The Embodied Causal Learner
type: CreativeWork
description: Traditionally, cognitive psychology has assumed a disembodied learner and thinker. However, an emerging approach known as embodiment posits that seemingly irrelevant motor or perceptual aspects of a task can affect higher-level cognition. The findings from such embodiment studies have also been shown to extend into real-world settings. For example, children who were taught mathematical concepts while required to make gestures consistent with the problem’s solution were more likely, on average, to apply the mathematical concepts correctly in the future (Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2008). For this specific study, the area of causal learning was examined. The primary goal of this specific study was to investigate whether elements of embodiment, and any mechanisms therein, would be found in the area of causal learning. That is, would motor actions irrelevant to determining causal relationships affect an individual’s causal learning? In a paradigm similar to that of Goedert and Spellman (2005), participants learned about the effects of different liquids on plant blooming on a trial-by-trial basis. Two separate liquids were used with differing causal power values, one a non-causal condition in which there was no relation between the liquid being used and plant blooming and one in which the use of the liquid was associated with a small increase in plant blooming. During the experiment, participants saw a liquid being applied to the plant or not (i.e., cause present vs. absent). In half of the conditions the cause-effect relation proceeded from left to right (cause à effect) with a liquid shown on the left side of the computer screen, pouring onto a plant on the right and during the other half of the conditions the cause-effect relation was reversed (effect ß cause). Participants then made a prediction as to whether the plant would bloom and received feedback as to whether the plant bloomed. At the end of the series of trials, they made a causal judgment regarding how …
abstract: Traditionally, cognitive psychology has assumed a disembodied learner and thinker. However, an emerging approach known as embodiment posits that seemingly irrelevant motor or perceptual aspects of a task can affect higher-level cognition. The findings from such embodiment studies have also been shown to extend into real-world settings. For example, children who were taught mathematical concepts while required to make gestures consistent with the problem’s solution were more likely, on average, to apply the mathematical concepts correctly in the future (Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2008). For this specific study, the area of causal learning was examined. The primary goal of this specific study was to investigate whether elements of embodiment, and any mechanisms therein, would be found in the area of causal learning. That is, would motor actions irrelevant to determining causal relationships affect an individual’s causal learning? In a paradigm similar to that of Goedert and Spellman (2005), participants learned about the effects of different liquids on plant blooming on a trial-by-trial basis. Two separate liquids were used with differing causal power values, one a non-causal condition in which there was no relation between the liquid being used and plant blooming and one in which the use of the liquid was associated with a small increase in plant blooming. During the experiment, participants saw a liquid being applied to the plant or not (i.e., cause present vs. absent). In half of the conditions the cause-effect relation proceeded from left to right (cause à effect) with a liquid shown on the left side of the computer screen, pouring onto a plant on the right and during the other half of the conditions the cause-effect relation was reversed (effect ß cause). Participants then made a prediction as to whether the plant would bloom and received feedback as to whether the plant bloomed. At the end of the series of trials, they made a causal judgment regarding how …
author: Vlajnic, Vanja
keywords: causal learning, embodiment, eye-tracking, causal power, Cognitive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology
date published: 2015-12-10T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:33:15Z
provider: Seton Hall University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Seton Hall University