Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2010 Dec 27;1:234. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00234. eCollection 2010.
Two recurrent concerns in discussions on an embodied view of cognition are the "necessity question" (i.e., is activation in modality-specific brain areas necessary for language comprehension?) and the "simulation constraint" (i.e., how do we understand language for which we lack the relevant experiences?). In the present paper we argue that the criticisms encountered by the embodied approach hinge on a cognitivist interpretation of embodiment. We argue that the data relating sensorimotor activation to language comprehension can best be interpreted as supporting a non-representationalist, enactivist model of language comprehension, according to which language comprehension can be described as procedural knowledge - knowledge how, not knowledge that - that enables us to interact with others in a shared physical world. The enactivist view implies that the activation of modality-specific brain areas during language processing reflects the employment of sensorimotor skills and that language comprehension is a context-bound phenomenon. Importantly, an enactivist view provides an embodied approach of language, while avoiding the problems encountered by a cognitivist interpretation of embodiment.
在关于认知的具身观点的讨论中，有两个反复出现的问题：“必要性问题”（即，特定于模态的大脑区域的激活对于语言理解是必要的吗？）和“模拟约束”（即，我们如何理解我们缺乏相关经验的语言？）。在本文中，我们认为，具身方法所遇到的批评取决于对具身的认知解释。我们认为，将感觉运动激活与语言理解联系起来的数据最好被解释为支持一种非代表性的、活动主义的语言理解模型，根据这种模型，语言理解可以被描述为程序性知识——知识如何，而不是知识是什么——这使我们能够在共享的物理世界中与他人互动。活动主义观点意味着在语言处理过程中特定于模态的大脑区域的激活反映了对感觉运动技能的运用，并且语言理解是一种上下文相关的现象。重要的是，活动主义观点提供了一种语言的具身方法，同时避免了对具身的认知解释所遇到的问题。
