Observing actions and understanding sentences about actions activates corresponding motor processes in the observer–comprehender. In 5 experiments, the authors addressed 2 novel questions regarding language-based motor resonance. The 1st question asks whether visual motion that is associated with an action produces motor resonance in sentence comprehension. The 2nd question asks whether motor resonance is modulated during sentence comprehension. The authors ’ experiments provide an affirmative response to both questions. A rotating visual stimulus affects both actual manual rotation and the comprehension of manual rotation sentences. Motor resonance is modulated by the linguistic input and is a rather immediate and localized phenomenon. The results are discussed in the context of theories of action observation and mental simulation.

According to the Perceptual Symbols Theory of cognition (Barsalou, 1999), modality-specific simulations underlie the representation of concepts. A strong prediction of this view is that perceptual processing affects conceptual processing. In this study, participants performed a perceptual detection task and a conceptual property-verification task in alternation. Responses on the property-verification task were slower for those trials that were preceded by a perceptual trial in a different modality than for those that were preceded by a perceptual trial in the same modality. This finding of a modality-switch effect across perceptual processing and conceptual processing supports the hypothesis that perceptual and conceptual representations are partially based on the same systems.

In three experiments we assessed whether priming a hand shape activated motor information. Primes consisted of photographs of hands displaying one of three postures (precision, power, open hand). Targets consisted of photographs (Experiment 1 and 3) or words (Experiment 2) of objects, artifacts and natural kinds, manipulable with a precision (pencil) or with a power grip (bottle). Participants had to categorize objects into artifacts or natural kinds by pressing a different key. They had to respond to target-objects only when the targets followed the precision and the power primes, while they didn't have to respond when the targets followed the open hand (catch-trial). In Experiments 1 and 2, artifacts were processed slower than natural kinds, and natural kinds graspable with a power grip were processed faster than those graspable with a precision grip. These results confirm that visual primes activate general motor information on objects. However, only in Experiment 3, in which a motor training phase lead participants to associate a specific visual prime with a motor action, we found an interaction between Kind of Prime (precision, power) and Kind of Grip (precision, power grip). Results suggest that vision and motor information are strictly interwoven and support theories according to which object concepts are grounded in sensorimotor experience.

This paper raises the question whether analogical mapping is embodied in real and/or simulated actions. An experiment is designed in which participants have to verify analogies between pairs of sentences. In half of the pairs the arguments are spatially (vertically) aligned and in the other half the arguments are spatially misaligned. Our assumption is that if mapping is embodied the participants will have to mentally simulate a spatial re-arrangement of the arguments during the mapping process. To test this prediction a moving dot was presented on the screen during the analogy verification task which should impede the eye movements needed for the mental simulation of spatial manipulation of the arguments. In half of the cases the dot was moving horizontally and in the other half – vertically. It turns out that the horizontally moving dot impedes to a greater extent the spatially misaligned analogical mappings than the aligned ones, supporting the hypothesis that in these cases people do simulate spatial re-arrangement.

ABSTRACT—Many objects typically occur in particular locations, and object words encode these spatial associations. We tested whether such object words (e.g., head, foot) orient attention toward the location where the denoted object typically occurs (i.e., up, down). Because object words elicit perceptual simulations of the denoted objects (i.e., the representations acquired during actual perception are reactivated), we predicted that an object word would interfere with identification of an unrelated visual target subsequently presented in the object’s typical location. Consistent with this prediction, three experiments demonstrated that words denoting objects that typically occur high in the visual field hindered identification of targets appearing at the top of the display, whereas words denoting low objects hindered target identification at the bottom of the display. Thus, object words oriented attention to and activated perceptual simulations in the objects ’ typical locations. These results shed new light on how language affects perception. Attention is often guided by environmental cues (see Berger, Henik, & Rafal, 2005). Here we focus on cues that orient attention away from themselves. For example, when preceded by an arrow pointing leftward (Posner, Snyder, & Davidson, 1980), the word left (Hommel, Pratt, Colzato, & Godijn, 2001), a head facing leftward (Langton, Watt, & Bruce, 2000), or eyes gazing leftward (Kingstone, Smilek, Ristic, Friesen, & Eastwood, 2003), visual targets are identified faster on the left than on the right. These directional cues orient attention even when the target is no more likely to occur at the cued location than at an uncued location. Thus, social and symbolic cues can reflexively orient attention to an implied location.

Using gesture to reveal event representations

Observing actions and understanding sentences about actions activates corresponding motor processes in the observer/comprehender. In five experiments, we address two novel questions regarding language-based motor resonance. The first question asks whether visual motion that is associated with an action produces motor resonance in sentence comprehension. The second question asks whether motor resonance is modulated during sentence comprehension. Our experiments provide an affirmative response to both questions. A rotating visual stimulus affects both actual manual rotation and the comprehension of manual rotation sentences. Motor resonance is modulated by the linguistic input and is a rather immediate and localized phenomenon. The results are discussed in the context of theories of action observation and mental simulation. Seeing, acting, understanding 3 What kind of perturbation in our minds and brains does hearing or reading a sentence like Eric turned down the volume bring about? Classical cognitive

There is mounting evidence that language comprehension involves the activation of mental imagery