Observing actions and understanding sentences about actions activates corresponding motor processes in the observer–comprehender. In 5 experiments, the authors addressed 2 novel questions regarding language-based motor resonance. The 1st question asks whether visual motion that is associated with an action produces motor resonance in sentence comprehension. The 2nd question asks whether motor resonance is modulated during sentence comprehension. The authors ’ experiments provide an affirmative response to both questions. A rotating visual stimulus affects both actual manual rotation and the comprehension of manual rotation sentences. Motor resonance is modulated by the linguistic input and is a rather immediate and localized phenomenon. The results are discussed in the context of theories of action observation and mental simulation.

Background: Theories of embodied knowledge argue that the representation and recruitment of motor processes may be important for deriving the meaning of many linguistic and perceptual elements. Aims: We examined the conditions under which gestural knowledge associated with manipulable objects is evoked. Methods & Procedures: A priming paradigm was used in which an object was presented in advance of a photograph of a hand gesture that participants were to mimic. On related trials, the target gesture was the same as the gesture typically used to interact with the object prime. On unrelated trials, the target gesture was not related to the object. In another set of experiments, a Stroop-like paradigm was used in which participants learned to produce manual responses to colour cues. After training, coloured photographs of manipulable objects were presented. The colour-cued gesture was either one typically used with the object or was unrelated to it. Outcomes & Results: In the priming experiments, response latencies were shorter in the related condition, but only when participants also made an identification response to

This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmental pathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internal modeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple action alternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of executive functions such as inhibition, the monitoring of progresses, and working memory, are required for this system to work. Further, we elaborate on the idea that the off-line reenactment of anticipatory mechanisms used for action control gives rise to (embodied) mental simulations, and propose that thinking consists essentially in controlling mental simulations rather than directly controlling behavior and perceptions. We conclude by sketching an evolutionary perspective of this process, proposing that anticipation leveraged cognition, and by highlighting specific predictions of our model.

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We simulated organisms with an arm terminating with a hand composed by two fingers, a thumb and an index, each composed by two segments, whose behavior was guided by a nervous system simulated through an artificial network. The organisms, which evolved through a genetic algorithm, lived in a bidimensional environment containing four objects, either large or small, either grey or black. In a baseline simulation the organisms had to learn to grasp small objects with a precision grip and large objects with a power grip. In Simulation 1 the organisms learned to perform two tasks: in Task 1 they continued to grasp objects according to their size, in Task 2 they had to decide the objects ' color by using a precision or a power grip. Learning occured earlier when the grip required to respond to the object and to decide the color was the same than when it was not, even if object size was irrelevant to the task. The simulation replicates the result of an experiment by Tucker & Ellis (2001) suggesting that seeing objects automatically activates motor information on how to grasp them.

capacities of human cognition are not entirely amodal and disembodied. The present study presents two empirical studies which aim to demonstrate that relational reasoning is grounded in our sensory-motor experience. Experiment 1 shows that the affordances of tool-like objects have an effect on comparing functional relations. Experiment 2 makes sure that this finding can not be explained by an automatic activation of motor systems. The results are interpreted as evidence that at least certain functional relations are perceived by simulating interactions with the environment. It is also asserted that the process of comparing such relations is constrained by the properties of the human body such as hand-dominance.

In this paper we present a cognitive robotic model of object manipulation (i.e. grasping) based on psychologically plausible embodied cognition principles. Specifically, the robotic simulation model is inspired by recent theories of embodied cognition, in which vision, action and semantic systems are linked together in a dynamic and mutually interactive manner. The robotic agent is based on a simulation model of the iCub humanoid robot. It uses a connectionist control system trained with experimental data on object manipulation. Simulation analyses show that the robot is capable to reproduce phenomena observed in human experiments, such as the Stimulus-Response Compatibility effect. 1.

In three experiments we assessed whether priming a hand shape activated motor information. Primes consisted of photographs of hands displaying one of three postures (precision, power, open hand). Targets consisted of photographs (Experiment 1 and 3) or words (Experiment 2) of objects, artifacts and natural kinds, manipulable with a precision (pencil) or with a power grip (bottle). Participants had to categorize objects into artifacts or natural kinds by pressing a different key. They had to respond to target-objects only when the targets followed the precision and the power primes, while they didn't have to respond when the targets followed the open hand (catch-trial). In Experiments 1 and 2, artifacts were processed slower than natural kinds, and natural kinds graspable with a power grip were processed faster than those graspable with a precision grip. These results confirm that visual primes activate general motor information on objects. However, only in Experiment 3, in which a motor training phase lead participants to associate a specific visual prime with a motor action, we found an interaction between Kind of Prime (precision, power) and Kind of Grip (precision, power grip). Results suggest that vision and motor information are strictly interwoven and support theories according to which object concepts are grounded in sensorimotor experience.

This paper raises the question whether analogical mapping is embodied in real and/or simulated actions. An experiment is designed in which participants have to verify analogies between pairs of sentences. In half of the pairs the arguments are spatially (vertically) aligned and in the other half the arguments are spatially misaligned. Our assumption is that if mapping is embodied the participants will have to mentally simulate a spatial re-arrangement of the arguments during the mapping process. To test this prediction a moving dot was presented on the screen during the analogy verification task which should impede the eye movements needed for the mental simulation of spatial manipulation of the arguments. In half of the cases the dot was moving horizontally and in the other half – vertically. It turns out that the horizontally moving dot impedes to a greater extent the spatially misaligned analogical mappings than the aligned ones, supporting the hypothesis that in these cases people do simulate spatial re-arrangement.

Observing actions and understanding sentences about actions activates corresponding motor processes in the observer/comprehender. In five experiments, we address two novel questions regarding language-based motor resonance. The first question asks whether visual motion that is associated with an action produces motor resonance in sentence comprehension. The second question asks whether motor resonance is modulated during sentence comprehension. Our experiments provide an affirmative response to both questions. A rotating visual stimulus affects both actual manual rotation and the comprehension of manual rotation sentences. Motor resonance is modulated by the linguistic input and is a rather immediate and localized phenomenon. The results are discussed in the context of theories of action observation and mental simulation. Seeing, acting, understanding 3 What kind of perturbation in our minds and brains does hearing or reading a sentence like Eric turned down the volume bring about? Classical cognitive