Are Older Adults Less Embodied? A Review of Age Effects through the Lens of Embodied Cognition

Abstract

Embodied cognition is a theoretical framework which posits that cognitive function is intimately intertwined with the body and physical actions. Although the field of psychology is increasingly accepting embodied cognition as a viable theory, it has rarely been employed in the gerontological literature. However, embodied cognition would appear to have explanatory power for aging research given that older adults typically manifest concurrent physical and mental changes, and that research has indicated a correlative relationship between such changes. The current paper reviews age-related changes in sensory processing, mental representation, and the action-perception relationship, exploring how each can be understood through the lens of embodied cognition. Compared to younger adults, older adults exhibit across all three domains an increased tendency to favor visual processing over bodily factors, leading to the conclusion that older adults are less embodied than young adults. We explore the significance of this finding in light of existing theoretical models of aging and argue that embodied cognition can benefit gerontological research by identifying further factors that can explain the cause of age-related declines.

The dynamics of the interrelation of perception and action across the life span

“…Specifically, along with the changes in action production skill described in the introduction (Reuter et al, 2015;Seidler & Stelmach, 1995), older adults show decreases in the sensitivity of vision (Owsley, 2011), in motion perception as well as visual discrimination ability (Kuehn et al, 2017). Nevertheless, the described shift in focus from motor to visual information across the life span might influence the dynamics within the complex system and result in a decoupling of action perception and production in later adulthood (Costello et al, 2014;Costello & Bloesch, 2017). In line with this, older adults also recruit hippocampal areas during action perception, indicating more top-down influences of memory processes ACTION PERCEPTION ACROSS LIFE SPAN 30 !…”

“…Another possibility is that finding of a negative association between recurrence in participants gaze behaviour and their imitation accuracy might indicate a decoupling of action perception and action production in older adults (Costello & Bloesch, 2017;Kuehn et al, 2017).…”

Enactive Memory

“…Finally, the enactive approach had led questioning the conception of aging considered as only a decline of cognitive functions. Less efficient sensory and motor skills can explain several effects linked to aging, in particular those on memory (Vallet, 2015;Costello and Bloesch, 2017). Moreover, consideration of body specificity can affect clinical evaluation.…”

Interference of action perception on action production increases across the adult life-span

“…Importantly, the age-related differences in this study were measured on the behavioural level as well and older compared to younger participants were less able to capture slight variations in the temporal continuation of a partially occluded action (also see Diersch et al, 2013Diersch et al, , 2012. Hence, the accentuated influence of action perception on the simultaneous action production in our study might be an observable lead for age-related processes associated with a less precise internal representation and simulation of the actions perceived and produced (for a review see Costello & Bloesch, 2017). In line with this, the participants' performance in the inhibition task was not related to their motor interference.…”