A Developmental Embodied Choice Perspective Explains the Development of Numerical Choices

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore how an embodied view can redirect our understanding of decision making. To achieve this goal, we contribute a developmental embodied choice perspective. Our perspective integrates embodiment and bounded rationality from a developmental view in which the body provides cues that are used in abstract choices. Hereby, the cues evolve with the body that is not static and changes through development. To demonstrate the body’s involvement in abstract choices, we will consider choices in numerical settings in which the body is not necessarily needed for the solution. For this, we consider the magnitude-judgment task in which one has to choose the larger of two magnitudes. In a nutshell, our perspective will pinpoint how the concept of embodied choices can explain the development of numerical choices.