Previous studies have shown that object properties are processed faster when they follow properties from the same perceptual modality than properties from different modalities. These findings suggest that language activates sensorimotor processes, which, according to those studies, can only be explained by a modal account of cognition. The current paper shows how a statistical linguistic approach of word co-occurrences can also reliably predict the category of perceptual modality a word belongs to (auditory, olfactory–gustatory, visual–haptic), even though the statistical linguistic approach is less precise than the modal approach (auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory, visual). Moreover, the statistical linguistic approach is compared with the modal embodied approach in an experiment in which participants verify properties that share or shift modalities. Response times suggest that fast responses can best be explained by the linguistic account, whereas slower responses can best be explained by the embodied account. These results provide further evidence for the theory that conceptual processing is both linguistic and embodied, whereby less precise linguistic processes precede precise simulation processes.

Abstract The literature contains a disconnect between accounts of how humans learn lexical semantic representations for words. Theories generally propose that lexical semantics are learned either through perceptual experience or through exposure to regularities in language. We propose here a model to integrate these two information sources. Specifically, the model uses the global structure of memory to exploit the redundancy between language and perception in order to generate inferred perceptual representations for words with which the model has no perceptual experience. We test the model on a variety of different datasets from grounded cognition experiments and demonstrate that this diverse set of results can be explained as perceptual simulation (cf. Barsalou, Simmons,

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are “dis-embodied” in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects.

Abstract Recent research indicates that perceptual learning (PL)-experience-induced changes in the way perceivers extract information-plays a larger role in complex cognitive tasks, including abstract and symbolic domains, than has been understood in theory or implemented in instruction. Here, we describe the involvement of PL in complex cognitive tasks and why these connections, along with contemporary experimental and neuroscientific research in perception, challenge widely held accounts of the relation ships among perception, cognition, and learning. We outline three revisions to common assumptions about these relations: 1) Perceptual mechanisms provide complex and abstract descriptions of reality; 2) Perceptual representations are often

Recent literature in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that cognition is fundamentally embodied. For instance, various studies have shown that semantic knowledge about the human body correlates with spatial body representations, suggesting that such knowledge is embodied in nature. An alternative explanation for this finding comes from the Symbol Interdependency Hypothesis, which argues that perceptual information is encoded in language. We demonstrated that the findings that can be explained by an embodied cognition account can also be explained through statistical linguistic frequencies. Co-occurrence frequencies of names for common body parts correlated with experimental findings from adults and children. Moreover, the position of the body parts was predicted on the basis of statistical linguistic frequencies. These findings suggest that language encodes embodied information.

Neurological evidence linguistic processes precede

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00010 Modality switching in a property verification task: an ERP study of what happens when candles flicker after high heels click

The spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect provides evidence for perceptual simulation of symbols. That is, parity judgments with one’s left hand are faster for lower numbers than for higher numbers (with one’s right hand, judgments are faster for higher numbers than for lower numbers). A perceptual simulation account of the SNARC effect leaves little room for a non-embodied explanation, even though recent studies have demonstrated that statistical linguistic data can explain findings from various embodied cognition studies. The current study explored whether such linguistic factors could also explain the SNARC effect. In a response time experiment, participants were asked to make parity judgments of number words. Frequencies of those number words explained the results just as well as a perceptual simulation explanation. Moreover, collocation frequencies (the previous number word and the following number word) also explained response times, further demonstrating that linguistic factors might play an important role in number processing. The results of this experiment show that language encodes information that could also be attributed to perceptual simulations. Consequently, language users might well be using these linguistic cues during number processing.

ABSTRACT: Motor affordances are important for object knowl-edge. Semantic tasks on visual objects often show interactions with motor actions. Prior neuro-imaging studies suggested that motor affordances also play a role in visual working memory for objects. When participants remembered manipulable objects (e.g., hammer) greater premotor cortex activation was observed than when they remembered non-manipulable objects (e.g., polar bear). In the present study participants held object pictures in working memory while performing concurrent tasks such as articulation of nonsense syllables and performing hand movements. Although concurrent tasks did interfere with working memory performance, in none of the experiments did we find any evidence that concur-rent motor tasks affected memory differently for manipulable and non-manipulable objects. I conclude that motor affordances are not used for visual working memory. 1.

This research was supported by grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to Diane Pecher. We are grateful to Larry Barsalou and Gerard Steen for stimulating discussions and Seana Coulson for her very helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Diane Pecher,