Release date: Oct. 30, 2002
Contact: Nancy Seideman, Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0640 or nseidem@emory.edu

Psychologist Challenges Traditional
Views of Cognition

Emory University cognitive psychologist Lawrence Barsalou is rethinking how we think, and in the process he’s leading a challenge on the prevailing theories of human thought. Complementing traditional behavioral experiments with the use of neurological imaging, Barsalou is finding the evidence to support his long-held hypothesis.

Describing the brain as "a last frontier of discovery," Barsalou and a growing coalition of scientists around the world believe our cognitive processes—how we recall memories, process information, acquire and retrieve knowledge—are grounded in the sensory-motor mechanisms of the brain. The theory directly conflicts with the prevalent views on cognition that emerged during the 1950s when the advent of computer science had a tremendous impact on psychological theorizing, Barsalou says.

"Developing a new basis and explanation of cognition is the subject of intense debate, since it defines who we are, how we think and acquire knowledge. Reevaluating cognition has ramifications throughout society, from worker training and education to technology and computer programming," says Barsalou.

The current dominant view sees the brain operating somewhat like a computer, accessing different bits of knowledge in separate areas of the brain, as a computer would tap multiple data files. Using this hypothesis, many theorists believe cognition is separate from sensory-motor systems, with one part of the brain implementing all of the higher cognitive processes that use knowledge, while other parts implement sensory perception and action.

In contrast, Barsalou’s research "explores the theory that when we think and conceive of an entity or event in its absence, we partially run sensory-motor mechanisms as if it were present," he says.

Barsalou and other researchers have localized various forms of conceptual processing in sensory-motor areas of the brain using both classic behavioral experiments, along with more recent neuroimaging techniques. Barsalou has found that when people verify the visual properties of an object from memory (for example, a lemon), visual areas of the brain become active. When people switch among sensory modes to verify different properties like taste, smell or touch, the corresponding areas in the brain activate among the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory motor systems as needed, he explains.

Such neurological data, which weren’t possible when the original theories developed, demonstrates that knowledge is based in sensory-motor representations, Barsalou says, and as a result, perception, action and cognition are far from independent and share critical brain systems.

Barsalou, recent past chairman of the Cognitive Science Society, will use a Guggenheim Fellowship he received earlier this year to write a book, "The Human Conceptual System," on his 30 years of cognitive research.

"In a way, with the sensory-based theory, we go back to pre-20th-century ideas and philosophy on the mind, while putting it into a 21st-century, scientific perspective," says Barsalou, who joined the Emory psychology faculty and the department’s program on cognition and development in 1997 from the University of Chicago. He also is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the American Psychological Society.

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