CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 319Embodied and Extended CognitionCognitive Science and Education ResearchLanguage, Metaphor, and Cognition

Challenges and opportunities for grounding cognition.

Open access
Barsalou, Lawrence W.·2020·Journal of Cognition
DOI 10.5334/joc.116PMC PMC7528688
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

According to the grounded perspective, cognition emerges from the interaction of classic cognitive processes with the modalities, the body, and the environment. Rather than being an autonomous impenetrable module, cognition incorporates these other domains intrinsically into its operation. The Situated Action Cycle offers one way of understanding how the modalities, the body, and the environment become integrated to ground cognition. Seven challenges and opportunities are raised for this perspective: (1) How does cognition emerge from the Situated Action Cycle and in turn support it? (2) How can we move beyond simply equating embodiment with action, additionally establishing how embodiment arises in the autonomic, neuroendocrine, immune, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and integumentary systems? (3) How can we better understand the mechanisms underlying multimodal simulation, its functions across the Situated Action Cycle, and its integration with other representational systems? (4) How can we develop and assess theoretical accounts of symbolic processing from the grounded perspective (perhaps using the construct of simulators)? (5) How can we move beyond the simplistic distinction between concrete and abstract concepts, instead addressing how concepts about the external and internal worlds pattern to support the Situated Action Cycle? (6) How do individual differences emerge from different populations of situational memories as the Situated Action Cycle manifests itself differently across individuals? (7) How can constructs from grounded cognition provide insight into the replication and generalization crises, perhaps from a quantum perspective on mechanisms (as exemplified by simulators).

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.5334/joc.116

Cites

202 of 202 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Meaning by most definitions is assumed to depend on an experiential component conferring valence.

    “Meaning by most definitions is assumed to depend on an experiential component conferring valence (Johnson, 2017; Barsalou, 2020; Shapiro and Spaulding, 2024)”

    From The function(s) of consciousness revisited: insights from a modular/constitutive model using vision as a test case (2026) · cites this paper as Barsalou, 2020

    Section 2, “Integrating the domains of grounded cognition with the Situated Action Cycle” (page unavailable), links meaning for an agent to self-relevance and says self-relevance induces bodily affect and feelings. Section 6, “Grounding abstract concepts” (page unavailable), also describes experiential contributions to concepts. Neither passage says that most definitions of meaning require an experiential component that confers valence. (LLM, conf=0.81)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 23

  1. [2]Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
  2. [5]Aydede, M., & Robbins, P. (2009). The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. [10]Barsalou, L. W. (1987). The instability of graded structure: Implications for the nature of concepts In U. Neisser (Ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (pp. 101– 140). Cambridge University Press.
  4. [16]Barsalou, L. W. (2005). Abstraction as dynamic interpretation in perceptual symbol systems In L. Gershkoff-Stowe & D. H. Rakison (Eds.), Building object categories in developmental time (pp. 389– 431). Majwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  5. [21]Barsalou, L. W. (2016a). Can cognition be reduced to action? Processes that mediate stimuli and responses make human action possible In A. K. Engel, K. J. Friston & D. Kragic (Eds.), Where’s the action? The pragmatic turn in cognitive science (Strüngmann Forum Reports, Vol. 18. J. Lupp, Series Ed.) (pp. 81– 96). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  6. [24]Barsalou, L. W. (2016d). Situated conceptualization: Theory and applications In Y. Coello & M. H. Fischer (Eds.), Foundations of embodied cognition: Volume 1. Perceptual and emotional embodiment (pp. 11– 37). East Sussex: Psychology Press.
  7. [45]Brunswik, E. (1947). Systematic and representative design of psychological experiments; with results in physical and social perception. Oxford, England: U. of California Press.
  8. [72]Dutriaux, L., Clark, N., Papies, E. K., Scheepers, C., & Barsalou, L. W. (2019). Establishing individual differences in good and bad habits that reflect personality, conditioning, and reward. Manuscript under review.
  9. [81]Fodor, J. A. (1975). The language of thought. Harvard University Press.
  10. [89]Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Oxford, England: Houghton Mifflin.
  11. [94]Hammond, K. R., & Stewart, T. R. (2001). The Essential Brunswik: Beginnings, Explications, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  12. [100]Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  13. [118]Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  14. [159]Öhman, A., Hamm, A., & Hugdahl, K. (2000). Cognition and the autonomic nervous system: Orienting, anticipation, and conditioning In Handbook of psychophysiology, 2nd ed (pp. 533– 575). New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.
  15. [165]Paivio, A. (1986). Mental representations: A dual-coding approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  16. [167]Papies, E. K., & Barsalou, L. W. (2015). Grounding desire and motivated behavior: A theoretical framework and review of empirical evidence In W. Hofmann & L. F. Nordgren, The psychology of desire (pp. 36– 60). New York: Guilford Press.
  17. [175]Prokasy, W. (2012). Electrodermal Activity in Psychological Research. Elsevier.
  18. [183]Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1984). Computation and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  19. [196]Six Challenges for Embodiment Research—Markus Ostarek, Falk Huettig, 2019. (n.d.). Retrieved 6 February 2020, from https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/doi/10.1177/0963721419866441 · DOI
  20. [202]Stein, N. L., & Hernandez, M. W. (2007). Assessing understanding and appraisal during emotional experience In J. A. Coan & J. J. B. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment (pp. 298– 317). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  21. [206]Thompson, E. (2010). Mind in Life. Harvard University Press.
  22. [223]Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., & Barsalou, L. W. (2016). A fundamental role for the human conceptual system in emotion In L. F. Barrett, M. Lewis, & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotion (4th Ed.) (pp. 547– 563). New York: Guilford Press.
  23. [225]Winter, Y., & Hampton, J. A. (Eds.). (2017). Compositionality and concepts in linguistics and psychology. London: Springer Publishing.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Barsalou, L. W.
Affiliations
University of Glasgow (GB)
Corresponding author
Barsalou, Lawrence W.
ORCID
Barsalou, Lawrence W.
Venue
Journal of Cognition
Publisher
Ubiquity Press, Ltd.
Published
2020
Volume
3
Issue
1
Pages
31-31
ISSN
2514-4820 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.5334/joc.116
PMC
PMC7528688
OpenAlex
W3089459383
Cited by
319
References
202
Citations by year
2026: 72 · 2025: 71 · 2024: 61 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 3
FWCI
15.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Cognitive Science and Education Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
Keywords
grounded cognition, embodiment, multimodal simulation, symbolic processing, simulators, conceptual representation, individual differences, replication crisis, body-environment interaction

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review