Motor Perception in Language Comprehension: Perspective from Embodied Cognition

Twenty years after Barsalou’s seminal perceptual-symbols article, embodied cognition, the notion that cognition involves simulations of sensory, motor, or affective states, has moved from an outlandish proposal to a mainstream position adopted by many researchers in the psychological and cognitive sciences (and neurosciences). Though it has generated productive work in the cognitive sciences as a whole, it has had a particularly strong impact on research into language comprehension. The view of a mental lexicon based on symbolic word representations, which are arbitrarily linked to sensory aspects of their referents, was generally accepted since the cognitive revolution in the 1950s. This has radically changed. Given the current status of embodiment as a main theory of cognition, it is somewhat surprising that a close look at the literature reveals that the debate about the nature of the processes involved in language comprehension is far from settled, and key questions remain unanswered. We present several suggestions for a productive way forward.

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Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology

Pragmatics & Cognition ◽

10.1075/pc.14.2.07gle ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 263-274 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Arthur M. Glenberg

Keyword(s):

Dynamic System ◽

Embodied Cognition ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Distributed Cognition ◽

Cognitive Process ◽

Empirical Work ◽

Symbol Manipulation ◽

Language Understanding ◽

Cultural Processes ◽

Bodily States

A strong case can be made that the cognitive system is designed for guiding action, not, for example, symbol manipulation. I review empirical work demonstrating the link between action and cognition with special attention to the processes of language comprehension. Next, I sketch an embodied cognition framework for integrating work on language understanding with a more general approach to cognition and action. This general approach considers contributions to action of bodily states, emotions, social and cultural processes, and learning within a framework that generates a dynamic system. This framework is used to consider the notion of distributed cognition and the prospects that technology might induce substantial changes in cognition. My assessment is that such changes are unlikely.

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Embodied Cognition, affects and language comprehension

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences ◽

10.1007/s11097-020-09684-0 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Johannes Odendahl

Keyword(s):

Embodied Cognition ◽

Language Comprehension

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Conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) supports core claims of Christiansen and Chater

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x15000928 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

Author(s):

Mary C. Potter

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Visual Presentation ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Use Of Knowledge

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.

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„Embodied Cognition”

Zeitschrift für Sportpsychologie ◽

10.1026/1612-5010/a000019 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 120-129 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Sian L. Beilock ◽

Tanja Hohmann

Keyword(s):

Embodied Cognition

Zusammenfassung. Im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Ansätzen, in denen das Gehirn als abstrakter Informationsprozessor gesehen wurde, gehen aktuelle Theorien davon aus, dass unsere Repräsentationen von Objekten und Ereignissen in einem engen Zusammenhang mit den damit verbundenen Handlungsmöglichkeiten stehen (sog. „embodied cognition”). Unsere Kognitionen, d. h. wie wir Objekte oder auch Ereignisse in der Umwelt repräsentieren, hängen demnach von den eigenen Handlungserfahrungen ab. Das Ziel dieses Übersichtsartikels besteht darin, aktuelle Ergebnisse sowohl aus der verhaltens- als auch der neurowissenschaftlichen Forschung zu dokumentieren. Diese zeigen, dass sensomotorische Erfahrungen die Kognitionen beeinflussen. Bewegungserfahrung spielt deshalb eine zentrale Rolle innerhalb des „embodied cognition Ansatzes”. Aus diesem Grund erscheint es sinnvoll, dass Forscher aus den Bereichen der Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften sowie der Sportpsychologie und Motorikforschung zusammenarbeiten, um die Theorien zu „embodied cognition” weiter voran zu bringen.

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Activation and Persistence of Implicit Causality Information in Spoken Language Comprehension

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000002 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 5-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Pirita Pyykkönen ◽

Juhani Järvikivi

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Spoken Language ◽

Visual World ◽

Implicit Causality ◽

Causality Information ◽

Spoken Language Comprehension

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account ( Greene & McKoon, 1995 ; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006 ; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007 ). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

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Exploring the Boundaries of the Number–Temporal Order Association

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000285 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 62 (3) ◽

pp. 198-205 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dana Ganor-Stern

Keyword(s):

Embodied Cognition ◽

Mental Representation ◽

Temporal Order ◽

Past Research ◽

Numerical Comparison ◽

Negative Number ◽

Comparison Task ◽

Negative Numbers ◽

The Past

Past research has shown that numbers are associated with order in time such that performance in a numerical comparison task is enhanced when number pairs appear in ascending order, when the larger number follows the smaller one. This was found in the past for the integers 1–9 ( Ben-Meir, Ganor-Stern, & Tzelgov, 2013 ; Müller & Schwarz, 2008 ). In the present study we explored whether the advantage for processing numbers in ascending order exists also for fractions and negative numbers. The results demonstrate this advantage for fraction pairs and for integer-fraction pairs. However, the opposite advantage for descending order was found for negative numbers and for positive-negative number pairs. These findings are interpreted in the context of embodied cognition approaches and current theories on the mental representation of fractions and negative numbers.

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Moving to Solution

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000213 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 60 (6) ◽

pp. 403-409 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

K. Werner ◽

M. Raab

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Embodied Cognition ◽

Cognitive Functions ◽

Problem Space ◽

Arm Swing ◽

String Problem ◽

Problem Solving Process ◽

Problem Solving Task ◽

Bodily Movements

Embodied cognition theories suggest a link between bodily movements and cognitive functions. Given such a link, it is assumed that movement influences the two main stages of problem solving: creating a problem space and creating solutions. This study explores how specific the link between bodily movements and the problem-solving process is. Seventy-two participants were tested with variations of the two-string problem (Experiment 1) and the water-jar problem (Experiment 2), allowing for two possible solutions. In Experiment 1 participants were primed with arm-swing movements (swing group) and step movements on a chair (step group). In Experiment 2 participants sat in front of three jars with glass marbles and had to sort these marbles from the outer jars to the middle one (plus group) or vice versa (minus group). Results showed more swing-like solutions in the swing group and more step-like solutions in the step group, and more addition solutions in the plus group and more subtraction solutions in the minus group. This specificity of the connection between movement and problem-solving task will allow further experiments to investigate how bodily movements influence the stages of problem solving.

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