High-level Enactive and Embodied Cognition in Expert Sport Performance

Cognition arises through interactions between organisms and their environment, not through internal mental representations. Enactive and embodied theories explain high-level performances in sports, dance, and martial arts better than representational accounts. Flow and mushin—mindfully fluid awareness—are explained enactively. This analysis shows that enactivism offers theoretical and practical advantages for understanding high performance, while sports performance validates enactivism.

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Abstract

Abstract Mental representation has long been central to standard accounts of action and cognition generally, and in the context of sport. We argue for an enactive and embodied account that rejects the idea that representation is necessary for cognition, and posit instead that cognition arises, or is enacted, in certain types of interactions between organisms and their environment. More specifically, we argue that enactive theories explain some kinds of high-level cognition, those that underlie some of the best performances in sport and similar practices (dance, martial arts), better than representational accounts. Flow and mushin (mindfully fluid awareness) are explained enactively to this end. This results in a mutually beneficial analysis where enactivism offers theoretical and practical advantages as an explanation of high performance in sports, while the latter validates enactivism.