Expertise and embodied cognition

Traditional views of cognitive psychology characterize the mind as an abstract information processor largely divorced from the body and the environment. However, more recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that our ability to represent objects and events is subserved by the sensorimotor systems that govern acting on these objects and in the events in question. This embodied viewpoint has roots in ecological psychology’s refutation of a distinction between perception and action and finds support across multiple levels of psychological inquiry (from behavioral work to neurophysiological research in both humans and animals). Recently we have attempted to broaden this conception of bodily influence by asking questions about how skill expertise contributes to embodied knowledge both within and outside one’s skill domain. In terms of a professional hockey player for example, does merely reading the sentence “The hockey player took the shot” lead to the recruitment of the sensorimotor systems that would be involved in actually performing this action in manner that does not occur for a novice with no hockey experience or a hockey fan who has never stepped on the ice? And moreover, does the differential recruitment of these action systems contribute to a fundamentally different understanding of the above sentence in the hockey player as compared to his/her novice counterparts? Insight into how individuals at various skill levels represent task-relevant information (even when there is not intention to act) will not only shed light on differences in the cognitive substrates governing novice and expert performance, but it will also inform us about the best way to teach skills to others.

Select Relevant Publications:

Yang, S., Gallo, D., & Beilock, S.L. (2009). Embodied memory judgments: A case of motor fluency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 35, 1359-1365. (pdf)

Beilock, S. L. (2009). Grounding cognition in action: Expertise, comprehension, and judgment. Motion and Cognition. In M. Raab & J. Johnson (Eds.), Mind and Motion: The Bidirectional Link between Thought and Action. Progress in Brain Research (pp. 3-11). Elsevier.

Beilock, S. L. & Lyons, I. M. (2008). Expertise and the mental simulation of action. In K. Markman, B. Klein, and J. Suhr (Eds.), The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation (pp. 21-34) . Psychology Press.

Beilock, S. L., Lyons, I. M., Mattarella-Micke, A., Nusbaum, H. C., & Small, S. L. (2008). Sports experience changes the neural processing of action language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 105, 13269–13273. (pdf)

Beilock, S. L. (2008). Beyond the playing field: Sports psychology meets embodied cognition. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1, 19-30. (pdf)

Beilock, S. L., & Gonso, S. (2008). Putting in the mind vs. putting on the green: Expertise, performance time, and the linking of imagery and action. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 61, 920-932. (pdf)

Gray, R., Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2007). “As soon as the bat met the ball, I knew it was gone”: Outcome prediction, hindsight bias, and the representation and control of action in novice and expert baseball players. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 669-675. (pdf)

Beilock, S. L. & Holt, L. E. (2007). Embodied preference judgments: Can likeability be driven by the motor system? Psychological Science, 18, 51-57. (pdf)

Holt, L. E. & Beilock, S. L. (2006). Expertise and its embodiment: Examining the impact of sensorimotor skill expertise on the representation of action-related text. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 694-701. (pdf)

Beilock, S. L., Afremow, J. A., Rabe, A. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001) “Don’t miss!” The debilitating effects of suppressive imagery on golf putting performance. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 23, 200-221. (pdf)