Author(s)

Yanli Huang^*, Xin Li

Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.

Emerging grounded cognition contended that the representation and processing of knowledge involved perceptual, somatosensory, and motoric re-experiencing information. In this view, social interaction was grounded in the physical context. For example, temperature changed people’s social feelings and social feelings were understood by temperature. Hence, the representation of social interaction was based on the sensorimotor representation. However, it is still unclear whether and how humans use grounded cognition theory to explain social interaction. In this review, we first introduced some basic viewpoints of grounded cognition and how this theory can be applied in social interaction. Then it explained the universality of grounded cognition theory by comparing some related theories of grounded cognition. Next, by speculating on the causes of the phenomena of grounded cognition in social interaction, it was proved that grounded cognition theory can be well applied to social interaction. In the last part, the advantages and disadvantages of grounded theory in interpreting social interaction are further discussed by comparing conceptual metaphor theory with grounded cognition theory.

Grounded Cognition, Social Interaction, Physical Sensation

Huang, Y. and Li, X. (2020) The Role of Sensorimotor Representation in Social Interaction. Advances in Applied Sociology, 10, 513-524. doi: 10.4236/aasoci.2020.1012031.