认知与身体:理论心理学的视角

文章站在理论心理学的立场,从具身的维度,探讨了认知与身体的可能关系。文章指出,自古希腊以来的西方文化中,二元论思想一直占据主导地位。柏拉图是二元论思想的最早代表,笛卡尔从认识论上确证了心、物二元世界的存在。传统认知心理学承袭了身心分离的二元论传统,视心智为独立于身体感觉运动系统的抽象符号信息加工。但是具身认知的兴起对二元论提出了挑战。从具身的维度来看,认知是身体的认知,身体是认知的主体。认知在以下三个方面表现出对身体的依赖性:a.身体限制着认知的特征与范围。有机体的身体结构、身体的活动能力限制了认知表征的性质和内容;b.身体不仅限制着认知加工,而且可以作为认知加工的一个组成部分,在大脑和身体之间分配认知任务,发挥着一种类似于分销商的作用;c.身体调节着认知,影响着思维、判断、情绪和动机等心智过程。上述事实说明,身心并非对立的二元,而是一体,身体与环境的互动造就了心智和认知。心智、身体、环境是一体化过程。

Cognition and Body:A Perspective from Theoretical Psychology

With the approach of theoretical psychology, this paper is to explore the possible relations between cognition and body in light of embodiment thesis. According to present author, Dualist viewpoints of mind-body relationship, until recently, have been in dominant position in western culture. The denial of the body in consideration of human mind has been a heritage of the western intellectual zeitgeist since the time of the ancient Greeks. Plato put the body in the position of distraction in intellectual life, and separated the human soul from the body. He is the earliest representative of dualism. In the 17th century, a philosopher of France, Rene Descartes, epistemologically, demonstrated the existence of the dualist world, and distinguished between physical substances and thinking substance. According to Descartes, physical substances (“res extensa”)could be measured and divided, and occupied a physical space, while the thinking substance (“res cogitans”) could not be divided, and was unextended into physical space. Following in Descartes’ footsteps, traditional cognitive science took the metaphor, the MIND IS A COMPUTER. Human mind has been modeled as a digital computer, and cognition was considered as an autonomous, logical, and disembodied process. There was a sharp line between human physical capacities and its intellectual abilities. This kind of dualist viewpoints has been challenged, however, in recent decades in cognitive science. One of the most recent developments that has implications for understanding the relationship between cognition and body is that of embodied mind. According to proponents of theoretical models of embodiment, cognition is body’s cognition, and body is the subject rather than the object of cognition. In author’s opinion, the dependence of cognition on body can be in the following aspects: (1) an agent’s body in action is a powerful constraint on how the agent conceive their environments. Because of its bodily shape and structure, some forms of cognition tend to be easier, and some kinds of cognition tend to be difficult even impossible. (2) an agent’s body can function to distribute cognitive tasks between brain and body, and between body and environment. This means that the mind extends beyond the skull and skin into the outer physical environment, and cognitive systems may loop into the world and hence constitute hybrid systems consisting of both neural and non-neural parts of the body. (3) an agent’s body can regulate cognitive activity and influence mental processes. Nodding our heads result in more positive evaluations, while shaking our heads result in more negative evaluations. This indicate our body’s influence on our mind. Generally speaking, body and mind are not separated but unified. The interaction between body and the world made the mind become possible.