I took the time to do some research. I found a paper about embodied cognition. This is quite a recent field in the area of cognitive psychology. It is a long story, but it boils down to this:
(…) the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They (philosophers, cognitive scientists) argue that all aspects of cognition, such as ideas, thoughts, concepts and categories are shaped by aspects of the body. These aspects include the perceptual system, the intuitions that underlie the ability to move, activities and interactions with our environment and the naive understanding of the world that is built into the body and the brain.
The core of the theory is quite simple and logical. But it’s interesting how the human mind develops mental models, and how much influence the physical body has on this process. An article that explains embodied cognition in an easy, mainstream way can be found here. It uses the movies Avatar and District 9 as a nice way to explain it.
This theory is applied through the field of embodied interaction. I want to focus myself in this area the coming weeks.
I also reading some interesting books / papers to support my studies:
Donald A. Norman - Emotional Design
Dan Roam - The back of a Napkin (extended edition, F. Yeah!)
Scott R. Klemmer - How Bodies Matter: Five themes for Interaction Design
