Mind the Gap: The 4M Bridge Between 4E-Cognition and Movement-Based Design

This concept paper proposes the 4M framework, a movement-based design model intended to bridge the gap between the abstract theory of embodied cognition (specifically the 4E perspectives of embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended cognition) and concrete practices for designing with and of movement. The authors, a sports science group at the University of Southern Denmark, argue that no existing framework places the moving body at the core of the design process, and they aim to make movement-based methods accessible to designers, engineers, and sports or movement professionals who are not movement experts. The framework draws on Dalsgaard and Dindler's notion of a bridging concept as an intermediary between theory and practice.

The 4M model is organized into four independent constituents: Mood-setters (warm-up-like activities classified by exertion, playfulness, body awareness, and creativity), Movement methods (design techniques using movement as a medium, categorized into exertion, playfulness, body awareness, and role-playing), Movement concepts (multi-disciplinary research knowledge presented as manageable cards spanning areas such as motor learning, sports psychology, and sports technology), and Modifiers (physical and conceptual prompts that tweak or disrupt design practice). The development process followed constructive design research across roughly three years, moving through phases the authors call "Storming" and "Symphony."

The framework is illustrated through two cases: a bachelor course in which sports science students create acrobatic performances, and a re-reading of Segura, Vidal and Rostami's HangXRT bodystorming workshop around a suspension trainer. The authors acknowledge that the framework remains untested in terms of its actual value, and that empirical evaluation is still needed.