Embodied cognition as a motivating perspective for haptic interaction design: A position paper

In cognitive science and philosophy, the conception of cognition has evolved rapidly in recent years. It is no longer strictly a process that happens inside the head, intervening between perception and action. Instead, cognition is considered something that subsumes both perception and action, engages the body, and even incorporates the response of objects in the environment to actions taken upon them. One speaks of cognition being embodied and extended. Cognitive processes such as problem solving might actually involve the coupled dynamics of the body and the environment, where the finding of problem solutions involves interactively driving the coupled dynamics toward behaviors that satisfy the task goals of an individual. Researchers in haptics have long been working with the notions of dynamical coupling between the body and environment, with interwoven definitions of perception and action, and with flexible conceptions of the proximal and distal and the physical and virtual. It is perhaps striking to suppose that the activity during which our users wield our interface devices might be considered cognition itself. We suggest in this paper that the field of haptics is uniquely positioned to draw upon and to contribute to active debates in cognitive science, and that a new interpretation of “interface” can be useful in launching such an endeavor.