Chapter Six - Embodied Cognition

When, on a summer evening, the melodious sky growls like a tawny lion, and everyone is complaining of the storm, it is the memory of the Méséglise way that makes me stand alone in ecstasy, inhaling, through the noise of the falling rain, the lingering scent of invisible lilacs. 

-Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

 

What is embodied cognition? The title of this chapter may seem a bit enigmatic and perhaps unrelated to smell, but let's unpack it a bit. Embodied In this context refers to how our bodies are used in thinking. The body is the basis of cognition. In the most basic way we measure the world as it relates to our bodies. Things are near or far they are up or down. They are hot or cold and so forth. The linguistic field that studies embodied cognition helps us understand the origin of ordinary metaphors that we use in our everyday lives such as "I'm having trouble grasping this idea" or "I smell a rat". This chapter looks into the origins of such expressions as well as the importance of gesture and thinking. Have you ever considered why when you're talking on the telephone you use your free hand to gesticulate if another person you are talking to can't see you? This Chapter thinks about that too.