Abstract

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...

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