ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the theory and evidence for embodied cognition, and deals with a discussion of cognitive representation and analogical transfer, mechanisms. It discusses the role that schemas—or some form of representational structure—play in cognition and meaning. Sociocultural experience may override kinesthetic experience, a finding that helps explain the salience of professionalization and task on cognitive structure. Cross-cultural linguistic studies of abstract domains such as space are another source of evidence for sociocultural grounding. Representational structure is at the core of many cognitive processes. It is useful to organize the various orientations to schemas as either those characterized by conscious procedural or propositional knowledge; as preconscious, non-propositional and tacit modes of representation; or both. Propositional schemas organize recurring “conceptual and propositional knowledge” about typical events and situations. With regard to spatial orientation, there is evidence that objects and events, as much as bodily experience, provide a foundation for schema induction.
