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THE ARCHE OF COGNITION 273
6. Body Representation and the arche of Cognition
Based on Barsalou’s general idea of grounded cognition we set out a specified grounded
action cognition-perspective and referred to recent empirical evidence to motivate our view.
Our formulation of a moderate grounded action cognition-thesis provides not only a critique
but also a prolific prospect of current perspectives labeled “embodied cognition” or notably
“grounded cognition”, but may also give supplementary insights into the nature of mental
representations and their relation to the body of a cognitive system. In our view, motor
abilities are constitutive for certain processes within the domain of action cognition, but not
all action cognition abilities acquired before are constitutively dependent on motor abilities.
We want to further assume that certain body representations are essentially involved in
action cognition and action perception. We have pointed out that some “motor disorders” are
not just motor disorders, but in fact disorders related to multimodal representations. Thus,
we assume that some of these representations that underlie cognition, namely action-related
body representations, are not only modality-specific as usually claimed by proponents of
grounded cognition. To argue for the importance of action-related body representations in
what we call moderate grounded action cognition we want to refer to de Vignemont (2011):
On a minimal definition of the notion of representation, a body representation is an
internal structure that has the function to track the state of the body and encode it, that
can misrepresent the body and that can be decoupled from the body. (de Vignemont
2011)
Overall, the existence of misrepresentations is a good indication that there are at least some
representations involved (cf. Dretske 1986). This definition given by de Vignemont is useful
for an explanation of all cited cases but at first we have to say a little bit more about such kind
of bodily representations that can be “decoupled from the body”. According to Prinz, to say of
cognition in general, that it is embodied, means either that it “depends on the possession and
use of a body, not just a brain” or that it depends on “mental representations or processes that
relate to the body” (Prinz 2009: 420). De Vignemont and Alsmith (2012) keep track of this
difference pointed out by Prinz:
[W]e will call any view that gives a clear explanatory role to the body a ‘strongly
embodied’ view (or ‘strong embodiment’); by contrast, we will call any view that gives a
clear explanatory role to representations of the body, whilst not also giving a clear
explanatory role to the body itself, a ‘weakly embodied’ view (or ‘weak embodiment’).
(de Vignemont and Alsmith 2012: 3)
Wilson makes a similar point by arguing that the cognitive system as a representational
system is able to “decouple” from the body itself while not putting actions into practice (or to
run “off-line”; see Wilson 2002: 633). Given that the body itself is assigned a clear
explanatory role in the general embodied cognition approach, it is sufficient for our current
purpose to refer to the ‘weak embodiment’ concerning the representation of the body to
provide an explanation of the given cognitive phenomena. Generally, two body
representations can be distinguished based on functional criteria: the body image for
recognition and the body schema for action (Gallagher 2005; Paillard 1999). The evidence
provided to support the distinction between these two kinds of body representations relies
mainly on neuropsychological dissociations between deafferentation (disruption of body
schema) and neglect (disruption of body image): Deafferentiated subjects who have lost all
their tactile and proprioceptive input from the neck down cannot use their whole body
schema for motor control. But it is possible for them to control their movements by visual
guidance while the intact body image has to fulfill a new and further task. In contrast, in the
case of a unilateral neglect the patient ignores one side of his body (i.e. shows a disrupted
body image), while the motor abilities for walking and the usage of both hands are not