1.1. Conceptual systems 621 1.2. Semantic memory 621

Abstract not found

The effects of priming are not limited to semantics but have also been witnessed in visual-motor tasks (Tucker & Ellis, 2001). By generalizing ACT-R’s (Anderson, 2007) existing spreading activation account to include visual representations and broadening the context within which associations are established, we have been able to replicate this small but reliable phenomenon both in simulation and embodied on a humanoid robotic platform. This model illustrates that the effect doesn’t require strict embodiment (e.g., Barsalou, 1999) but can instead be accounted for with abstract representations that are “grounded by interaction ” (Mahon & Caramazza, 2008).

Thirty years ago, grounded cognition had roots in philosophy, perception, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuropsychology. During the next 20 years, grounded cognition continued developing in these areas, and it also took new forms in robotics, cognitive ecology, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental psychology. In the past 10 years, research on grounded cognition has grown rapidly, especially in cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology. Currently, grounded cognition appears to be achieving increased acceptance throughout cognitive science, shifting from relatively minor status to increasing importance. Nevertheless, researchers wonder whether grounded mechanisms lie at the heart of the cognitive system or are peripheral to classic symbolic mechanisms. Although grounded cognition is currently dominated by demonstration experiments in the absence of well-developed theories, the area is likely to become increasingly theory driven over the next 30 years. Another likely development is the increased incorporation of grounding mechanisms into cognitive architectures and into accounts of classic cognitive phenomena. As this incorporation occurs, much functionality of these architectures and

and prediction

Marketing practices that promote calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods directly to children and adolescents present significant public health risk. Worldwide, calls for government action and industry change to protect young people from the negative effects of food marketing have increased. Current proposals focus on restricting television advertising to children under 12 years old, but current psychological models suggest that much more is required. All forms of marketing pose considerable risk; adolescents are also highly vulnerable; and food marketing may produce far-reaching negative health outcomes. We propose a food marketing defense model that posits four necessary conditions to effectively counter harmful food marketing practices: awareness, understanding, ability, and motivation to resist. A new generation of psychological research is needed to examine each of these processes, including the psychological mechanisms through which food marketing affects young people, to identify public policy that will effectively protect them from harmful influence. Over the past 30 years, the prevalence of obesity in the United States and

1 The relationship between physical and psychological states, or what is called embodiment is a growing focus of research in the behavioral sciences. Embodiment refers to a broad range of phenomena in which bodily states or postures seem to produce thoughts, feelings and beliefs, directly, in the absence of situational factors that might warrant such reactions (Niedenthal, Barsalou, WInkielman, Krauth-Gruber and Francois Ric, 2005). For example, Strack, Martin & Stepper found that when people were led to contract the zygomaticous (smiling) muscle of their faces by holding a pen in their mouth they evaluated cartoons as more funny (1988). People liked Chinese ideographs more when they viewed them while enacting the approach behavior of pushing upward on a table from underneath as opposed to when they took part in the avoidance behavior of pushing downward and away from the body (Caciopo, Priester & Berntson, 1993). Wells and Petty found that people were more persuaded by messages they heard while nodding their head as if in agreement than they were with messages they heard while shaking their head as if in dissent (1980). Researchers have studied the role of embodiment in shaping our attitudes, emotions and self-perceptions. Work on the relationship among body postures, facial expressions and the experience of emotions (Strack, Martin & Stepper, 1988; Schnall & Laird 2003), is perhaps the most widely known embodiment literature. Particular postures and expressions activate emotions in the absence of situational factors that might warrant such feelings. People’s understanding of emotional content is reduced when they are unable to engage in the facial expressions associated with emotions. In a recent study people were hindered in their processing of sad and angry sentences when they had been given botox injections that kept them from moving their corrugator supercilli, the muscle necessary for producing frowns (Havas & Glenberg in prep). In addition to influencing emotions, postures and expressions affect non-emotional experiences

entry to access- how shareability comes about

The scaffolded mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early

ABSTRACT—This study assessed embodied simulation via electromyography (EMG) as participants first encoded emotionally ambiguous faces with emotion concepts (i.e., ‘‘angry,’ ’ ‘‘happy’’) and later passively viewed the faces without the concepts. Memory for the faces was also measured. At initial encoding, participants displayed more smiling-related EMG activity in response to faces paired with ‘‘happy’ ’ than in response to faces paired with ‘‘angry.’ ’ Later, in the absence of concepts, participants remembered happiness-encoded faces as happier than anger-encoded faces. Further, during passive reexposure to the ambiguous faces, participants ’ EMG indicated spontaneous emotion-specific mimicry, which in turn predicted memory bias. No specific EMG activity was observed when participants encoded or viewed faces with nonemotion-related valenced concepts, or when participants encoded or viewed Chinese ideographs. From an embodiment perspective, emotion simulation is a measure of what is currently perceived. Thus, these findings provide evidence of genuine concept-driven changes in emotion perception. More generally, the findings highlight embodiment’s role in the representation and processing of emotional information. The notion that emotional and motivational concepts influence perception is embedded in psychological lore. Nowhere are the implications of such concept-driven processing more acute—or more controversial—than in the perception of emotion stimuli.