Empirical  evidence  for  the  embodied  view

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like  freedom  may  in  part  be  represented  through  simulation  of  the  experience  of  being  able  to   move  freely,  or  the  experience  of  watching  a  wide-­‐open  space.  It  has  been  found,  that  abstract   concepts,  opposed  to  concrete  concepts,  rely  to  a  higher  degree  on  activation  of  sensory   perceptions  relating  to  introspection,  e.g.  affects  (Barsalou  &  Wiemer-­‐Hastings,  2005).    

In  simulation  theory,  it  is  furthermore  suggested  that  we  have  groups  of  neurons  (simulators)   that  are  able  to  activate  our  sensory  and  motor  cortices  to  create  different  simulations  of  a   particular  concept,  appropriate  to  the  kind  of  interaction  we  wish  to  perform  with  this  concept.  

Barsalou  and  Wiemer-­‐Hastings  (2005:  156)  write  that  concepts  can  be  seen  as  "a  large  collection   of  situational  representations"  supporting  "individualised  interactions  with  concept  instances”,   i.e.  a  concept  (a  simulator)  is  a  large  collection  of  neurological  activation  patterns  (simulations)   relevant  to  the  concept.  For  example,  when  thinking  of  a  chair  in  the  context  of  redecorating  the   living  room,  the  chair  may  be  represented  by  a  simulation  in  the  visual  cortices  for  colour,  shape,   and  size.  By  contrast,  when  thinking  of  a  chair  in  the  context  of  moving  furniture,  it  may  be   represented  by  a  simulation  in  the  motor  centres  that  have  to  do  with  weight  and  engaging  the   muscles  needed  to  lift  the  chair  (Dantzig  et  al.  2008:  580).  The  neurological  architecture  that   enables  the  existence  of  simulators  and  simulations  is  Damasio’s  convergence  zone  architecture   (Damasio,  1989;  Meyer  &  Damasio,  2009).  However,  it  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  dissertation  to   engage  in  a  detailed  discussion  of  this  particular  theory.  

Simulation  theories  are  useful  to  the  study  of  ABMs  in  management  education  because  they,  like   CMT,  offer  a  view  of  how  cognition  function  that  is  congruent  with  the  core  claims  from  

philosophers  of  art  and  cognition,  e.g.  Arnheim’s  claim  that  “Perceptual  and  pictorial  shapes  are   not  only  translation  of  thought  products  but  the  very  flesh  and  blood  of  thinking  itself”  (Arnheim,   1969,  p.  134).  Furthermore,  they  add  to  CMT  by  suggesting  that  abstract  concepts  (i.e.  concepts   that  refer  to  “entities  that  are  neither  purely  physical  nor  spatially  constrained”  (Barsalou  &  

Wiemer-­‐Hastings,  2005,  p.  129),  in  contrast  to  concrete  concepts,  rely  more  on  sensations  related   to  introspection.  This  is  important  to  the  study  of  ABMs  in  management  education  because  many   concepts  relevant  to  the  work  of  managers  are  abstract,  e.g.,  leadership,  competence,  brand,   strategy,  ethics,  innovation,  organisational  change,  customer  satisfaction,  etc.    

2.7.4. Empirical  evidence  for  the  embodied  view  

There  is  a  growing  body  of  empirical  evidence  for  the  claims  found  in  Cognitive  Metaphor  Theory   and  simulation  theories.  Below,  I  have  chosen  to  mention  quite  a  few  studies  providing  such  

Literature  review   31   evidence,  even  though  these  individually  are  not  core  to  my  argument.  However,  it  is  important   to  my  argument  to  give  an  impression  of  the  breadth  of  this  empirical  research.  For  further   reviews  of  empirical  evidence  see  (Barsalou,  2008;  Bergen,  2012;  Niedenthal  et  al.,  2005;  Rohrer,   2007;  Wilson,  2002).  I  start  by  looking  at  evidence  for  the  existence  of  primary  metaphors.  

Gibbs,  Bogdanovich,  Sykes,  and  Barr  (1997)  explored  whether  individuals  access  the  source   domain  when  understanding  the  meaning  of  idioms  containing  metaphors.  Participants  were   asked  to  first  read  a  short  story  (seven  lines)  and  then  look  at  a  letter  string  and  determine   whether  it  included  an  English  word.  The  stories  ended  with  either  an  idiom  using  a  primal   conceptual  metaphor  (e.g.  idiom:  ‘the  manager  held  all  the  cards’,  metaphor:  ‘control  is  

possessing/retaining  objects’)  or  a  paraphrase  of  the  literal  meaning  (e.g.  ‘the  manager  was  in   total  control).  The  following  letter  strings  either  contained  a  word  relating  to  the  conceptual   metaphor  (e.g.  retain  relating  to  control  is  retaining/possessing  objects)  or  a  similar  word  that   was  not  related  to  the  metaphor  (e.g.  remain).  It  was  found  that  participants  were  significantly   faster  at  recognising  words  in  the  letter  string  after  reading  a  story  with  an  idiom  based  on  a   cognitive  metaphor  relating  to  the  meaning  of  this  word.  This  was  taken  as  evidence  that  when   reading  the  story,  participants  did  activate  the  primary  cognitive  metaphor  in  order  to  

understand  the  meaning  of  the  idiom,  and  that  this  primed  the  participants  so  they  were  faster  at   recognising  words  related  to  the  source  domain  of  the  metaphor  (Gibbs  et  al.,  1997).  Non-­‐

metaphorical  sentences  with  different  meanings  and  idioms  with  similar  literal  meaning  but   based  on  different  primary  metaphors  were  used  to  control  the  result.  

Boroditsky  and  Ramscar  (2002)  explored  how  physical  circumstances  influenced  which  of  two   common  cognitive  metaphors  for  time  participants  would  use.  Time  is  either  seen  as  objects   coming  towards  one  (the  holiday  is  approaching)  or  a  landscape  one  is  moving  through  (we  are   approaching  the  holiday).  The  experiment  showed  that  people  on  a  moving  train  are  significantly   more  likely  to  use  the  first  metaphor  and  people  waiting  for  a  train  are  significantly  more  likely   to  use  the  second.  This  was  taken  as  evidence  that  the  physical  situation  primed  participants  to   either  use  one  or  the  other  cognitive  metaphor  when  thinking  about  time.  

A  number  of  studies  have  explored  the  central  claim  in  simulation  theories:  That  sensory  and   motor  systems  are  also  used  for  cognitive  processes.  Wells  &  Petty  (1980)  found  that  listening  to   recorded  statements  while  nodding  the  head,  made  subjects  more  likely  to  agree  with  these   statements.  Shaking  the  head  made  them  less  likely  to  agree.  Subjects  were  told  that  the  

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experiment  was  a  test  of  whether  the  headphones  would  stay  on  the  head  during  movement.  

Similarly,  Stepper  &  Strack  (1993)  found  that  facilitating  people’s  smiling  reflex  while  they   watched  cartoons  made  them  judge  these  cartoons  as  funnier  than  when  the  smiling  reflex  was   inhibited.  The  facilitation/inhibition  of  the  smiling  reflex  was  done  in  a  non-­‐obvious  way  by   asking  subjects  to  hold  a  pen  either  with  their  teeth  (facilitates  smiling)  or  lips  (inhibits  smiling).  

It  also  has  been  found  that  arm  flexion,  a  movement  used  to  bring  objects  closer,  and  arm  

extension,  a  movement  used  to  avoid  objects,  influences  our  cognition  in  many  ways.  Pushing  up   on  a  table  from  beneath  (arm  flexion)  made  subjects  more  positive  toward  new  Chinese  

ideographs  than  subjects  pushing  down  on  a  table  (arm  extension)  (Cacioppo,  Priester  &  

Bernston  1993).  Subjects  pulling  a  lever  (arm  flexion)  to  indicate  the  appearance  of  a  word  on  a   computer  screen  reacted  faster  to  positive  words  than  to  negative  words.  The  opposite  was  the   case  when  asked  to  push  the  lever  (arm  extension)  when  words  appeared  (Chen  &  Bargh,  1999).  

Kosslyn,  Thompson,  Wraga,  and  Alpert  (2001)  asked  subjects  to  determine  whether  one  picture   of  a  3D  model  was  a  rotated  image  or  a  rotated  mirror  image  of  another  picture  of  the  same  3D   model.  They  found  that  if  they  allowed  subjects  to  first  rotate  a  real  3D  model  using  their  right   hand,  then  later  mental  rotations  were  performed  quicker  counter-­‐clock  wise  (a  natural  way  to   turn  an  outstretched  right  arm  and  hand)  than  clock-­‐wise  (an  awkward  way  to  rotate  right  arm   and  hand).  

Studies  of  brain  lesions  have  shown  that  when  specific  sensory  and  motor  centres  are  damaged   this  affects  knowledge  of  categories  related  to  perceptions  made  through  these  centres.  For   example,  damage  to  motor  centres  is  likely  to  result  in  loss  of  knowledge  relating  to  tools,  i.e.  

knowledge  obtained  through  motor  centres.  Similarly,  damage  to  centres  dealing  with  spatial   processing  is  likely  to  result  in  loss  of  location  knowledge  (Barsalou,  2008,  p.  627).  This  supports   that  knowledge  is  dependent  on  reactivations  in  the  sensory  and  motor  centres  –  on  simulations.    

Finally,  the  discovery  of  mirror  neurons  provide  evidence  that  activation  in  sensory  and  motor   cortices  is  part  of  how  we  give  meaning  to  other  peoples’  actions.  Mirror  neurons  are  neurons   that  activate  both  when  an  individual  perform  an  action  him-­‐self  and  when  he  sees  someone  else   performing  this  action  (Fogassi  &  Ferrari,  2007).  

Given  the  amount  of  empirical  evidence  in  support  of  the  embodied  view  of  cognition,  this  view   seems  worth  considering  in  any  study  involving  theorising  about  cognitive  processes,  such  as  the   present  study  of  ABMs  in  management  education.  

Literature  review   33   2.7.5. Criticism  

Given  the  strength  of  empirical  evidence,  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  whether  the  

representationalist  view  of  cognition  or  the  embodied  view  of  cognition  is  more  accurate.  Rather   it  is  a  question  of  working  out  how  to  best  describe  embodied  cognition.  In  this  section,  I  focus  on   two  points  of  criticism  of  CMT  relevant  to  the  present  study.    

Gendlin,  though  generally  sympathetic  towards  CMT,  has  criticised  CMT  for  seeing  categories  of   bodily  experience  as  the  fundamental  building  blocks  of  our  understanding  (Gendlin,  1997).  Even   though  this  critique  was  set  forth  in  1997,  it  is  still  relevant.  Gendlin  writes:    

“Johnson  and  I  agree  that  new  metaphorical  meanings  are  not  derived  from  preexisting   similarities,  and  that  metaphors  can  be  true.  I  propose  a  kind  of  concept  that  enables  us  to   think  with  and  about  how  that  happens”  (Gendlin,  1997,  p.  175).    

Gendlin  holds  that  the  meaning  of  a  metaphor  cannot  be  a  matter  of  simply  transferring  

experiential  knowledge  from  a  source  domain  to  a  target  domain.  He  claims  that  a  word  from  a   source  domain  will  always  attain  a  new  meaning  in  the  target  situation  in  which  it  is  used.  With   this  claim  he  also  emphasises  that  the  metaphorically  used  word  can  only  acquire  new  precise   meaning  in  the  target  situation  because  we  already  know  something  about  the  target  situation.  It  is   our  knowledge  of  the  target  situation  that  allows  us  to  give  a  word  from  a  source  domain  a  new   meaning  when  used  in  the  target  situation.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  similarities  between   source  and  target  domain  are  effects  of  this  new  meaning  –  not  what  caused  the  creation  of  the   metaphor  in  the  first  place.    

Barsalou  and  Wiemer-­‐Hastings  (2005)  provide  a  similar  critique  of  CMT  from  the  point  of  view  of   simulation  theory.  They  write:    

“If  an  abstract  concept  has  no  structure  based  on  direct  experience,  the  concrete  metaphor   would  have  nothing  to  map  into.  Certainly,  metaphors  may  interpret  direct  experience  and   add  new  material  to  it.  The  point  is,  however,  that  metaphors  complement  direct  

experience  of  abstract  concepts,  which  often  appears  extensive.”  (Barsalou  &  Wiemer-­‐

Hastings,  2005,  p.  134).    

The  extensive  direct  experience  of  abstract  concepts  they  refer  to  is,  for  example,  introspective   observation.    

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Due  to  this  criticism,  I  choose  to  conceive  metaphors  as  experience  gained  in  one  domain,  used  to   structure  experience  gained  in  another  domain,  and  to  emphasise  the  distinction  between  the   experience  and  the  words  used  to  refer  to  the  experience.  I  agree  that  the  experience  used  for   this  structuring  will  take  on  a  new  meaning  when  used  in  this  way.  I  furthermore  agree  with   Gendlin,  that  it  is  key  to  explore  how  it  is  possible  for  individuals  to  know  this  new  meaning.  

Gendlin  suggests  that  this  knowledge  can  be  accessed  through  the  process  of  focusing  on  the   bodily  felt  sense,  which  is  prior  to  any  categories  –  including  categories  of  bodily  dimensions   referred  to  by  Johnson,  such  as,  up-­‐down,  periphery-­‐center.  Gendlin  suggests  that  we  can  access   this  felt  sense  by  walking  past  categories  of  experience  and  placing  sustained  awareness  on  the   bodily  felt  sense  –  even  if  it  is  often  not  immediately  accessible  or  describable  through  words,  i.e.  

we  are  sensing  something  but  cannot  describe  it  –  only  feel  it.  From  this  point  of  view,  knowing  a   name  of  a  sensation  or  recognising  it,  is  not  part  of  staying  with  the  senses  (Springborg  &  

Sutherland,  2014;  Springborg,  2010),  dwelling  (Grisoni,  2012;  Heidegger,  1971;  Sutherland  &  

Ladkin,  2013),  or  giving  attention  to  the  sensuous  encounter  while  suspending  the  intellect   (Seeley  &  Reason,  2008).    

Awareness  of  this  critique  of  CMT  is  important  when  using  CMT  as  a  theoretical  lens  to  explore   ABMs  in  management  education  because  it  may  help  sensitise  the  researcher  to  the  effects  of  the   lens  used.