Talk:Embodied cognition

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Davidson College supported by WikiProject Psychology and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

Above message substituted from {{WAP assignment}} on 14:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Note

This article results from a year-long study project which involved a collaborative effort to improve the embodied cognition content on Wikipedia. The article was improved by cognitive science students at the University of Osnabrück under the supervision of Prof. Dr. med. Peter König. (2021-2022) Darcyisverycute (talk) 05:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

This article needs to be rewritten as a Philosophy subject relating Embodiment subjects and is in conflict with "Wikipedia's not recognizing" "Philosophy of Embodied self" as all other major research does. Where is Snowden when we need him 75.82.19.242 (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Adaptive unconscious / Tversky & Kahnemann

It seems to me that the research collected in Thinking Fast and Slow is relevant here. Their description of the "adaptive unconscious" is a precise way of understanding how embodiment is implemented in actual brains of actual people. Doesn't their research confirm the basic idea and, simultaneously, supersede some of the more hand-wavy / postmodernist stuff that you find in Varela and Thompson, etc.? Is this academic conversation still happening, or is it all back in the 80s? --- CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:13, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@CharlesGillingham: Thanks for pointing out this source. I also agree Kahneman's work is in line with the embodiment thesis. It is also a very well received work. The idea would be to find a place in the page where we can refer to it and deepen in to the topics of the book showing how they aline to embodied cognition. John J. Madrid (talk) 18:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Restructure page's content table

Under the page’s current state, there is an imbalance regarding the distribution of the cognitive capacities content. Namely, most of them are listed under section 5 “Cognitive psychology”. This is both unfair to the other sciences and problematic since all those topics (subsections 5.1 to 5.9) are investigated across all sciences. The changes include but are not limited to:

1. Edit section 4 and add some paragraphs that will contain information about the different sciences and emphasise the interdisciplinary approach to investigate cognition from an embodied perspective. Thus, the headers containing the different sciences will no longer exist as separate header but rather they will be contained as individual paragraphs inside section 4.

2. Then, subsections 5.1 to 5.9 and 7.1 (along with any other relevant topics that appear) will constitute each its own header and listed after section 5 (option 1), or we create a separate header (e.g., “Cognitive and bodily features/aspects”) and list the subsections under it. I consider option 2 more appropriate but open to hear ideas. (See figure proposal).

For more information, a hidden comment on the “Cognitive psychology” section has been added. John J. Madrid (talk) 14:11, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Updated version of the proposal after meeting consultation provided below.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by John J. Madrid (talk • contribs) 17:12, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

John J. Madrid, do you mind me cleaning up the sentences and paragraphs while you wait for the good article reviewer? I feel a little reluctant to edit the page since you feel it's ready for that type of review. GBFEE (talk) 20:37, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I would appreciate if any other edit comes after the good article review comes —since it’s also part of the process. (Any minor grammar edit or similar are being inspected at the time being and hopefully will be finished by the time the article gets reviewed). John J. Madrid (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

I'll hold off then. If you like, I can come back for the good article review. GBFEE (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Embodied cognition/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Darcyisverycute (talk · contribs) 09:36, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   • Try to avoid using quotes if it would be easier to summarise the concept. I get more confused reading this quote for example:

   • it "is my point of view upon the world" which opens up multiple possibilities for being, it "is a knot of living significations" (what does 'significations' mean here?) Done John J. Madrid (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

   • Abrahamson et al. (2020) survey and analyze several frameworks... Needs copyediting (in addition to inline citations)  Pending John J. Madrid (talk) 06:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
   • The article could use more wikilinks, especially in the second half of the article. I might add some of these myself. I often check wikilinks on a lot of terminology and get surprised how often I find a relevant article. John J. Madrid  Done @Darcyisverycute I may still add some links later John J. Madrid (talk) 18:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
   • Words like manipulations have an unclear meaning and need to be quantified and/or renamed/wikilinked to the correct terminology. Assume you are writing for a general audience, all psychology terminology that isn't common knowledge by the general public needs to be defined or summarised in-article. In general wikilinking and defining terms seems to be done well, it's just an issue for a few terms. If you can, I would recommend just using a general purpose term instead; it's encouraged to summarise works, and terms that are used only by a single paper or author should not be included/used in articles. I will list other ones I have noticed here:

   • manipulations ambigous and unclear term.  Investigating...
   • —as dualism does— (Are you referring to cartesian dualism? If so, make that clear.)  Fixed John J. Madrid (talk) 15:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
   • amodal semantic nodes  Half done John J. Madrid (talk) 15:50, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
   • embodied mode of processing and embodied processes

1. B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   • I think the section "Embodiment thesis" could be renamed to something more useful for navigation. History, scope and applications are organised well though.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:03, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
   • I also think "challenges" should be renamed to "limitations" or "criticism and limitations" for psychology article consistency.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
   • Write the article in third person; we are not "talking to" the readers. Take the "power poses" studies for example... -> For example, power posing which is classified under embodied cognition because [explanation] [cite] ... failed replication. [cite]  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 21:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
   • MOS:WE - this will take a substantial amount of effort to fix so that the phrasing matches third person as well as not using words "we" and "us".
   • Avoid terms like "current", "Over the past years," and "new" eg. avoid current literature. Use the WP:ASOF template instead. Especially for a field developing over multiple decades, it is important for readers to get a sense of chronological developments; this may also mean rearranging content within sections to be chronologically consistent.
   • It is widely acknowledged that... By who?  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 21:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
   • Lakoff and Nuñez (2000) + Daum at al. ... This format is not used for Wikipedia articles. Only mention the authors if they are especially notable or relevant to the article, such as the founder of a field. When they are, don't put the year next to it like a journal publication - only an inline citation is needed. If there is a large variance in dates of publications, or the chronological order is important like for the history section, it can be more appropriate to say like this: "In a 2005 study..."  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:30, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
   • Given this ambiguity, O'Regan, J. K. and Nöe, A. put forth what will be known as...Only use past tense referring to past research. Could say instead like: "What would later be known as..."  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 21:34, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
   • (w): I look at the paper and it seems like an italicised math script "w" and not lower case omega. Since it's only used three times it's probably more appropriate (especially given this is not a math article) to just say "meta-prior" three times. FYI though, to get omega if you wanted to: <math>\omega</math> -> $\omega$  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
   • Shakey’s architecture This link points to Lisp. This is not obvious to a person clicking the link. Better to replace it like "Shakey’s architecture (lisp)" and then wikilink the word in brackets.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:36, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
   • The fact that... + So stated, ... + So, ... + Furthermore, ... Avoid phrases like these.
   • Don't use the " symbol in block quotes. It is better to use the block quote or cquote (or other) templates as opposed to a formatting, so that you can add author quote attribution. The "Embodiment thesis" part could really use this.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   Many, many relevant citations is excellent. Don't forget that using footnotes is an option to avoid unnecessary detail in the article's main body.

   • Try to add english titles for non-english publications, such as for "L'intercorporéité au-delà du".  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 19:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

     @Darcyisverycute Becasue this was a reference title, I decided to use the "Translation" parameter inside the reference.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 21:49, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

   C. It contains no original research:

   I cannot look at all 200+ citations as part of the review process, but I'm quite confident based on two read-throughs and verifying a small sample of citations, that there is no OR.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   There are a few paragraphs and sentences that appear to be copy-pasted from their sources. See [1]. These will either need to be rewritten in their own words, or quoted with clear attribution. It is okay to just put quotes around it and an immediately following attributing citation if it is short, but for the longer ones I have found I think it would be better to summarise them in your own words. Here are some that stand out, and please also check the mentioned copyvio detector link to see what I mean:

   • Embodiment thesis: Many features of cognition are embodied in that they are deeply dependent upon characteristics of the physical body of an agent, such that the agent's beyond-the-brain body plays a significant causal role, or a physically constitutive role, in that agent's cognitive processing. This one is quoted, but missing an immediately following citation. (In addition to the quote not being in a block quote or cquote template.)
   • Encouraged by progress in informatics, researchers began to create digital models of the processes by which sensory input is selected by the brain, stored in the memory, connected to existing knowledge and used for elaboration.
   • claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) offline cognition is...

@Darcyisverycute These quotes are inside quote block already. I am not supposed to put the quotation marks around them. Any idea how to go around this?  Feedback required John J. Madrid (talk) 22:33, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@John J. Madrid You're right, it's all good now. The otther issue with the block quotes was that the article was using both blockquote templates and HTML elements, I've just made it consistent to always use the template. (Doesn't matter which one but it's better to be consistent throughout an article.) Darcyisverycute (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Darcyisverycute Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback and for changing the ones that were missing quoteblocks. Very much appreciated :)  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 13:37, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

1. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

2. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

3. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

4. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   • Impressive amount of creatively designed media for such a large psychology article.
   • File:Change_blindness.gif doesn't seem to clearly demonstrate the effect; would probably be better to use a pair of images as is used in File:Globe_and_high_court_(Spot_the_difference).jpg (Or could just use that image)  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
   • File:Van_Dantzig_et_al._table.png may be more appropriate to format in a wikitable. I don't think this is required to change though.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 22:16, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

5. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: Darcyisverycute (talk) 05:45, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested feedback

Thanks for putting the inline markers! I will respond to them below:

• Abrahamson et al. (2020) survey and analyze several frameworks... The issue here was the participle: Along with changing the format to "A 2020 survey and analysis of several frameworks found"... was the grammar issue in the original writing: "[noun] survey and analyze ..." should have been "[noun] surveyed and analyzed ...". The point I am trying to illustrate is, the sentence participle wouldn't matter if it is rephrased from using the non-wiki "Author [et al.] (Year date)" to Wikipedia standard of "A study in 2020,..." or "Researchers in this field..." etc. Don't name the researchers in Wiki articles unless they are specifically notable or foundational to the entire article- the creator/s of the field are, and maybe also some subfields, but probably not just for any survey researchers.

Darcyisverycute Thanks for elaborating on this. I will fix it asap. John J. Madrid (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• About renaming the "challenges" section: The issue is that the word "challenges" could be misinterpreted here, and is a little imprecise. The words "limitations", "controversy", "criticism" help indicate the type of content the readers will find there, here are some psychology GAs demonstrating this title usage for reference:

• Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Controversy, in summary style with a split article Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies. Probably the term "controversy" is most appropriate about the section since it is mostly discussing replication crisis.
• Beck_Depression_Inventory#Limitations
• Maternal_deprivation#Controversy,_misinterpretation_and_criticism
• Judging by the current content about a replication crisis, I think "criticism and controversy" is maybe most appropriate since there is both criticism of the theory, and an existing controversy (the replication crisis).

Darcyisverycute Perfect! I will check on this. John J. Madrid (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Following your advise and checking on the other Psychology GA, I have renamed the section  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 22:05, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• I reached out to a more experienced GA reviewer [2] to double check some things: File:Van_Dantzig_et_al._table.png is fine to keep as-is, the trans-title= | parameter can be used to specify English title translations for citations, and I was considering suggesting an article split based on the wordcount. As you are clearly more experienced in this topic than me, you might have some ideas on how content in the page can be split up in summary style so that the article prose length could be reduced with the goal of article flow/readability. One idea that could work is to move most of the "history" section to its own article. If it makes more sense to keep all the information here (ie. it wouldn't make sense to use summary style) then it is okay to keep it.

Darcyisverycute Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback and for reaching out to others to discuss review questions. The File:Van_Dantzig_et_al._table.png was left so because of the reason mentioned by the other reviewer (aka someone could change content). Also, I will use the trans-title= | parameter for the English translation  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 19:17, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the article length, we (the editors) had a discussion about it and we consider it is best to keep it as it is. To facilitate people navigating to the part readers are interested in, we created the InfoBox on the top so that they can skip or read individual sections. If we put the "History" or any other section in a separate article, it would not make much sense by itself. We also actually had to keep the number of studies and articles used to the minimum. John J. Madrid (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• One other thing: on a second read-through searching for original research, I noticed the word "famous" a couple times. This is called MOS:PEACOCK and this sort of language should be removed. Darcyisverycute (talk) 12:43, 23 May 2022 (UTC) Agree

I have removed this along with other such words  Done. John J. Madrid (talk) 21:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• Darcyisverycute Given that Change blindness gif is `.gif`, it has to be opened to see the effect. The effect is also not intended to be easy to see and the idea is to give the reader a clear view of it. Should I invite the reader to open it and find the changing object? Checked John J. Madrid (talk) 18:28, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

• The effect is also not intended to be easy to see This is exactly the issue. According to MOS:IMAGES, "Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate", and although that is not really written with optical illusions/effects in mind, the image by definition does not clearly demonstrate what it's intended to illustrate. I can perfectly understand using this gif for a research experiment for example, but this is a wikipedia article, and it's better to make the effect as easy to see for readers as we can. I looked at the animation for a few minutes and was not able to notice the difference - if most people don't notice the difference, can we say the image has any real explanatory view in the article? Aside from noticing the effect, in the current gif format not only do users need to click on the image, they need to click on it twice: as on the image page it says, "Note: Due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated." I think it's better for the content of the article to be self-contained in the page, not requiring users to click to links elsewhere to understand just this page content.

So one option is to leave it as is, telling users to click twice, then spend a few minutes looking at the image possibly not even noticing the effect by doing so - in my opinion I think this is unencyclopedic. Another option is to reduce the resolution below a total of 12.5 million pixels so it animates inside the page, although this may make the difference even more difficult to spot. The option I think is best is to put the two variant images side by side, so the difference is easy to see, and then in the caption describe how the difference is much harder to notice if they are displayed sequentially with a delay in between. This is why I suggested using the other image already formatted for this purpose, which clearly illustrates the effect, although captioned in a slightly different way. If you have any better ideas to easily illustrate the effect I encourage you to try that as well. Darcyisverycute (talk) 00:08, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@Darcyisverycute Thanks a lot for your comment. I agree and I have updated it. Let me know if this way is better.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@John J. Madrid Yeah this way is very easy for the audience to see. And thanks for the explanation about the article size and splitting, I think it is probably fine to keep the article together based on that expert advice. Good job on the edits so far btw! Looks like there are still a few issues to go, the biggest remaining ones being:

• MOS:WE  Started John J. Madrid (talk) 22:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done. I will still give it a second read. John J. Madrid (talk) 13:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• rewriting "author (year)" to "In [year], researchers found" or similar, only noting author emphasis for foundational work

Darcyisverycute This part is already fixed.  Done John J. Madrid (talk) 16:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• replacing "recently" and similar terms with a year or using the WP:ASOF template.

 Done. I will still give it a second read.

Once those are done I am happy to pass the GA review. Darcyisverycute (talk) 06:12, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Darcyisverycute  Thank you very much! I am currently working on them. And nice to read you agree with the new version of the gif. John J. Madrid (talk) 06:56, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Too long

I respect the effort and attention to detail, but as a non-specialist reader, I found this article too long. Might it be possible to condense it? 13,000 words seems excessive. The first part is great, but after that my eyes glazed over. Victimofleisure (talk) 15:40, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The Controversy section is jarring to read.

Many of the lines in the controversy section seem to be biased rebuttles of controversies themselves.

In the "Replication crisis and misinterpretation" sub-section, for example, it is stated that:

"Researchers failing to replicate the same results does not prove cognition is unaffected/uninfluenced by the body. There are still plenty of findings within the topic of embodied cognition that are scientifically sound."

I'm not knowledgeable enough about Wikipedia's policies and article standards so I'm choosing not to make any changes myself in case I'm mistaken. EdgarAllan2.Poe (talk) 18:12, 14 July 2024 (UTC)