Defining embodied cognition: The problem of situatedness

The embodied view of cognition rejects the substantial dualism between brain and body, claiming the primary role of sensorimotor experience on the development of conceptual knowledge. From this perspective, knowledge is grounded on physical properties of the body and the surrounding world. Furthermore, cognition is situated in a social and environmental context. However, the terms embodied, grounded, and situated are not univocally defined. This article focuses on the notion of situatedness, developing the discussion from the point of view of a computational modeler and roboticist, showing that minor and negligible differences on the definition of the field causes major operational divergences in synthetic models of cognition. A definition of two notions of situatedness are developed a posteriori, that is, by considering epistemological and ontological differences on artificial models. Finally, strengths and weakness of the two approaches are discussed.