Figure It Out. Stephen P. Anderson
symbols mental representations, which is simply a scientific phrase that means thoughts or ideas. The brain processes these representations, transforming them into other representations, and the whole operation is what we call cognition. Originally known as the information-processing theory, today it is often called the computational theory of mind.
Thus, cognitive science is based on two fundamental concepts: mental representation and mental computation. The term computation, however, requires some qualification. To say the mind does computation does not mean the neurons in your brain work just like the silicon transistors in your laptop. Rather, it means that we can explain how brains and computers operate using many of the same principles, even though the details are vastly different. Pinker provides a useful analogy: “To explain how birds fly, we invoke principles of lift and drag and fluid mechanics that also explain how airplanes fly. That does not commit us to an airplane metaphor for birds, complete with jet engines and complimentary beverage service.”7 This view of the mind does, however, hinge on the conviction that brains do perform computation, in some way, on mental representations.
The Computational Theory of Mind
The computational theory of mind has a straightforward model of cognition built around four parts: the external world, perception, cognition, and action. These form a loop, as shown in Figure 2.1. Under this model, we perceive information from the world through our senses, which our brain converts into mental representations. This is followed by cognition proper (mental computation on mental representations), which, in turn, leads to acting on the world. Then the cycle begins anew with more perception, cognition, action, and so forth.
FIGURE 2.1 The basic structure of human cognition according to the computational theory of mind. Although grossly simplified, it captures the essential features of the standard model.
The most notable features of this model are that it’s sequential—first one thing, then another—and that cognition happens in the head. Perception serves as the input to cognition, and the output is action on the world. The starring role in the cognitive drama goes to brain-based processes (i.e., mental computation). Anything that happens outside the skull is secondary, merely part of the supporting cast.
This brain-centered view of human thinking forms the foundation for many models of human cognition. One of the most influential models is the Model Human Processor, which was developed in the early 1980s as the cognitive revolution was in full swing. This model divides the mind into three main parts: perception (for converting sensory input into mental representations), cognition (for mental computation and memory), and motor control (for moving the body).8 In other words, perception is input, cognition happens in the brain, and action is output, just like the diagram in Figure 2.1.
Other cognitive models share a similar structure. Consider EPIC, which was developed to model how human beings interact with computers.9 Like the Model Human Processor, EPIC is also based on input and output mechanisms (see Figure 2.2). It describes the human body in terms so comically detached from everyday life that you can almost see the lab coats and pocket protectors.
FIGURE 2.2 The EPIC model of cognition: note how the terminology describes parts of the body in terms of inputs, outputs, and processing information. The model also omits many parts of the body—legs and feet being the most obvious.
It features an “auditory processor” instead of ears, a “vocal motor processor” instead of a mouth, and an “ocular motor processor” instead of eyes. Hands are called manual motor processors and, in an oversight that reflects a world before smartphones, the modeled human has no feet.
Where the Body Meets the Mind
These models are obviously incomplete. They may be accurate as far as they go, but they could go farther. They should include hands, as well as feet, not as mere “motor processors,” but in a deeper way, and for a simpler reason—we had bodies long before we had computers, or calculators, or even language. Our evolutionary past is rooted in a spatial experience of the world. We move through the world and pick things up and turn our heads. To be alive is to be in motion. So it’s not unreasonable to suspect that cognitive models which ignore, or downplay, the relationship between body and mind are missing something—something vital.
What might this mean for how we understand information? In the Stratton effect, moving the body was needed for the brain to resolve the distortions created by the upside-down lenses. That finding provides us with a clue. Another clue comes from basketball. A group of Italian researchers recorded professional basketball players shooting free throws, and then asked people to watch the video and predict if the ball would go through the hoop or not.10 They asked three groups of people to watch the videos: professional basketball players (expert players), professional basketball coaches and reporters (expert watchers), and students with no experience playing basketball (novice watchers). The researchers stopped the video at different stages of the shot, from when the player was preparing to shoot, to just before the ball reached the hoop. At each stage, people were asked to make their prediction.
As you would expect, predictions got better the closer the ball was to the basket. And as you would also expect, the farther the ball was from the basket, the worse the predictions were, especially for novice watchers. The interesting finding was that expert players, who had the most experience shooting baskets, were surprisingly accurate when making predictions before the ball was released. When the video was stopped just before the ball left the shooter’s hand, expert players were right as much as 60 percent of the time. Shooting free throws again and again, over many years, changed the player’s ability to interpret, make sense of, and extrapolate from visual information. Here, too, as with the Stratton effect, we have a case where action shapes our ability to understand information.
Let’s consider an example from something unlike basketball, something where we don’t expect the body to play any role at all in how we understand information: politics. Dutch researchers wondered if the spatial metaphor of politics—left-wing and right-wing—was more than just a metaphor.11 They gave volunteers a series of generic political statements, such as “rules regarding road safety should be tightened” and “the number of available rental homes should increase gradually.” The volunteers were asked to associate each statement with one of the ten political parties in the Dutch House of Representatives, some on the left and others on the right. The twist? They did this standing on a Wii balance board. Before answering the questions, each volunteer went through a process to level the board, but unbeknownst to them, the calibration process tilted the board slightly, yet undetectably, to one side. When the board was tilted left, people were more likely to rate statements such as “more money should become available to caregivers” as a left-wing position, but if the board tilted right they rated it as more right-wing. The effect wasn’t enormous, but it was measurable and consistent and statistically significant across all the statements, even when the researchers accounted for pre-existing political opinions and affiliations.
In the basketball study, prior physical experience improved the ability to make predictions from visual information. In the balance board study, the finding was that physical states of the body could influence conceptual states of the mind. We don’t perceive information from the world in a clean, unbiased way. Instead, our perceptions are modified and transformed by and through our bodies. This kind of finding has popped up on all kinds of studies. For example, researchers have also found that coffee can influence how you feel about other people. When volunteers were asked to judge another person’s warmth and friendliness, their rating depended on coffee. When people in the study held a cup of hot coffee,