Reading Comprehension is Embodied: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

In this review, I advance the embodied cognition movement in cognitive psychology as both a challenge and an invitation for the study of reading comprehension. Embodied cognition challenges theories which assume that mental operations are based in a common, abstract, amodal code of propositions and schemata. Based on growing research in behavioral and neuroscience, embodied cognition proposes that all cognitive activity is based in sensorimotor activity, opening exciting new vistas for research and practice. Exemplary embodied theories are summarized and compared including those of Glenberg, Barsalou, Lakoff and Johnson, Paivio, and others. Exemplary embodied educational applications to reading comprehension are reviewed. I propose that much reading comprehension research that cites an abstract theoretical basis is actually more consistent with the embodied perspective.