Glenberg, A.
Arizona State University, USA
Initial data from two projects suggest that understanding psychological processes in terms of embodiment can be significantly extended. One project investigates the embodied basis of statistical learning, which is the ability to learn from observation alone complex statistical regularities in the transitions between stimuli. According to the Neuromuscular Tuning theory a) people imitate stimuli by using neural mechanisms to drive muscular changes, b) imitating sequences of stimuli induces plastic changes in the brain so that transitions between successive neural and muscular states are produced efficiently, and c) people discriminate between high and low conditional probability transitions on the basis of the efficiency of imitating the stimuli: The brain has been tuned to transition smoothly between the practiced high conditional probability stimuli. More speculatively, this efficiency may be related to the brain’s consumption of glucose: When glucose is low, the brain values efficiency and hence easily discriminates between tuned and untuned sequences; when glucose is abundant, the brain doesn’t care as much about efficiency, and the ability to discriminate between the sequences deteriorates. Thus embodied cognition goes deep enough to reflect low-level bodily processes related to energy regulation. The second project brings an embodied analysis to cultural differences. Some cultures encourage the development of interdependent selves, so that people see themselves as strongly connected, even overlapping, with members of their in-group. Other cultures encourage development of independent selves. Our research demonstrates that interdependent personalities literally see themselves as closer to in-group members than out-group members. Furthermore, this difference in perception seems to reflect expected ease, or efficiency, of interaction. In fact, when we experimentally manipulate ease of interaction, pairs who have interacted easily see themselves as literally closer to each other than pairs who have had more cognitively demanding interaction. Thus, embodied cognition extends into social and cultural interactions.