Embodied Cognitive Science

Embodied Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field of research, the aim of which is to explain the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior. It comprises three main methodologies: 1) the modeling of psychological and biological systems in a holistic manner that considers the mind and body as a single entity, 2) the formation of a common set of general principles of intelligent behavior, and 3) the experimental use of robotic agents in controlled environments.

Embodied cognitive science borrows heavily from embodied philosophy and the related research fields of cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. From the perspective of neuroscience, research in this field was led by Gerald Edelman of the Neurosciences Institute at La Jolla, the late Francisco Varela of CNRS in France, and J. A. Scott Kelso of Florida Atlantic University. From the perspective of psychology, research by Michael Turvey, Lawrence Barsalou and Eleanor Rosch. From the perspective of language acquisition, Eric Lenneberg and Philip Rubin at Haskins Laboratories. From the perspective of autonomous agent design, early work is sometimes attributed to Rodney Brooks or Valentino Braitenberg. From the perspective of artificial intelligence, see Understanding Intelligence by Rolf Pfeifer and Christian Scheier or How the body shapes the way we think, also by Rolf Pfeifer and Josh C. Bongard. From the perspective of philosophy see Andy Clark, Shaun Gallagher, and Evan Thompson.

Turing proposed that a machine may need a human-like body to think and speak:

It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. That process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again, I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried (Turing, 1950).