Findings in the social psychology literatures on attitudes, social perception, and emotion demonstrate that social information processing involves embodiment, where embodiment refers both to actual bodily states and to simulations of experience in the brain’s modality-specific systems for perception, action, and introspection. We show that embodiment underlies social information processing when the perceiver interacts with actual social objects (online cognition) and when the perceiver represents social objects in their absence (offline cognition). Although many empirical demonstrations of social embodiment exist, no particularly compelling account of them has been offered. We propose that theories of embodied cognition, such as the Perceptual Symbol Systems (PSS) account (Barsalou, 1999), explain and integrate these findings, and that they also suggest exciting new directions for research. We compare the PSS account to a variety of related proposals and show how it addresses criticisms that have previously posed problems for the general embodiment approach. Consider the following findings. Wells and Petty (1980) reported that nodding the head (as in agreement)

1.1. Conceptual systems 621 1.2. Semantic memory 621

According to perceptual symbol systems (Barsalou, 1999), sensory-motor simulations underlie the representation of concepts. It follows that sensory-motor phenomena should arise in conceptual processing. Previous studies have shown that switching from one modality to another during perceptual processing incurs a processing cost. If perceptual simulation underlies conceptual processing, then verifying the properties of concepts should exhibit a switching cost as well. For example, verifying a property in the auditory modality (e.g., BLENDER-loud) should be slower after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., CRANBERRIES-tart) than in the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling). Only words were presented to subjects, and there were no instructions to use imagery. Nevertheless switching modalities incurred a cost, analogous to switching modalities in perception. A second experiment showed that this effect was not due to associative priming between properties in the same modality. These results support the hypothesis that perceptual simulation underlies conceptual processing. Modern psychology relies heavily on the digital computer as a metaphor for human cognition (e.g., Fodor, 1975; Pylyshyn, 1984). According to this view, the software of the mind can be distinguished from the hardware of the body, with mental representations being amodal redescriptions of sensory-motor experience. Increasingly, however, researchers argue that this approach is fundamentally wrong, suggesting instead that interactions between sensory-motor systems and the physical world underlie cognition. For example, Barsalou's (1999) theory of perceptual symbol systems proposes that conceptual knowledge is grounded in sensory-motor systems. To represent a concept, neural systems partially run a...

According to perceptual symbol systems, sensorimotor simulations underlie the representation of concepts. It follows that sensorimotor phenomena should arise in conceptual processing. Previous studies have shown that switching from one modality to another during perceptual processing incurs a processing cost. If perceptual simulation underlies conceptual processing, then verifying the properties of concepts should exhibit a switching cost as well. For example, verifying a property in the auditory modality (e.g., BLENDER-loud) should be slower after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., CRANBERRIES-tart) than after verifying a property in the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling). Only words were presented to subjects, and there were no instructions to use imagery. Nevertheless, switching modalities incurred a cost, analogous to the cost of switching modalities in perception. A second experiment showed that this effect was not due to associative priming between properties in the same modality. These results support the hypothesis that perceptual simulation underlies conceptual processing.

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The work described in this chapter is motivated by the conviction that a cognitive theory of semantic memory is best-suited to investigate the functional and neural bases of the semantic memory system. The advantage of this approach is that detailed hypotheses about the structure and function of the semantic system can be formulated and then tested in behavioral experiments with healthy individuals and neurologically impaired patients. The challenge is then to identify the neural correlates of these experimentally validated cognitive structures and processes, i.e., their neural substrates and mechanisms. The cognitive model provides a detailed framework for this investigation which, when combined with the appropriate functional-neuroanatomical technique, provides the potential to meet this challenge.

hen a most fortuitous event occurred (especially for this story). As I was leaving the party, I ran into Doug in Sandy's front yard and asked if he could bring me a belt the next morning. Being the extremely generous guy that he is, Doug took off his belt on the spot and handed it to me. I'm sure that Sandy's neighbors are still talking about this. More importantly, though, when I put on the belt, it was about three inches too short, which I found surprising, given that I'm in pretty good physical condition. The thought that ran immediately through my mind was, "Wow, Doug is in great shape." As anyone who has spent a few days with Doug knows, he exercises religiously and eats carefully, with the result being his gazelle-like figure. This is one of Doug's embodied qualities that might be missed from a purely cognitive perspective. Another of Doug's most notable embodied qualities is how intensely he blushes. When I pointed this out at the workshop, true to form, Doug produced one of his

Traditional theories assume that amodal representations, such as feature lists and semantic networks, represent conceptual knowledge about the world. According to this view, the sensory, motor, and introspective states that arise during perception and action are irrelevant to representing knowledge. Instead the conceptual system lies outside modalit-y-specific systems and operates according to different principles. Increasingly, however, researchers report that modalit-y-specific systems become active during purely conceptual tasks, suggesting that these systems play central roles in representing knowledge (for a review, see Martin, 2001, Handbook of Functional Neuroimaging of Cognition). In particular, researchers report that the visual system becomes active while processing visual properties, and that the motor system becomes active while processing action properties. The present study corroborates and extends these findings. During fMRI, subjects verified whether or not properties could potentially be true of concepts (e.g., BLENDER-loud). Subjects received only linguistic stimuli, and nothing was said about using imagery. Highly related false properties were used on false trials to block word association strategies (e.g., BUFFALOwinged) . To assess the full extent of the modalit-y-specific hypothesis, properties were verified on each of six modalities. Examples include GEMSTONE-glittering (vision), BLENDER-loud (audition), FAUCET-turned (motor), MARBLE-cool (touch), CUCUMBER-bland (taste), and SOAP-perfumed (smell). Neural activity during property verification was compared to a lexical decision baseline. For all six sets of the modalityspecific properties, significant activation was observed in the respective neural system. Finding modality-specific processing acros...

INTRODUCTION During the past decade, the field of functional neuroimaging of cognition has grown exponentially. From a handful of studies in the early 1990s, this research domain expanded to more than 800 studies by the early 2000s. Today, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional MRI (fMRI) studies cover almost every aspect of human cognition, from motion perception to moral reasoning. If each study is seen as a tree, the field has grown from minimal vegetation to a luxuriant tropical forest in less than 10 years. Yet, functional neuroimaging researchers sometimes focus exclusively on their own cognitive domain and do not see the forest through the trees. The goal of the present chapter is to call attention to the forest--- that is, to what many functional neuroimaging studies of cognition have in common. When we say that most researchers are focused on the trees, we refer to the fact that the vast majority of functional neuroimaging studies investigate a single cognitive fu

of certainty and explore two forms it can take: perspectiveless certainty (C) and perspectival certainty (C P ). We use C and C P to convey the idea that perspectiveless certainty does not entail a perspective (C alone), and that perspectival certainty does (C with a P). Perspectiveless certainty (C). Perspectiveless certainty is the idea that a belief is "true" or 2 "the way things are" from no perspective. Consider the belief that "the world is flat." Adopting C means viewing this belief as not dependent on perspective. Even if no person existed to perceive the Earth's surface, this statement is nevertheless viewed as "true." Even when people exist who perceive the Earth as flat, certainty about this belief does not depend on their perspective. It is essential to note that we are using certainty here as a description of people's psychological states---not as a philosophical or scientific claim about truth. Thus, people can view a belief that is scientifically false, such as "the Ea