Dotov, Nie and Chemero (2010) conducted a set of exper-iments to demonstrate how phenomenology, particularly thework of Martin Heidegger, interfaces with experimental re-search in embodied cognitive science. Specifically, they drew aparallel between Heidegger’s notion of readiness-to-hand andthe concept of an extended cognitive system (Clark 2008) bylooking for the presence or absence of interaction-dominantdynamics (Holden, van Orden, and Turvey 2009; Ihlen andVereijken 2010) in a hand/mouse system. We share Dotov,Nie and Chemero’s optimism about the potential for cross-pollination between phenomenology and cognitive science, butwe think that it can be better advanced through a shift in fo-cus. First, we argue in favor of using Maurice Merleau-Ponty’sphenomenological theory as the philosophical foundation forexperimental research in embodied cognitive science. Sec-ond, we describe an audio-visual tracking task in virtual realitythat we designed and used to empirically investigate human-environment coupling and interactivity. In addition to provid-ing further support for phenomenologically-inspired empiricalcognitive science, our research also offers a more generaliz-able scientific treatment of the interaction between humans andtheir environments.