Language comprehension is both embodied and symbolic

What have labels ever done for us? The linguistic shortcut in conceptual processing

“…Many researchers from across the cognitive sciences have come to an interdisciplinary consensus that the human conceptual system comprises two different types of information: simulated and linguistic (Barsalou, Santos, Simmons, & Wilson, 2008;Connell & Lynott, 2014b;Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008;Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, & Kousta, 2009). Simulated information (also known as grounded or embodied representations) emerges from our interactive experience with the world around us, and represents conceptual knowledge as a simulation (i.e., partial replay) in the same neural systems that are active in processing real-world perception and action (Allport, 1985;Barsalou, 1999;Connell & Lynott, 2014b;Glenberg & Gallese, 2012;Yee, Chrysikou, Hoffman, & Thompson-Schill, 2013).…”

“…That is, "the concept to which a word refers is ultimately grounded in the simulation system; however, a word does not need to be fully grounded every time it is processed" (Louwerse & Connell, 2011, p. 393). This notion of limited grounding is central to the SIH (Louwerse, 2011;Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008), which argues that, because labels link to each other as well as to grounded referents, it is possible for language comprehenders to ground only some labels and then bootstrap the meaning of others through LABELS IN CONCEPTUAL PROCESSING 9 distributional patterns between the labels themselves.…”

“…That is, "the concept to which a word refers is ultimately grounded in the simulation system; however, a word does not need to be fully grounded every time it is processed" (Louwerse & Connell, 2011, p. 393). This notion of limited grounding is central to the SIH (Louwerse, 2011;Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008), which argues that, because labels link to each other as well as to grounded referents, it is possible for language comprehenders to ground only some labels and then bootstrap the meaning of others through LABELS IN CONCEPTUAL PROCESSING 9 distributional patterns between the labels themselves.For instance, imagine someone develops their concept of car in long-term memory via a wide range of perceptual, motor, and affective experiences of cars across multiple situational contexts, and via a wide range of related words in statistical distributions around the label "car" across multiple contexts. The long-term concept of car therefore has a rich variety of information potentially available, and a particular instantiation of car will draw upon a subset of this information to create an appropriate representation for the demands and constraints of the occasion.…”

The contributions of language and experience to the representation of abstract and concrete words: Different weights but similar organizations

“…First, considering more recent proposals that multiple representational systems are engaged in conceptual processing (e.g., Andrews et al, 2009;Barsalou et al, 2008;Dove, 2009Dove, , 2011Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008Steyvers, 2010), we evaluated whether language information Fig. 4 Associates reflecting semantic similarity and semantic association for abstract and concrete concepts (Study 2) would be more important for the representation of abstract words, while experiential and sensorimotor information would be more important for concrete words.…”

“…Sensorimotor information . Free associationIn recent years, a diverse set of models regarding conceptual knowledge have proposed that multiple representational systems are engaged in conceptual processing (Andrews, Vigliocco, & Vinson, 2009;Barsalou, Santos, Simmons, & Wilson, 2008;Dove, 2009Dove, , 2011Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008Simmons, Hamann, Harenski, Hu, & Barsalou, 2008;Steyvers, 2010). In particular, they have all considered that both more sensorimotor-based information and languagebased information play a role in conceptual representation, thus recapturing the ideas first proposed by Paivio (1971Paivio ( , 1986 in the context of the dual-code theory.…”