Body part representations in verbal semantics

Bergen, Benjamin; Lau, Ting-Ting Chan; Narayan, Shweta; Stojanovic, Diana; Wheeler, Kathryn

doi:10.3758/mc.38.7.969

Cited by 52 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In other words, cues from language influence attention in modulating the default perceptual order. This suggests links between bodyeffectors, motor movements, and linguistic interpretation systems (Arévalo et al 2012;Bergen et al 2010;Desai et al 2010;Stins et al 2015). As reviewed, theorists suggest deep connections between the body and semantic processing (e.g., Barsalou 2008;Thelen et al 2001;Varela et al 1991;Zwaan 2014), and the present results provide additional support for associations between body-regions, actions, and the semantics of English verbs (Maouene et al 2008).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

“…Participants may have determined the congruence of actions associated with the feet by attending to the pictures without fixating (Posner 1980) or by using peripheral vision to the lower extremities during directed attention to the head, torso, and hands, and increased looking times to the feet to bring new information to attention (LaBerge and Brown 1989). Indeed, this pattern suggests that participants were directing attention to confirm involvement of the body-effector implied by the verb, which suggests, first, that language may be particularly effective for shifting attention to peripheral and less salient areas (Mishra 2015;Mishra and Marmolejo-Ramos 2010), and, second, that this elicits deeper processing (Bergen et al 2010), possibly related to kinesthetic imagery (Stins et al 2015). That this pattern did not apply similarly to incongruent trials suggests that identifying a mismatch might be accomplished via peripheral attention and shallower processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…The highly coherent semantic relations found through free-association data indicates early-learned verbs cluster around five main body-regions (eye/mouth/ear/leg/hand), providing additional evidence for a link between the body and language (see Maouene et al 2008 for English verbs;Duggirala et al 2011 for Hindi, Urdu, and Telugu; Chen and Zhu 2014 for Mandarin Chinese). English and Cantonese speakers also show slower judgments when evaluating matches between verbs and line drawings that involve the same body-effector, which has been suggested to be due to inhibitory effects from the activation of effector-specific memory circuits (Bergen et al 2010). Even an implicit relationship between the body, action, visual attention, and language is shown by a faster arm contraction than arm expansion response to hearing ''open the drawer'' (Glenberg and Kaschak 2002), by the role of context in studies of language comprehension (e.g., Barsalou 2008;Kemmerer 2015), and different response times and patterns of neural activation when action sentences and responses to them are compatible versus incompatible (Aravena et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Attention to body-parts varies with visual preference and verb–effector associations

2017

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Theories of embodied conceptual meaning suggest fundamental relations between others' actions, language, and our own actions and visual attention processes. Prior studies have found that when people view an image of a neutral body in a scene they first look toward, in order, the head, torso, hands, and legs. Other studies show associations between action verbs and the body-effectors used in performing the action (e.g., "jump" with feet/legs; "talk" with face/head). In the present experiment, the visual attention of participants was recorded with a remote eye-tracking system while they viewed an image of an actor pantomiming an action and heard a concrete action verb. Participants manually responded whether or not the action image was a good example of the verb they heard. The eye-tracking results confirmed that participants looked at the head most, followed by the hands, and the feet least of all; however, visual attention to each of the body-parts also varied as a function of the effector associated with the spoken verb on image/verb congruent trials, particularly for verbs associated with the legs. Overall, these results suggest that language influences some perceptual processes; however, hearing auditory verbs did not alter the previously reported fundamental hierarchical sequence of directed attention, and fixations on specific body-effectors may not be essential for verb comprehension as peripheral visual cues may be sufficient to perform the task.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Attention to body-parts varies with visual preference and verb–effector associations

2017

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“…With less proficient L2 speakers, differences in terms of embodiment might have arisen (Bergen et al, 2010;Vukovic, 2012). This effect of proficiency may also have been enhanced by the immersion of our L2 speakers in an L2 environment.…”

Section: Simple Verb Subdesign: Embodiment Effects With Simple Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The only study in which language embodiment effects in L2 speakers were investigated is a behavioral study using a pictureverb matching task (Bergen, Lau, Narayan, Stojanovic, & Wheeler, 2010). For both L1 and advanced L2 participants, judgment times were longer when the word and the picture referred to different actions performed with the same effector (mouth, hand or foot; e.g., run-kick) than when they referred to different actions performed with different effectors (e.g., run-drink).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied language in first- and second-language speakers: Neural correlates of processing motor verbs

et al. 2014

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a b s t r a c tThe involvement of neural motor and sensory systems in the processing of language has so far mainly been studied in native (L1) speakers. In an fMRI experiment, we investigated whether non-native (L2) semantic representations are rich enough to allow for activation in motor and somatosensory brain areas. German learners of Dutch and a control group of Dutch native speakers made lexical decisions about visually presented Dutch motor and non-motor verbs. Region-of-interest (ROI) and whole-brain analyses indicated that L2 speakers, like L1 speakers, showed significantly increased activation for simple motor compared to non-motor verbs in motor and somatosensory regions. This effect was not restricted to Dutch-German cognate verbs, but was also present for non-cognate verbs. These results indicate that L2 semantic representations are rich enough for motor-related activations to develop in motor and somatosensory areas.

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Linguistic embodiment in typical and atypical anorexia nervosa: Evidence from an image‐word matching task

Meneguzzo

Brun

Collantoni

et al. 2023

Euro Eating Disorders Rev

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ObjectiveThe integration of sensory, motor, and cognitive systems is embodied cognition, according to which mind and body are not separate and distinct, and our body (and our brain, as part of the body) contributes to determining our mental and cognitive processes. In spite of limited data available, Anorexia nervosa (AN) appears as a condition in which embodied cognition is altered, in particular, if we consider bodily sensations and visuospatial information processing. We aimed to evaluate the ability to correctly identify body parts and actions in both full (AN) and atypical AN (AAN), looking at the role of the underweight status.MethodA group of 143 females (AN = 45, AAN = 43, unaffected women = 55) was enrolled. All participants performed a linguistic embodied task to evaluate the association between a picture—showing a bodily action—and a written verb. Additionally, a subsample of 24 AN participants performed a retest after stable weight recovery.ResultsBoth AN and AAN demonstrated an abnormal ability to evaluate the picture‐written verb associations, especially if the involved bodily effectors were the same in both stimuli (i.e., pictorial and verbal) and needed a longer response time.ConclusionsSpecific embodied cognition linked to body schema seems to be impaired in persons with AN. The longitudinal analysis showed a difference between AN and AAN only in the underweight condition, suggesting the presence of an abnormal linguistic embodiment. More attention should be devoted to embodiment during AN treatment to improve bodily cognition, which might, in turn, diminish body misperception.

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Body part representations in verbal semantics

Cited by 52 publications

References 47 publications

Attention to body-parts varies with visual preference and verb–effector associations

Attention to body-parts varies with visual preference and verb–effector associations

Embodied language in first- and second-language speakers: Neural correlates of processing motor verbs

Linguistic embodiment in typical and atypical anorexia nervosa: Evidence from an image‐word matching task

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