Are Situation Models Embodied?

Abstract

This paper focused on the question about whether situation models are embodied in human cognition. The embodied cognition theory could be a potential solution to the grounding problem in cognitive psychology. However, when it is linked to the situation model theory, it became ambiguous about whether the situation models are also embodied. According to the situation model theory, people could simulate things that are implied or not stated in the text as well, but the current evidence for embodied cognition only showed that people would reenact mental simulation while they read a word explicitly. This paper would begin with a review about the embodied cognition theory and situation model theory as well as their behavioral evidence, and then the authors would suggest further way of testing the embodiment of situation models.