Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex

Lacey, Simon; Stilla, Randall; Sathian, K.

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2011.12.016

Cited by 243 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This is called the theory of ''embodied semantics '' (Aziz-Zadeh and Damasio, 2008). Somatosensory cortex activation has been previously demonstrated by the reading of metaphors, especially if they are tactile metaphors (Lacey et al, 2012). It is plausible that the act of reading a novel places the reader in the body of the protagonist, which may alter somatosensory and motor cortex connectivity.…”

Section: Berns Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain

et al. 2013

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We sought to determine whether reading a novel causes measurable changes in resting-state connectivity of the brain and how long these changes persist. Incorporating a within-subjects design, participants received restingstate functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on 19 consecutive days. First, baseline resting state data for a ''washin'' period were taken for each participant for 5 days. For the next 9 days, participants read 1/9th of a novel during the evening and resting-state data were taken the next morning. Finally, resting-state data for a ''washout'' period were taken for 5 days after the conclusion of the novel. On the days after the reading, significant increases in connectivity were centered on hubs in the left angular/supramarginal gyri and right posterior temporal gyri. These hubs corresponded to regions previously associated with perspective taking and story comprehension, and the changes exhibited a timecourse that decayed rapidly after the completion of the novel. Longterm changes in connectivity, which persisted for several days after the reading, were observed in bilateral somatosensory cortex, suggesting a potential mechanism for ''embodied semantics.''

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Section: Berns Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain

et al. 2013

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“…Langacker 1987, Gibbs 1994, Talmy 2000, Barsalou 2008, Lacey, Stilla & Sathian 2012, Gärdenfors 2014. Gärdenfors (2014: 15) robiological works which shows that conceptual representations involve multiple levels of abstraction from sensory, motor and affective input, and that activation of these modalities is influenced by factors such as contextual demands, frequency and familiarity (e.g.…”

Section: Lexical Meaning As Ontologies and Construalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Spaces at Work in Sensory Cognition: Domains, Dimensions and Distances

Paradis

2015

Applications of Conceptual Spaces

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This chapter makes use of two data sources, terminological schemas for wine descriptions and actual wine reviews, for the investigation of how experiences of sensory perceptions of VISION, SMELL, TASTE and TOUCH are described. In spite of all the great challenges involved in describing perceptions, professional wine reviewers are expected to be able to give an understandable account of their experiences. The reviews are explored with focus on the different types of descriptors and the ways their meanings are construed. It gives an account of the use of both property expressions, such as soft, sharp, sweet and dry and object descriptors, such as blueberry, apple and honey. It pays particular attention to the apparent cross-sensory use of descriptors, such as white aromas and soft smell, arguing that the ontological cross-over of sensory modalities are to be considered as symptoms of 'synesthesia' in the wine-tasting practice and monosemy at the conceptual level. In contrast to the standard view of the meanings of words for sensory perceptions, the contention is that it is not the case that, for instance, sharp in sharp smell primarily evokes a notion of touch; rather the sensory experiences are strongly interrelated in cognition. When instantiated in, say SMELL, soft spans the closely related sense domains, and the lexical syncretism is taken to be grounded in the workings of human sensory cognition.

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“…Langacker 1987, Gibbs 1994, Talmy 2000, Barsalou 2008, Lacey, Stilla & Sathian 2012. It assumes that concepts are embodied and grounded in perception.…”

Section: The Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing Sensory Experience: The Genre of Wine Reviews

Paradis

Eeg-Olofsson

2013

Metaphor and Symbol

104

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The purpose of the article is to shed light on how experiences of sensory perceptions in the domains of VISION, SMELL, TASTE and TOUCH are recast into text and discourse in the genre of wine reviews.Because of the alleged paucity of sensory vocabularies, in particular in the olfactory domain, it is of particular interest to investigate what resources language has to offer in order to describe those experiences. We show that the main resources are, on the one hand, words evoking properties that are applicable cross-modally and properties of objects that range over more than one domain, and on the other, vivid imagery that compares the characteristics of the wine with people, building, animals and the hustle and bustle of market places and other events. The second goal is to account for the construals of the meanings of the expressions used in the recontextualization into written discourse in the light of their apparent flexibility across the descriptions of the sensory experiences. In contrast to a large body of the literature on sensory meanings in language, we argue that the descriptors of properties such as sharp, soft, lemon and cherry used to describe a wine's qualities across the sensory domains are not polysemous synesthetic metaphors, but monosemous synesthetic metonymizations, more precisely zone activations. With regard to the imagery used, the construals represented cover both similes, metaphorizations and metonymizations proper.

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Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex

Cited by 243 publications

References 42 publications

Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain

Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain

Conceptual Spaces at Work in Sensory Cognition: Domains, Dimensions and Distances

Describing Sensory Experience: The Genre of Wine Reviews

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