Does Embodiment of Verbs Influence Predicate Metaphor Processing in a Second Language? Evidence From Picture Priming

Distinct from nominal metaphors, predicate metaphors entail metaphorical abstraction from concrete verbs, which generally involve more action and stronger motor simulation than nouns. It remains unclear whether and how the concrete, embodied aspects of verbs are connected with abstract, disembodied thinking in the brains of L2 learners. Since English predicate metaphors are unfamiliar to Chinese L2 learners, the study of embodiment effect on English predicate metaphor processing may provide new evidence for embodied cognition and categorization models that remain controversial, and offer practical insights into L2 metaphor processing and pedagogy. Hence, we aim to investigate whether the embodiment of verbs, via the activation of sensorimotor information, influences two groups of L2 learners during their comprehension of conventional and novel predicate metaphors. The results show a significant effect of embodiment: a stronger facilitation for novel predicate metaphors in both higher-level and lower-level groups, and a weaker facilitation for conventional predicate metaphors in the lower-level group. The findings demonstrate preliminary evidence for a graded effect of embodiment on predicate metaphors processing, modulated by L2 proficiency and metaphor novelty. The study supports a hybrid view of embodied cognition and reveals that sensorimotor aspects of verbs may be the intermediate entity involved in the indirect categorization.

Adults Do Not Distinguish Action Intentions Based on Movement Kinematics Presented in Naturalistic Settings

Predicting others’ actions is an essential part of acting in the social world. Action kinematics have been proposed to be a cue about others’ intentions. It is still an open question as to whether adults can use kinematic information in naturalistic settings when presented as a part of a richer visual scene than previously examined. We investigated adults’ intention perceptions from kinematics using naturalistic stimuli in two experiments. In experiment 1, thirty participants watched grasp-to-drink and grasp-to-place movements and identified the movement intention (to drink or to place), whilst their mouth-opening muscle activity was measured with electromyography (EMG) to examine participants’ motor simulation of the observed actions. We found anecdotal evidence that participants could correctly identify the intentions from the action kinematics, although we found no evidence for increased activation of their mylohyoid muscle during the observation of grasp-to-drink compared to grasp-to-place actions. In pre-registered experiment 2, fifty participants completed the same task online. With the increased statistical power, we found strong evidence that participants were not able to discriminate intentions based on movement kinematics. Together, our findings suggest that the role of action kinematics in intention perception is more complex than previously assumed. Although previous research indicates that under certain circumstances observers can perceive and act upon intention-specific kinematic information, perceptual differences in everyday scenes or the observers’ ability to use kinematic information in more naturalistic scenes seems limited.

Short-term upper limb immobilization and the embodied view of memory: A pilot study

The present study aimed to explore the contribution of the manual sensorimotor system to the memory of graspable objects. Participants in the experimental group underwent a short-term upper limb immobilization design to decrease arousal to their dominant hand. Such designs are known to elicit updating of sensorimotor representations and to hardened use of implicit motor simulation, a process that occurs when observing graspable objects. Subsequently, a free recall and a recognition task of graspable and non-graspable objects took place. We found slower recognition for graspable than for non-graspable objects in the control group, while no differences appeared for the immobilized group. Moreover, the recognition latency for graspable objects tended to be slower for the control than for the immobilized group. These results suggest that a time demanding reactivation of motor simulation is elicited when a graspable object is correctly recognized by control participants. The effect of immobilization could prevent this reactivation, leading to faster recognition. Hence, immobilization selectively affects graspable object memory, showing a close relationship with the manual sphere of the sensorimotor system. We suggest that recognition accuracy would probably be affected in cases of stronger disruption of sensorimotor arousal.

Retraction: DC Motor Simulation using LTSpice (IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 426 012137)

This article has been retracted by IOP Publishing following an allegation that this article reproduces FesZ Electronics (2019, March 29) LTSpice Tutorial - Modeling a DC brushed motor [Video]. YouTube: https://youtu.be/Wc4XzTrWSpo. IOP Publishing has investigated in line with the COPE guidelines, and the author agrees they reproduced this work without credit or acknowledgement. Consequently, this paper has been retracted by IOP Publishing. The authors agree to this retraction and apologise to the original creator of the work. Retraction published: 08 December 2021

Typically Efficient Lipreading without Motor Simulation

All it takes is a face-to-face conversation in a noisy environment to realize that viewing a speaker's lip movements contributes to speech comprehension. What are the processes underlying the perception and interpretation of visual speech? Brain areas that control speech production are also recruited during lipreading. This finding raises the possibility that lipreading may be supported, at least to some extent, by a covert unconscious imitation of the observed speech movements in the observer's own speech motor system—a motor simulation. However, whether, and if so to what extent, motor simulation contributes to visual speech interpretation remains unclear. In two experiments, we found that several participants with congenital facial paralysis were as good at lipreading as the control population and performed these tasks in a way that is qualitatively similar to the controls despite severely reduced or even completely absent lip motor representations. Although it remains an open question whether this conclusion generalizes to other experimental conditions and to typically developed participants, these findings considerably narrow the space of hypothesis for a role of motor simulation in lipreading. Beyond its theoretical significance in the field of speech perception, this finding also calls for a re-examination of the more general hypothesis that motor simulation underlies action perception and interpretation developed in the frameworks of motor simulation and mirror neuron hypotheses.

Visual Hand Recognition in Hand Laterality and Self-Other Discrimination Tasks: Relationships to Autistic Traits and Positive Body Image

In a study concerning visual body part recognition, a “self-advantage” effect, whereby self-related body stimuli are processed faster and more accurately than other-related body stimuli, was revealed, and the emergence of this effect is assumed to be tightly linked to implicit motor simulation, which is activated when performing a hand laterality judgment task in which hand ownership is not explicitly required. Here, we ran two visual hand recognition tasks, namely, a hand laterality judgment task and a self-other discrimination task, to investigate (i) whether the self-advantage emerged even if implicit motor imagery was assumed to be working less efficiently and (ii) how individual traits [such as autistic traits and the extent of positive self-body image, as assessed via the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2), respectively] modulate performance in these hand recognition tasks. Participants were presented with hand images in two orientations [i.e., upright (egocentric) and upside-down (allocentric)] and asked to judge whether it was a left or right hand (an implicit hand laterality judgment task). They were also asked to determine whether it was their own, or another person’s hand (an explicit self-other discrimination task). Data collected from men and women were analyzed separately. The self-advantage effect in the hand laterality judgment task was not revealed, suggesting that only two orientation conditions are not enough to trigger this motor simulation. Furthermore, the men’s group showed a significant positive correlation between AQ scores and reaction times (RTs) in the laterality judgment task, while the women’s group showed a significant negative correlation between AQ scores and differences in RTs and a significant positive correlation between BAS-2 scores and dprime in the self-other discrimination task. These results suggest that men and women differentially adopt specific strategies and/or execution processes for implicit and explicit hand recognition tasks.

Weight estimations with time-reversed point-light displays

Interpreting other’s actions is a very important ability not only in social life, but also in interactive sports. Previous experiments have demonstrated good estimation performances for the weight of lifted objects through point-light displays. The basis for these performances is commonly assigned to the concept of motor simulation regarding observed actions. In this study, we investigated the weak version of the motor simulation hypothesis which claims that the goal of an observed action strongly influences its understanding (Fogassi, Ferrari, Gesierich, Rozzi, Chersi, & Rizzolatti, 2005). Therefore, we conducted a weight judgement task with point-light displays and showed participants videos of a model lifting and lowering three different weights. The experimental manipulation consisted of a goal change of these actions by showing the videos normal and in a time-reversed order of sequence. The results show a systematic overestimation of weights for time-reversed lowering actions (thus looking like lifting actions) while weight estimations for time-reversed lifting actions did not differ from the original playback direction. The results are discussed in terms of motor simulation and different kinematic profiles of the presented actions.