Embodied cognition and the magical future of interaction design

Authors:
David Kirsh
Affiliations:
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Venue:
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) - Special issue on the theory and practice of embodied interaction in HCI and interaction design
Year:
2013

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Abstract

The theory of embodied cognition can provide HCI practitioners and theorists with new ideas about interaction and new principles for better designs. I support this claim with four ideas about cognition: (1) interacting with tools changes the way we think and perceive -- tools, when manipulated, are soon absorbed into the body schema, and this absorption leads to fundamental changes in the way we perceive and conceive of our environments; (2) we think with our bodies not just with our brains; (3) we know more by doing than by seeing -- there are times when physically performing an activity is better than watching someone else perform the activity, even though our motor resonance system fires strongly during other person observation; (4) there are times when we literally think with things. These four ideas have major implications for interaction design, especially the design of tangible, physical, context aware, and telepresence systems.