cognition (Borghi & Cimatti 763).
Cognition is considered to be effected by the situated action, which eventually indicates the significance of action in the environment, whereas cognition can also be based on the information that has been extracted from the context of the action (Borghi & Cimatti 763). The prevalence of gestures in the environment also plays a prominent role in the environment and is considered to effect the extent of learning in the individuals. It is inferred that gestures help in learning the given tasks and help the individuals to integrate with the given information in an effective manner. It enhances the individual’s ability to retain the previously acquired knowledge and is proposed to play a causal role in the learning mechanism (Cook et al. 1047).
The prior studies conducted in this context indicate that gestures have been a significant aspect of communication across all cultures (Cook et al. 1047). It is inferred that the individuals who use gestures while performing a task tend to learn effectively than the individuals who do not use gestures. It is implied that the prevalence of gesture in communication and learning mechanism enhances the individual’s ability to memorize the tasks and concepts and the scholars have encompassed the effectiveness of using gestures in the instructional design of learning (Cook et al. 1047).
In accordance with the embodied cognition, gestures are considered as the facilitating notion for developing perception, which eventually effects the learning and indicates its interrelation with the memory development. It helps in the development of new knowledge and the extent is observed to be high when individuals engage in improvising the sentences while performing the assigned tasks. The prevalence of gesture is also observed significant when individuals are prone towards reasoning a notion rather than just describing its features. In this way, gestures are considered as an important aspect which helps in the coding of information that is acquired from the environment and facilitates the mechanism of retrieving the acquired information in an effective manner (Cook et al. 1048).
The study conducted in this respect observed the learning extent of children and the children were asked to mimic the tasks in order to solve the math equations. The results of the study indicated that the prevalence of gestures in the instruction facilitated the extent of learning and helped the children to maintain and retain the acquired knowledge. It is inferred that the body of an individual supports the interpretation of the instruction and when individuals engage in incorporating gestures while conducting a task, then they acquire the given knowledge in an effective manner. In this manner, it is suggested that the utilization of body in order to represent the concepts and ideas accommodates the development of knowledge and supports its retention (Cook et al. 1050).
It is inferred that gestures help in the development of knowledge and memory because they provide representation to the knowledge which is used for the interpretation of knowledge. The utilization of gestures and speech simultaneously incorporates decreased demand on the working memory which eventually makes the retrieval of information efficient. It also supports the long-term memory because gestures provide the traces that cannot be provided in the learning that is simulated only by speech. The prevalence of action traces the information helps in the retrieval of information due to the action based encoding of the body. Therefore, when individuals are asked to enact a concept by using the objects from the environment are able to learn the concept effectively than reading the concept twice (Cook et al. 1052).
In this way, the utilization of gestures helps the individuals to interact with the environment by means of pointing gestures and using physical objectives. It helps the individuals to develop the mental representations with the environment and supports the effective retrieval of the information. The learning facilitated by this mechanism ensures the decreased number of errors in the information retrieval (Cook et al. 1053). The prevalence of goal directed behaviors are considered to interact with the consciousness and nonconsciousness of an individual and the notion is observed to be similar among the humans and animals (Koziol et al. 505).
In this instance, it is implied that animals, who have no understanding of human language, are able to acquire, trace and retrieve information on the basis of actions and gestures. It eventually indicates that the prevalence of consciousness is not dependent on learning and hence, learning can be incorporated via the interaction with the environment rather than understanding the language (Koziol et al. 507). It is implied that the human brain has been continuously evolving in order to meet the demand of the interactive behavior from the environment and hence, the perceptions of an individual are not considered as a justified reason for integration with the external environment. In this instance, neural processing is considered as a continuous mechanism to support the interaction with the external environment and its acceptance and interdependency with the brain (Koziol et al. 508).
The cerebral cortex is responsible for the processing of the information, in which the motor region controls the body movements in the external environment, whereas sensory region organizes and analyzes the information acquired from the environment (Reisberg 50). The information acquired from the external environment is analyzed and assessed by the sensory region and hence, the short-term memory is developed. The continuous maintenance and rehearsal of the acquired information helps in the development of the long-term memory. However, the prevalence of recency effect is observed in the retrieval of information from the short-term memory and hence, the recent information is considered to be retrieved more effectively in a short time span (Reisberg 189).
The parietal cortex dorsal is found to be connected with the motor regions of the body and hence, help in developing integration with the environment by understanding the representation of the objects that are either provided by a gesture or an action. The dorsal pathways are accountable for determining the direction and instructions related to the location and interpretation related to the specific object. The inferior and superior regions of the parietal cortex develop interrelation with the premotor areas, whereas the visual information acquired from the eyes is transformed to the dorsal pathway due to which the learning and interpretation is facilitated (Koziol et al. 509).
The information incorporated by the parietal cortex is comprised of spatial information by means of enlightening the use and relatedness of the concept with the given object. The dorsal pathways are found to be connected with the hippocampal region, where the memory is constructed and saved. This interrelation indicates that the information acquired from the sensory neurons and visual representation are interpreted and stored in the memory due to their direct linkage between the parietal cortex and hippocampal region. It also supports the notion of embodied cognition in which the mechanism of learning is observed to be facilitated by the interaction with external environment and encoding of the information (Koziol et al. 509).
The ventral pathways are also responsible for providing the information for action and helps the individual in determining a specific behavior towards the stored knowledge. The reward value that is related to the identification of the learnt concept is incorporated from the prefrontal cortex and hence, the predication and significant of retrieving the information is determined, which eventually facilitates the efficient retrieval of information. The mechanism is also enhanced due to the prevalence of decisions that are observed to be incorporated in the prefrontal cortex. In this manner, the sensorimotor circuits in the brain are observed to be acquiring information from the environment, interpreting and associating the information with the identified value of reward and supported the related actions of memory retrieval (Koziol et al. 510).
The process of cognition considered to be highly dependent on the sensorimotor circuits, whereas the mechanism of learning is observed to be supported by the embodied cognition. However, the prevalence of sensorimotor is observed to be primary in the mechanism of learning, whereas the mechanism of learning is found to be based on the grounded theory of embodied cognition. It is incorporated that the feedback or gestures observed in the environment causes the anticipation and interpretation of the information acquired from the external environment by the cerebellum. The interrelation of anticipation of information and memory development helps in adjusting the behavior of an individual and helps in analyzing the reward value, which eventually helps in the effective retrieval of knowledge based on the decision of retrieval incorporated by the prefrontal context (Koziol et al. 512).
According to Reisberg (208), the retrieval of memory is made efficient when the memory has a connection that supports the retrieval. The prevalence of connection enhances the memory by means of giving meaning to the abstract concepts and tasks, which eventually helps in accessing the memory. The connections are made by indulging in the external environment and giving meaning to the tasks and hence, the utilization of body parts rather than just brain functions support the overall process of memory development. The occurrence of rehearsal ensures that the information is stored in the working memory and hence, the retrieval mechanism is made efficient rather than relying on the long-term memory (Reisberg 208).
Cognition is observed to be incorporated by the external environment due to the interaction of agent with the feedback, gestures and objects, whereas the prevalence of reward value makes the retrieval of information effective in order to support the mechanism of decision making. The dimension of learning can be enhanced using the external environment in order to decrease the cognitive workload by means of acquiring the information that has been interpreted by the gestures observed in the environment. In this manner, the process of cognition is observed to be highly integrated with the internal learning mechanism of the brain and external environment (Koziol et al. 513).
Work Cited
Cook, Susan Wagner, Zachary Mitchell, and Susan Goldin-Meadow. "Gesturing makes learning last." Cognition 106.2 (2008): 1047-1058.
Koziol, Leonard F., Deborah Ely Budding, and Dana Chidekel. "From movement to thought: executive function, embodied cognition, and the cerebellum." The Cerebellum 11.2 (2012): 505-525.
Reisberg, Daniel. Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind. WW Norton & Company, 2015.
Wilson, Robert A., and Lucia Foglia. "Embodied Cognition." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011).
