Embodied approaches in cognitive science hold that the body is crucial for cognition. What this claim amounts to, however, still remains unclear. This paper contributes to its clarification by confronting three ways of understanding embodiment—the sensorimotor approach, extended cognition and enactivism—with Locked-in syndrome. LIS is a case of severe global paralysis in which patients are unable to move and yet largely remain cognitively intact. We propose that LIS poses a challenge to embodied approaches to cognition requiring them to make explicit (...) the notion of embodiment they defend and its role for cognition. We argue that the sensorimotor and the extended functionalist approaches either fall short of accounting for cognition in LIS from an embodied perspective or do it too broadly by relegating the body only to a historical role. Enactivism conceives of the body as autonomous system and of cognition as sense-making. From this perspective embodiment is not equated with bodily movement but with forms of agency that do not disappear with body paralysis. Enactivism offers a clarifying perspective on embodiment and thus currently appears to be the framework in embodied cognition best suited to address the challenge posed by LIS. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory (Noe¨, 2004, in press) discusses a special instance of lack of perceptual experience despite no sensory impairment. The phenomenon dubbed “experiential blindness” is cited as evidence for a constitutive relation between sensorimotor skills and perceptual experience. Recently it has been objected (Adams & Aizawa, 2008; Aizawa, 2007) that the cases described by Noe¨ as experiential blindness are cases of pure sensory deficit. This paper argues that while the objections bring out limitations of Noe¨’s sensorimotor theory they do (...) not do enough to challenge a robust perception–action interdependence claim. There are genuine cases of experiential blindness and these are better explained by the hypothesis of the interdependence of perception and action rather than by a passive vision approach. The cases provide support for a strong thesis of embodied cognition where ongoing sensorimotor dynamics non-trivially constrain perceptual content. (shrink)