Movement Matters! Understanding the Developmental Trajectory of Embodied Planning

Abstract

Human motor skills are exceptional compared to other species, no less than their cognitive skills. In this perspective paper, we suggest that “movement matters!,” implying that motor development is a crucial driving force of cognitive development, much more impactful than previously acknowledged. Thus, we argue that to fully understand and explain developmental changes, it is necessary to consider the interaction of motor and cognitive skills. We exemplify this argument by introducing the concept of “embodied planning,” which takes an embodied cognition perspective on planning development throughout childhood. From this integrated, comprehensive framework, we present a novel climbing paradigm as the ideal testbed to explore the development of embodied planning in childhood and across the lifespan. Finally, we outline future research directions and discuss practical applications of the work on developmental embodied planning for robotics, sports, and education.

A Developmental Embodied Choice Perspective Explains the Development of Numerical Choices

“…During this rapid development, children fine-tune their motor and cognitive skills (Adolph and Hoch, 2019). From a developmental viewpoint, we suggest that bodily growth and motor-skill development are the foundations of cognitive development (Ridler et al, 2006;Koziol et al, 2012;Gottwald et al, 2016;Musculus et al, 2021) building the basis for learning (Adolph and Hoch, 2019). In the numerical context particularly, developmental studies highlight the positive impact of finger-use in preschool years on children's numerical performance later in school (Fayol et al, 1998;Noël, 2005).…”

An Embodied Cognition Perspective on the Role of Interoception in the Development of the Minimal Self

“…Moving further in the developmental trajectory, we hypothesize that the first 2 years of life are crucial to study the development of interoception. This prediction is based on the rapid decrease in heart-beat frequency until 2 years of age (Fleming et al, 2011) and the rather general developmental embodied cognition premise that phases of rapid bodily changes and motor development promote perceptual and cognitive changes (Loeffler et al, 2016;Musculus et al, 2021). We further hypothesize that there might be more drastic changes in interoceptive sensitivity between 2 and 6 years of age (i.e., phases of rapid growth and motor learning) as compared to 6-12 years of age.…”

“…Importantly, our embodied cognition perspective assumes that representations form the body-goal link (cf., Pacherie, 2018;Raab and Araujo, 2019; see Witt and Riley, 2014 for alternative accounts considering interoception), enable goal-directed acting in a flexible and adaptive manner (Schulz, 2018), as well as emerge through sensorimotor and bodily experiences throughout development (cf., Musculus et al, 2021). Given the scarcity of research on the development of interoception, and particularly on interoceptive modalities such as respiration, thermoregulation and so forth, we center our arguments on cardiac interoception from birth to 12 years of age.…”

“…Given the scarcity of research on the development of interoception, and particularly on interoceptive modalities such as respiration, thermoregulation and so forth, we center our arguments on cardiac interoception from birth to 12 years of age. We focus on this age range based on (1) the developmental changes in the frequency of heartbeats (Fleming et al, 2011), ( 2) motor and bodily development (Musculus et al, 2021), and (3) findings on multisensory integration, the sense of ownership and agency (see Figure 1; cf., Georgie et al, 2019). We point out the interaction between multisensory integration of external sensory input, ownership, and agency with internal bodily signals in the formation of the minimal self in development.…”

“…We thereby take a "moderate" position (cf., Goldman, 2012), acknowledging at the same time that other approaches exist aiming to overcome the separation of approaches (e.g., Witt and Riley, 2014;Ciaunica et al, 2021). In addition, our embodied cognition perspective considers bodily changes relevant to explaining human development (Musculus et al, 2021), and, here, relate it to the development of the self.…”