Toward a deeper understanding of embodiment.

Masson, Michael E. J.

doi:10.1037/cep0000055

Cited by 31 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…The embodied cognition hypothesis has been applied to many domains of cognitive processing, and the empirical evidence discussed here is heavily curated (for broader reviews and diverse theoretical viewpoints, see Allport, 1985; Avenanti, Candidi, & Urgesi, 2013; Barsalou, 1999; Binder & Desai, 2011; Caramazza, Anzellotti, Strnad, & Lingnau, 2014; Chatterjee, 2010; Dove, 2009; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Glenberg & Gallese, 2012; Hauk & Tschentscher, 2013; Hickok, 2014; Kemmerer, in press; Kiefer & Pulvermüller, 2012; Lambon Ralph, 2013; Leshinskaya & Caramazza, 2014; Mahon, 2014, in press; Mahon & Caramazza, 2008; Martin, 2007, 2009; Masson, 2015; Meteyard, Rodriguez-Cuadrado, Bahrami & Vigliocco, 2012; Pulvermüller, 2005, 2013; Simmons & Barsalou, 2003; Van dam, van Dijk, Bekkering, & Rueschemeyer, 2012; Willems & Casasanto, 2011; Willems & Francken, 2012; A. D. Wilson & Golonka, 2013; M.…”

Section: Scope Of the Current Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The burden of embodied cognition.

Mahon¹

2015

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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The thesis of embodied cognition has developed as an alternative to the view that cognition is mediated, at least in part, by symbolic representations. A useful testing ground for the embodied cognition hypothesis is the representation of concepts. An embodied view of concept representation argues that concepts are represented in a modality-specific format. I argue that questions about representational format are tractable only in the context of explicit hypotheses about how information spreads among conceptual representations and sensorimotor systems. When reasonable alternatives to the embodied cognition hypothesis are clearly defined, the available evidence does not distinguish between the embodied cognition hypothesis and those alternatives. Furthermore, I argue, the available data that are theoretically constraining indicate that concepts are more than just sensory and motor content. As such, the embodied/nonembodied debate is either largely resolved or at a point where the embodied and nonembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This situation merits a reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. I suggest that it is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition special— and that independence is made possible by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

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Section: Scope Of the Current Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The burden of embodied cognition.

Mahon¹

2015

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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“…For the last two decades, there has been an extensive debate over the nature and format of symbolic representations in the human mind (see Glenberg, , b; Mahon, , b; Masson, , for an example and summary of this debate). Many classical studies have—sometimes implicitly—assumed that concepts are represented in our minds in an abstract, arbitrary, and amodal way (e.g., Anderson, ; Collins & Quillian, ; Kintsch, ; Kintsch & van Dijk, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbol Grounding Without Direct Experience: Do Words Inherit Sensorimotor Activation From Purely Linguistic Context?

Günther¹,

Dudschig²,

Kaup³

2017

Cognitive Science

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Theories of embodied cognition assume that concepts are grounded in non-linguistic, sensorimotor experience. In support of this assumption, previous studies have shown that upwards response movements are faster than downwards movements after participants have been presented with words whose referents are typically located in the upper vertical space (and vice versa for downwards responses). This is taken as evidence that processing these words reactivates sensorimotor experiential traces. This congruency effect was also found for novel words, after participants learned these words as labels for novel objects that they encountered either in their upper or lower visual field. While this indicates that direct experience with a word's referent is sufficient to evoke said congruency effects, the present study investigates whether this direct experience is also a necessary condition. To this end, we conducted five experiments in which participants learned novel words from purely linguistic input: Novel words were presented in pairs with real up- or down-words (Experiment 1); they were presented in natural sentences where they replaced these real words (Experiment 2); they were presented as new labels for these real words (Experiment 3); and they were presented as labels for novel combined concepts based on these real words (Experiment 4 and 5). In all five experiments, we did not find any congruency effects elicited by the novel words; however, participants were always able to make correct explicit judgements about the vertical dimension associated to the novel words. These results suggest that direct experience is necessary for reactivating experiential traces, but this reactivation is not a necessary condition for understanding (in the sense of storing and accessing) the corresponding aspects of word meaning.

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“…Such spatial schemas are independent of modality (Chatterjee, 2010; Gentner, 2003; Gibbs, 2006) and represent space independent of specific sensory-motor features (Pecher, Boot, & van Dantzig, 2011; Pecher & Zeelenberg, 2018). Responses will be facilitated if the stimulus and response correspond on that dimension compared with when they do not (Iani, Baroni, Pellicano, & Nicoletti, 2011; Masson, 2015; Proctor & Miles, 2014). Given that several findings are hard to explain by automatic activation of motor actions towards depicted objects, one may wonder if the alignment effect can be convincingly used as evidence that motor actions are part of object representations.…”

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confidence: 99%

The effect of grasp compatibility in go/no-go and two-choice tasks

2019

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The grasp compatibility effect has been put forward as evidence for the automatic involvement of the motor system during mental object representation. In three experiments, participants responded to object pictures or names by grasping cylinders using a precision or power grasp. In a two-choice task in which both grasps were used, we obtained grasp compatibility effects, but in a go/no-go task, in which only one grasp was used, there was no effect. These results indicate that the effect depends on the availability of response choice, in the present case, different size grasps. This suggests that grasp compatibility effects are better explained by coding of the stimulus and response on the same dimension, size, rather than automatic activation of a motor action towards the object.

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Toward a deeper understanding of embodiment.

Cited by 31 publications

References 50 publications

The burden of embodied cognition.

The burden of embodied cognition.

Symbol Grounding Without Direct Experience: Do Words Inherit Sensorimotor Activation From Purely Linguistic Context?

The effect of grasp compatibility in go/no-go and two-choice tasks

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