Embodied Simulations Are Modulated by Sentential Perspective

Abstract

There is considerable evidence that language comprehenders derive lexical-semantic meaning by mentally simulating perceptual and motor attributes of described events. However, the nature of these simulations - including the level of detail that is incorporated and contexts under which simulations occur - is not well understood. Here, we examine the effects of first- vs. third-person perspective on mental simulations during sentence comprehension. First-person sentences describing physical transfer towards or away from the body (e.g., “You threw the microphone”, “You caught the microphone”) modulated response latencies when responses were made along a front-back axis, consistent with the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE). This effect was not observed for third-person sentences (“He threw the microphone”, “He caught the microphone”). The ACE was observed when making responses along a left-right axis for third-person, but not first-person sentences. Abstract sentences (e.g., “He heard the message”) did not show an ACE along either axis. These results show that perspective is a detail that is simulated during action sentence comprehension, and that motoric activations are flexible and affected by the pronominal perspective used in the sentence.

The action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE) a benchmark finding for embodiment - A meta-analysis

“…This sensibility judgment task is in fact the most common task in this meta-analysis (Bergen & Wheeler, 2005, 2010De Scalzi et al, 2015;Gianelli, Farnè, Salemme, Jeannerod, & Roy, 2011;Glenberg, Sato, Cattaneo, Riggio, et al, 2008;Gould & Michaelis, 2018;Lugli, Baroni, Gianelli, Borghi, & Nicoletti, 2012;Papesh, 2015;Schwarzkopf, Weldle, Müller, & Konieczny, 2011;Vinson, Perniss, Fox, & Vigliocco, 2017). In a further variation participants also judged the sensibility of the sentences but this time all nonsensical sentences included a pseudoword ("You feaped the mirror"), analog to the lexical decision task where participants categorize stimuli as word or nonword (van Dam & Desai, 2017). Thus, in this case, the judgment does not strictly require sentence-level processes but can be solved at the word level.…”

“…Most of the included studies applied sentences with the pronoun "You" ("You gave a pizza to Louis"). Some studies investigated the influence of perspective by adding sentences with a third-person perspective using names ("Lea gave a pizza to Louis") or the pronouns He/ She ("He received the letter") (Gianelli et al, 2011;Schwarzkopf et al, 2011;van Dam & Desai, 2017). Finally, some studies only used sentences with a third person perspective Wheeler (2010, 2005).…”

“…Others translated the original materials to investigate the ACE in different languages (Gianelli et al, 2011) or created new linguistic materials in other languages. Included languages in the meta-analysis are English (Bergen & Wheeler, 2005, 2010Borreggine & Kaschak, 2006;De Scalzi et al, 2015;Gould & Michaelis, 2018;Kaschak & Borreggine, 2008;Papesh, 2015;van Dam & Desai, 2017;Vinson et al, 2017), German (Diefenbach et al, 2013;Schwarzkopf et al, 2011), Spanish (de Vega et al, 2013de Vega & Urrutia, 2011), Italian (Glenberg, Sato, Cattaneo, Riggio, et al, 2008;Lugli et al, 2012) and French (Gianelli et al, 2011).…”

“…The original study (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002) as well as a considerable number of studies in this meta-analysis (Bergen & Wheeler, 2005;Borreggine & Kaschak, 2006;Diefenbach et al, 2013;Gianelli et al, 2011;Glenberg, Sato, Cattaneo, Riggio, et al, 2008;Kaschak & Borreggine, 2008;Papesh, 2015;Schwarzkopf et al, 2011;van Dam & Desai, 2017;Vinson et al, 2017) included sentences expressing a transfer of concrete ACE: A META-ANALYSIS 11 objects ("Katie handed the puppy to you") and also sentences describing an abstract transfer ("Andy pitched you the idea"). The question whether the ACE can be observed for abstract transfer is particularly interesting because the comprehension of abstract language seems to challenge the embodiment view.…”

Does the motor cortex want the full story? The influence of sentence context on corticospinal excitability in action language processing

“…These cortical activations would explain behavioral modulation during language processing, such as improvement in squat jump [13,14], and facilitation of motor response time [15,16]. These facilitations are present only if the linguistic content is compatible with the subsequent movement [7,[17][18][19][20][21]. Similarly, physical training also improved linguistic comprehension [22,23], suggesting that improvement in a non-linguistic domain can improve comprehension of that subject.…”