In this paper, we examine the claim that mathematical cognition is both an embodied and social endeavour by exploring the co-ordinations of speech, gestures, material objects and sensory activities in a dialogue between a mathematics teacher (researcher) and a blind student. Using a developing theoretical framework in which we attempt to combine aspects of the socio-cultural perspectives of Vygotsky and Leontiev with more recent neuroscientific approaches to human cognition, we argue that the student came to know aspects of the mathematics in question (symmetry and reflection), in a process involving the mental simulation of past experiences in ways which enabled associations between physical and mathematical activities. We also explore the role of the researcher in facilitating a kind of entanglement between culture and cognition by inviting the learner to make connections between sensory experiences (past and present), representational artefacts and culturally accepted mathematical meanings.
embodied cognition and gestures; mediation; blind mathematics learners; simulation; symmetry
