Thanks to an academic discipline called Embodied Cognition, there’s a growing amount of research available about how people think with their whole bodies.

Since body/mind collaboration is right up the MuseCubes alley, we’ll collect many of these articles here, for your edification and enjoyment.

Enjoy this excerpt from Discover Magazine.  The article describes six experiments that explore how the things we touch affect our judgments and decisions, and then discusses the following conclusions:

In all six experiments, the effects were very specific. People deemed conversations to be stricter after touching a hard object, but not more positive. Heavy boards make interview candidates seem more serious but not more sociable. As Ackerman says, “These findings emphasize the power of that unique adaptation, the hand, to manipulate the mind as well as the environment.” And the last study with the chair suggests that even our buttocks have some sway over our minds.

According to Ackerman, these effects happen because our understanding of abstract concepts is deeply rooted in physical experiences. Touch is the first of our senses to develop. In the earliest days of our lives, our ability to feel things like texture and temperature provides a tangible framework that we can use to understand more nebulous notions like importance or personal warmth. Eventually, the two become tied together, so that touching objects can activate the concepts that they are associated with.

This idea is known as “embodied cognition” and the metaphors and idioms in our languages provide hints about such associations. The link between weight and importance comes through in phrases such as “heavy matters” and the “gravity of the situation”. We show the link between texture and harshness when we describe a “rough day” or “coarse language”. And the link between hardness and stability or rigidity becomes clear when we describe someone as “hard-hearted” or “being a rock”.

If you want to read more about the specific experiments that were done, check out the whole article here. And thanks a bunch to Esperanca, who brought the article to my attention.