The Cambrige Handbook of Situated Cognition

In recent years there has been a lot of buzz about a new trend in cognitive science. The trend is associated with terms like embodiment, enactivism, distributed cognition, and the extended mind. The ideas expressed using these terms are a diverse and sundry lot, but three of them stand out as especially central. First, cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodiment thesis). Second, cognitive activity routinely exploits structure in the natural and social environment (the embedding thesis). Third, the boundaries of cognition extend beyond the boundaries of individual organisms (the extension thesis).