The Thinking Hand: Embodiment of Tool Use, Social Cognition, and Metaphorical Thinking and Implications for Learning Design

• In Event: Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Brain, Neurosciences, and Education SIG Roundtable Session

Abstract

Educators have recently shown an interest in embodied cognition and its implications for learning. One prevalent approach is characterized by the idea that adopting embodied cognition in educational design practice happens by introducing a level of physicality to an instructional activity. This trend shows a need to present an extended picture of embodied cognition that goes beyond the simple formalism of action influencing thought. In this paper I present an evolutionary and embodied account for the co-emergence of diverse skills central to our thinking, social learning, language, tool use, and metaphorical thinking, and discuss implications for learning design. The perspective presented here focuses on how embodied simulations, which are sensorimotor and introspective re-enactments of previous states, are central human thought.

Authors

• Firat Soylu, University of Alabama

• Corey Brady, Northwestern University

• Nathan Holbert, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Uri J. Wilensky, Northwestern University