ABSTRACT
The last couple of decadeshave seen anenormousdevelopment in the studyof embodied
cognition through the investigation of conceptual mappings, such as conceptual meta-
phor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003) and conceptual blending (Fauconnier & Turner,
2002). Initially, this progress was achieved at a theoretical level, and more recently
through empirical research in basic science-from psycholinguistics, to cross-cultural
anddevelopmental studies, to cognitive neuroscience (for a collectionof reviewchapters,
see, for example, Gibbs, 2008; see also, Fauconnier & Turner, 2002; Lakoff & Nu´n˜ez,
2000). These advancements have begun to be applied to domains such as literary criti-
cism (Turner, 1998), advertising (Joy, Sherry, & Deschenes, 2009), law and courtroom
settings (Pascual, 2008), theater (Cook, 2007), and, importantly, they have reached the
critical sphere of education in mathematics (e.g. Edwards, 2009; Zandieh, Roh, &
Knapp, 2014) and science (Hrepic, Zollman, & Rebello, 2010). The present issue con-
stitutes an excellent example of how science education is reaching new levels of research
maturity and sophistication, bringing advances from contemporary cognitive science to
the study of the richness and complexity involved in the teaching and learning of
science-a laudable endeavor. Beyond the already multilayered practice of teaching
and implementing educational curricula, taking the step of conducting empirical
research in the domain of embodied cognition and conceptual mappings in educational
settings brings new challenges and difficulties. Here I will analyze some of these difficul-
ties, hoping that they make a contribution to the design and implementation of future
empirical research in these domains. Although I will refer specifically to two articles of
this special issue (Dreyfus,Gupta,&Redish, 2015;Close&Scherr, 2015), thediscussion
should be generic enough so that it can be applied to other research settings that investi-
gate embodied cognition, conceptual mappings and gesture in mathematics and science
education.
