Paul Minda, a Canadian cognitive psychologist at University of Western Ontario, asked an interesting question on Twitter

Why do people pace around or engage in unguided, unfocused movement when talking on the phone. Does anyone know the answer?

I will focus mainly on a subset of this question, which is: why do we do this type of thing while highly cognitively engaged (e.g., participating in a cognitively demanding conversation, or lecturing).

I like to first try to answer a question myself (drawing as much as I can on my understanding of prior readings) before delving into others’ answers. So here are some “off the cuff” rambling reflections which expand on a series of my Twitter replies to Paul’s tweet. Keep in mind that I don’t specialize in cognitive embodiment. And the following is not rigorous reasoning. Just some (hopefully relevant) thoughts. But I am interested in all things relevant to cognitive productivity, which this is.

Later I might come back to the issue.

Continue reading Peripatetic Reflections on Why We Walk While We Talk and Think Deeply