Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence.

This theme issue brings together researchers from diverse fields to assess the current status and future prospects of embodied cognition in the age of generative artificial intelligence. In this introduction, we first clarify our view of embodiment as a potentially unifying concept in the study of cognition, characterizing this as a perspective that questions mind-body dualism and recognizes a profound continuity between sensorimotor action in the world and more abstract forms of cognition. We then consider how this unifying concept is developed and elaborated by the other contributions to this issue, identifying the following two key themes: (i) the role of language in cognition and its entanglement with the body and (ii) bodily mechanisms of interpersonal perception and alignment across the domains of social affiliation, teaching and learning. On balance, we consider that embodied approaches to the study of cognition, culture and evolution remain promising, but will require greater integration across disciplines to fully realize their potential. We conclude by suggesting that researchers will need to be ready and able to meet the various methodological, theoretical and practical challenges this will entail and remain open to encountering markedly different viewpoints about how and why embodiment matters. This article is the part of this theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

Narrative abilities in individuals with Down syndrome: single case-profiles.

Introduction: Narrative abilities are an important part of our everyday lives and social interaction with others. Nevertheless, narration is a complex ability influenced by language and cognition. This makes it difficult for individuals with language and cognitive impairment, such as in children and adolescents with Down syndrome. Previous studies have shown distinct narrative impairments in individuals with Down syndrome; nevertheless, this research was based on overall group means in most cases. To identify individual strengths and weaknesses and to draw conclusions for speech and language therapy, the narrative profile of every participant should be considered equally. Following this approach, the current study aims to describe single case narrative profiles in individuals with Down syndrome. Methods: The narrative transcripts of 28 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (aged 10;0-20;1), based on a non-verbal picture book, were rated using the Narrative Scoring Scheme across seven macro- and microstructural categories. Point scores across the whole group are displayed - nevertheless, the paper specifically addresses the individual narrative profiles of the participants. The participants could be assigned to narrative profile groups which show different characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. Group comparisons and correlations were computed for the relation to language abilities (especially vocabulary) and nonverbal cognitive abilities. Results: The results of the two profile groups with minimal and developing narrative skills differ significantly not only concerning narrative outcomes in the Narrative Scoring Scheme but also for language abilities and developmental stage of nonverbal cognition. Individuals that show floor effects in narrative abilities are characterized by an overall weakness in language and cognition. In contrast, a group of approximately equal size shows distinct strengths in their narrative profiles which are in line with their vocabulary strengths, MLU and nonverbal cognition. Discussion: The current study uses a new approach to identify individual narrative profiles in a group of individuals with Down syndrome. The results of the investigation underline the existence of narrative impairments in many individuals with Down syndrome but also point to individual strengths of the participants. Furthermore, the study outcomes suggest that narrative abilities might be representative for overall language and cognition in individuals with Down syndrome. However, intervention studies addressing narration are missing.

Solving the elusiveness of word meanings: two arguments for a continuous meaning space for language.

I explore the hypothesis that the experience of meaning discreteness when we think about the "meaning" of a word is a "communicative" illusion. The illusion is created by processing-contextual constraints that impose disambiguation on the semantic input making salient a specific interpretation within a conceptual space that is otherwise continuous. It is this salience that we experience as discreteness. The understanding of word meaning as non-discrete raises the question of what is context; what are the mechanisms of constraint that it imposes and what is the nature of the conceptual space with which pronunciations (i.e., visual/oral signs) associate themselves. I address these questions by leveraging an algebraic continuous system for word meaning that is itself constrained by two fundamental parameters: control-asymmetry and connectedness. I evaluate this model by meeting two challenges to word meaning discreteness (1) cases where the same pronunciation is associated with multiple senses that are nonetheless interdependent, e.g., English "smoke," and (2) cases where the same pronunciation is associated with a family of meanings, minimally distinct from each other organized as a "cline," e.g., English "have." These cases are not marginal-they are ubiquitous in languages across the world. Any model that captures them is accounting for the meaning system for language. At the heart of the argumentation is the demonstration of how the parameterized space naturally organizes these kinds of cases without appeal for further categorization or segmentation of any kind. From this, I conclude that discreteness in word meaning is epiphenomenal: it is the experience of salience produced by contextual constraints. And that this is possible because, by and large, every time that we become consciously aware of the conceptual structure associated with a pronunciation, i.e., its meaning, we do so under real-time processing conditions which are biased toward producing a specific interpretation in reference to a specific situation in the world. Supporting it is a parameterized space that gives rise to lexico-conceptual representations: generalized algebraic structures necessary for the identification, processing, and encoding of an individual's understanding of the world.

Late sign language exposure does not modulate the relation between spatial language and spatial memory in deaf children and adults.

Prior work with hearing children acquiring a spoken language as their first language shows that spatial language and cognition are related systems and spatial language use predicts spatial memory. Here, we further investigate the extent of this relationship in signing deaf children and adults and ask if late sign language exposure, as well as the frequency and the type of spatial language use that might be affected by late exposure, modulate subsequent memory for spatial relations. To do so, we compared spatial language and memory of 8-year-old late-signing children (after 2 years of exposure to a sign language at the school for the deaf) and late-signing adults to their native-signing counterparts. We elicited picture descriptions of Left-Right relations in Turkish Sign Language (Türk Isaret Dili) and measured the subsequent recognition memory accuracy of the described pictures. Results showed that late-signing adults and children were similar to their native-signing counterparts in how often they encoded the spatial relation. However, late-signing adults but not children differed from their native-signing counterparts in the type of spatial language they used. However, neither late sign language exposure nor the frequency and type of spatial language use modulated spatial memory accuracy. Therefore, even though late language exposure seems to influence the type of spatial language use, this does not predict subsequent memory for spatial relations. We discuss the implications of these findings based on the theories concerning the correspondence between spatial language and cognition as related or rather independent systems.

A cross-cultural study of language and cognition: Numeral classifiers and solid object categorization.

One of the central issues in cognition is identifying universal and culturally specific patterns of thought. In this study, we examined how one aspect of culture, a linguistic part of speech known asclassifiers, are related to categorization of solid objects. In Experiment 1, we used a numeral classifier elicitation task to examine the classifiers used by speakers of Hmong, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese (N = 34) with 135 nouns that referred to solid objects. In Experiment 2, adult speakers of English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Hmong (N = 64) rated the similarity of 39 pictured objects that depicted a subset of the nouns. All groups classified the objects into natural kinds and artifacts, with the category of humans anchoring both divisions. The main difference that emerged from the study was that speakers of Japanese and English rated humans and animals as more similar to each other than Hmong speakers; Mandarin speakers' ratings of the similarity between humans and animals fell in between those of Hmong and English speakers. However, the pattern of categorization of humans and animals found among speakers of the classifier languages contradicted their patterns of classifier use. The findings help to tease apart the effects of language from other cultural factors that impact cognition.

Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science.

English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior: the individuals studied by cognitive scientists, as well as most of the scientists themselves, are frequently English speakers. However, English differs from other languages in ways that have consequences for the whole of the cognitive sciences, reaching far beyond the study of language itself. Here, we review an emerging body of evidence that highlights how the particular characteristics of English and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias the field by both warping research programs (e.g., overemphasizing features and mechanisms present in English over others) and overgeneralizing observations from English speakers' behaviors, brains, and cognition to our entire species. We propose mitigating strategies that could help avoid some of these pitfalls.

Exploring Patterns of Stability and Change in Caregivers' Word Usage Across Early Childhood.

The linguistic input children receive across early childhood plays a crucial role in shaping their knowledge about the world. To study this input, researchers have begun applying distributional semantic models to large corpora of child-directed speech, extracting various patterns of word use/co-occurrence. Previous work using these models has not measured how these patterns may change throughout development, however. In this work, we leverage natural language processing methods-originally developed to study historical language change-to compare caregivers' use of words when talking to younger versus older children. Some words' usage changed more than others; this variability could be predicted based on the word's properties at both the individual and category levels. These findings suggest that caregivers' changing patterns of word use may play a role in scaffolding children's acquisition of conceptual structure in early development.

Is There a Causal Link between the Left Lateralization of Language and Other Brain Asymmetries? A Review of Data Gathered in Patients with Focal Brain Lesions.

This review evaluated if the hypothesis of a causal link between the left lateralization of language and other brain asymmetries could be supported by a careful review of data gathered in patients with unilateral brain lesions. In a short introduction a distinction was made between brain activities that could: (a) benefit from the shaping influences of language (such as the capacity to solve non-verbal cognitive tasks and the increased levels of consciousness and of intentionality); (b) be incompatible with the properties and the shaping activities of language (e.g., the relations between language and the automatic orienting of visual-spatial attention or between cognition and emotion) and (c) be more represented on the right hemisphere due to competition for cortical space. The correspondence between predictions based on the theoretical impact of language on other brain functions and data obtained in patients with lesions of the right and left hemisphere was then assessed. The reviewed data suggest that different kinds of hemispheric asymmetries observed in patients with unilateral brain lesions could be subsumed by common mechanisms, more or less directly linked to the left lateralization of language.

Whereof one cannot speak: How language and capture of visual attention interact.

Our research addresses the important question whether language influences cognition by studying crosslinguistic differences in nonlinguistic visual search tasks. We investigated whether capture of visual attention is mediated by characteristics corresponding to concepts that are differently expressed across different languages. Korean grammatically distinguishes between tight- (kkita) and loose-fit (nehta) containment whereas German collapses them into a single semantic category (in). Although linguistic processing was neither instructed nor necessary to perform the visual search task, we found that Korean speakers showed attention capture by non-instructed but target-coincident (Experiment 1) or distractor-coincident (Experiments 4 and 5) spatial fitness of the stimuli, whereas German speakers were not sensitive to it. As the tight- versus loose-fit distinction is grammaticalized only in the Korean but not the German language, our results demonstrate that language influences which visual features capture attention even in non-linguistic tasks that do not require paying attention to these features. In separate control experiments (Experiments 2 and 3), we ruled out cultural or general cognitive group differences between Korean and German speaking participants as alternative explanations. We outline the mechanisms underlying these crosslinguistic differences in nonlinguistic visual search behaviors. This is the first study showing that linguistic spatial relational concepts held in long-term memory can affect attention capture in visual search tasks.

Blind Speakers Show Language-Specific Patterns in Co-Speech Gesture but Not Silent Gesture.

Sighted speakers of different languages vary systematically in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech. These differences influence how semantic elements are organized in gesture, but only when those gestures are produced with speech (co-speech gesture), not without speech (silent gesture). We ask whether the cross-linguistic similarity in silent gesture is driven by the visuospatial structure of the event. We compared 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English or Turkish (20/language) to 80 sighted adult speakers (40/language; half with, half without blindfolds) as they described three-dimensional motion scenes. We found an effect of language on co-speech gesture, not on silent gesture-blind speakers of both languages organized their silent gestures as sighted speakers do. Humans may have a natural semantic organization that they impose on events when conveying them in gesture without language-an organization that relies on neither visuospatial cues nor language structure.

Does Environmental Experience Shape Spatial Cognition? Frames of Reference Among Ancash Quechua Speakers (Peru).

Previous studies have shown that language contributes to humans' ability to orient using landmarks and shapes their use of frames of reference (FoRs) for memory. However, the role of environmental experience in shaping spatial cognition has not been investigated. This study addresses such a possibility by examining the use of FoRs in a nonverbal spatial memory task among residents of an Andean community in Peru. Participants consisted of 97 individuals from Ancash Quechua-speaking households (8-77 years of age) who spoke Quechua and/or Spanish and varied considerably with respect to the extent of their experience in the surrounding landscape. The results demonstrated that environmental experience was the only factor significantly related to the preference for allocentric FoRs. The study thus shows that environmental experience can play a role alongside language in shaping habits of spatial representation, and it suggests a new direction of inquiry into the relationships among language, thought, and experience.

Labels constructively shape object categories in 10-month-old infants.

How do infants' emerging language abilities affect their organization of objects into categories? The question of whether labels can shape the early perceptual categories formed by young infants has received considerable attention, but evidence has remained inconclusive. Here, 10-month-old infants (N=80) were familiarized with a series of morphed stimuli along a continuum that can be seen as either one category or two categories. Infants formed one category when the stimuli were presented in silence or paired with the same label, but they divided the stimulus set into two categories when half of the stimuli were paired with one label and half with another label. Pairing the stimuli with two different nonlinguistic sounds did not lead to the same result. In this case, infants showed evidence for the formation of a single category, indicating that nonlinguistic sounds do not cause infants to divide a category. These results suggest that labels and visual perceptual information interact in category formation, with labels having the potential to constructively shape category structures already in preverbal infants, and that nonlinguistic sounds do not have the same effect.

Does language shape silent gesture?

Languages differ in how they organize events, particularly in the types of semantic elements they express and the arrangement of those elements within a sentence. Here we ask whether these cross-linguistic differences have an impact on how events are represented nonverbally; more specifically, on how events are represented in gestures produced without speech (silent gesture), compared to gestures produced with speech (co-speech gesture). We observed speech and gesture in 40 adult native speakers of English and Turkish (N=20/per language) asked to describe physical motion events (e.g., running down a path)-a domain known to elicit distinct patterns of speech and co-speech gesture in English- and Turkish-speakers. Replicating previous work (Kita & Özyürek, 2003), we found an effect of language on gesture when it was produced with speech-co-speech gestures produced by English-speakers differed from co-speech gestures produced by Turkish-speakers. However, we found no effect of language on gesture when it was produced on its own-silent gestures produced by English-speakers were identical in how motion elements were packaged and ordered to silent gestures produced by Turkish-speakers. The findings provide evidence for a natural semantic organization that humans impose on motion events when they convey those events without language.

What does children's spatial language reveal about spatial concepts? Evidence from the use of containment expressions.

Children's overextensions of spatial language are often taken to reveal spatial biases. However, it is unclear whether extension patterns should be attributed to children's overly general spatial concepts or to a narrower notion of conceptual similarity allowing metaphor-like extensions. We describe a previously unnoticed extension of spatial expressions and use a novel method to determine its origins. English- and Greek-speaking 4- and 5-year-olds used containment expressions (e.g., English into, Greek mesa) for events where an object moved into another object but extended such expressions to events where the object moved behind or under another object. The pattern emerged in adult speakers of both languages and also in speakers of 10 additional languages. We conclude that learners do not have an overly general concept of Containment. Nevertheless, children (and adults) perceive similarities across Containment and other types of spatial scenes, even when these similarities are obscured by the conventional forms of the language.

Time and space in tzeltal: is the future uphill?

Linguistic expressions of time often draw on spatial language, which raises the question of whether cultural specificity in spatial language and cognition is reflected in thinking about time. In the Mayan language Tzeltal, spatial language relies heavily on an absolute frame of reference utilizing the overall slope of the land, distinguishing an "uphill/downhill" axis oriented from south to north, and an orthogonal "crossways" axis (sunrise-set) on the basis of which objects at all scales are located. Does this absolute system for calculating spatial relations carry over into construals of temporal relations? This question was explored in a study where Tzeltal consultants produced temporal expressions and performed two different non-linguistic temporal ordering tasks. The results show that at least five distinct schemata for conceptualizing time underlie Tzeltal linguistic expressions: (i) deictic ego-centered time, (ii) time as an ordered sequence (e.g., "first"/"later"), (iii) cyclic time (times of the day, seasons), (iv) time as spatial extension or location (e.g., "entering/exiting July"), and (v) a time vector extending uphillwards into the future. The non-linguistic task results showed that the "time moves uphillwards" metaphor, based on the absolute frame of reference prevalent in Tzeltal spatial language and thinking and important as well in the linguistic expressions for time, is not strongly reflected in responses on these tasks. It is argued that systematic and consistent use of spatial language in an absolute frame of reference does not necessarily transfer to consistent absolute time conceptualization in non-linguistic tasks; time appears to be more open to alternative construals.

Interacción y discurso en la clase de matemáticas / Interaction and Discourse in the Mathematics Classroom

El artículo presenta avances de la investigación sobre la comunicación en clase de matemáticas. Específicamente, describe el discurso que circula en el aula cuando ocurre el acto de enseñanza-aprendizaje de un concepto particular de las matemáticas, orientado por un “docente experto”. A partir de un estudio de caso, con metodologías de corte etnográfico y de análisis del discurso, se quiere ofrecer una herramienta de análisis que permita a docentes y psicólogos dar respuesta a preguntas tales cómo: ¿qué funciones y estrategias discursivas se privilegian en la enseñanza?, ¿cómo se organizan las acciones de los participantes en las secuencias didácticas?, ¿cómo aparecen en su discurso los procesos de asignación y modificación de significados.

This article presents developments in research concerning communication in the mathematics classroom. Specifically, it describes the discourse that arises in the classroom when the act of teaching-learning a particular concept of mathematics takes place guided by an “Expert educator”. From a case study, with ethnographic methodologies and analysis of the discourse, it tries to offer an analysis tool that enables teachers and psychologists to find the answers to questions such as: which discursive functions and strategies are privileged in the learning process; how do the actions of the participants are organized in the didactic sequences; and how do processes of attribution and modification of meaning appearin their discourse.

A dêixis como um "complicador/facilitador" no contexto cognitivo e lingüístico em ambiente educacional face aos alunos com deficiência visual / Deixis as a \"complicator/facilitator\" in the cognitive and linguistic context in educational environment concerning students with visual disability

Chama-se dêixis a expressão de referenciação lingüística que tem por função relacionar, no ato de enunciação, certas unidades gramaticais às coordenadas espaço-temporais. O uso de dêiticos ao longo de uma exposição oral é um recurso bastante freqüente e, na maioria das vezes, indispensável. Nesse artigo, tomamos como ponto de observação, falas de professores em sala de aula, de uma forma genérica. Nelas temos verificado que o uso do dêitico, principalmente o espacial que necessita da articulação visual/auditiva, quando não trabalhado com cuidado e atenção pelo professor, constitui um problema sério. Desenvolvemos, a partir daí, uma discussão teórica, preliminar, a respeito da dêixis, bem como o impacto que a dêixis surte sobre um público muito particular de estudantes com deficiência visual (DVs). Um resgate teórico sobre as categorias e os objetos de discurso pelos quais os sujeitos compreendem o mundo é feito aqui.

Deixis means the linguistic referencing expression the function of which is to relate, during the act of enunciation, certain grammatical units to space-time coordinates. The use of deictics throughout oral exposition is a very frequent and usually essential device. In this article, the starting point for the observation are teachers' enunciations in the classroom, considered generically. In these speeches, we have identified that the use of deictics, especially spatial ones, constitutes a serious problem when not carefully and attentively dealt with by the teacher. Based on this phenomenon, we have carried out a theoretical discussion, still in preliminary stages, on deixis and on its impact on a very particular audience, made up of students with visual disability. This paper presents a theoretical review of the categories and objects of discourse by means of which the subjects understand the world.

Argumentação e desenvolvimento do pensamento reflexivo / Argumentation and development of reflective thinking

O objetivo central do presente artigo é oferecer uma perspectiva a partir da qual as relações entre argumentação e reflexão podem ser investigadas. O argumento central proposto é que os mesmos mecanismos semiótico-dialógicos que constituem a argumentação (justificação de pontos de vista, consideração de objeções e reação a elementos contrários) são igualmente efetivos em deslocar o pensamento do indivíduo para um plano reflexivo (metacognitivo). A produção destas ações discursivas reorienta o pensamento do indivíduo do objeto sobre o qual argumenta para o exame das bases e limites de suas próprias concepções sobre aquele objeto. Tal reorientação institui o pensamento do próprio indivíduo como objeto de reflexão. Na segunda parte do artigo, uma análise de fragmentos de argumentação produzida por crianças em sala de aula ilustra a forma como a perspective proposta pode ser utilizada na investigação do desenvolvimento de processos auto-regulados de reflexão.

The main goal of this article is to offer a perspective from which the relations between argumentation and reflection can be investigated. The main argument proposed is that the same semiotic-dialogic mechanism that constitutes argumentation (supporting a view with reasons, considering objections and responding to opposition) has a built-in capacity to place the arguer's thinking in a metacognitive framework. Together, they are effective in orienting the thinking a person does towards examining the bases and limits of his/her own thoughts. They do so by introducing into the person's psychological field a new object for reflection the arguer's own thoughts. At the second section of the article, the analysis of some fragments of children's argumentation produced in classroom illustrates how the framework proposed can be used in investigating the development of self-regulated reflection.