Embodiment

Question 1

How do we mentally represent the meanings of words?

Answer 1

It’s not known, but the two main views are the traditional view and the embodied view.

Question 2

Outline the traditional view of representation.

Answer 2

Meanings are represented as features, usually described in terms of other words, like a dictionary.

Question 3

What is a problem with the traditional view of representation?

Answer 3

The symbol grounding problem - meanings need to be grounded in the physical, social and emotional world, as demonstrated by Harnad (1990)’s Chinese dictionary example. Much of the learning of words (abstract symbols) consists of relating them to objects and actions which have manifestations in the real world and are accessible through perception and action.

Question 4

Outline the embodied view of representation.

Answer 4

We learn word meanings by associating them with real objects and actions through memory - when an object and a word co-occur, they are associated with memory traces over time resulting in memory simulation and the creation of perceptual representations.

Question 5

According to the embodied view, what perceptual features are represented?

Answer 5

Visual orientation, object shape and visibility.

Question 6

According to the traditional and embodied views, how do people represent “the pencil is in the cup?”

Answer 6

Traditional view = amodal symbols, manipulated using rules, e.g. [IN[PENCIL,CUP]]
Embodied view = people should mentally represent the orientation of the pencil based on their experiences. Therefore there should be information on orientation.

Question 7

What did Stanfield and Zwaan (2001) do?

Answer 7

A sentence-picture verification task to test whether visual orientation is represented. Had participants read the sentence “John put the pencil in the cup” or “John put the pencil in the drawer”, then showed them a picture of a vertical or horizontal pencil and had them decide whether the item was mentioned in the sentence.

Question 8

What did Stanfield and Zwaan (2001) find?

Answer 8

Reaction times were faster when the object orientation was consistent with mental representations from the sentence. This supports the embodied view and mental representations of orientation.

Question 9

What did Zwaan, Stanfield & Yaxley (2002) do?

Answer 9

Investigated mental representation of object shape using the same sentence-picture verification task and design as Stanfield and Zwaan (2001), whereby participants see an egg in a shell or a cracked egg (no visible shell) and then must decide whether the item was mentioned in the sentence “Mary saw the egg in the eggbox” and “Mary saw the egg in the frying pan”.

Question 10

What did Zwaan, Stanfield & Yaxley (2002) find?

Answer 10

Reaction times were faster in consistent conditions, suggesting that we mentally represent object shape.

Question 11

What did Yaxley & Zwaan (2007) do?

Answer 11

Investigated mental representation of visibility using the usual sentence-verification task design in which participants saw a high or low resolution image of a moose and had to decide whether the item was mentioned in the sentence “through clean goggles, the skier could easily identify the moose” or “through the fogged goggles, the skier could hardly identify the moose”.

Question 12

What did Yaxley & Zwaan (2007) find, and what does this suggest?

Answer 12

Faster reaction times in consistent conditions, supporting the idea that visibility (contextual influence) is also represented. This suggests a detailed mental representation and a strong interaction between perception and language.

Question 13

What did Wassenberg & Zwaan (2010) do?

Answer 13

Investigated whether pictures affect sentence comprehension - the opposite way round than the sentence-picture verification tasks. Three phases (presented as unrelated experiments):
Phase 1: word-picture verification task - participants shown the word Toothbrush and a picture of one (half participants shown horizontal, half vertical), and asked whether the picture matches the word.
Phase 2: Mental rotation filler task
Phase 3: eye-tracking experiment using the sentence “Aunt Karin finally found the toothbrush in the sink/cup beside the mirror”.

Question 14

What did Wassenberg & Zwaan (2010) find?

Answer 14

First pass reading times were greater for when the sentence in phase 3 didn’t match the toothbrush orientation in phase 1 but only at the point of the sentence where the mismatch was i.e. ‘in the cup’ or ‘in the sink’. Consistent = shorter first pass reading times.

Question 15

What do Wassenberg & Zwaan (2010)’s findings suggest?

Answer 15

That pictures affect mental representations and therefore sentence comprehension.

Question 16

What did Coppens, Gootjes & Zwaan (2001) do?

Answer 16

Three studies (presented as unrelated experiments):
Phase 1: word-picture verification task using an unfolded or folded ironing board.
Phase 2: emotional word stroop task (15mins)
Phase 3 (ERP): sentences presented word-by-word while EEG signals were recorded using the sentence “Esther was looking for kitchen steps. She pulled open the hall closet. In the closet was an ironing board”.

Question 17

What did Coppens, Gootjes & Zwaan (2001) find?

Answer 17

In the mismatch condition ERPs showed N400.

Question 18

What did Hauk, Johnsrude & Pullvermuller (2004) do?

Answer 18

Using fMRI, studied brain activation for words - first had participant make movements (foot, finger and tongue) in order to measure their typical responses. Wanted to see whether action related words may also activate the same motor areas in the brain, so had participants read action words (e.g. kick) in isolation which aimed to activate similar areas in the brain (leg, arm and face words).

Question 19

What did Hauk, Johnsrude & Pullvermuller (2004) find?

Answer 19

The words did activate similar motor areas in the brain. This supports embodiment, as it suggests that words are linked to mental representations of actions.
However there was less of an effect for face words, perhaps because tongue movements were used as the control.

Question 20

What did Raposo et al. (2009) do?

Answer 20

Investigated action words in context to see whether the word alone is linked to motor area activation. Used idioms and literal sentences to compare against hand/foot movement activation.

Question 21

What did Raposo et al. (2009) find?

Answer 21

No activation in motor areas for idiomatic sentences, therefore activation depends on context, rather than just the word alone.

Question 22

What is a problem with Raposo et al. (2009)’s findings?

Answer 22

fMRI has an approximately 5 second delay, and might not have been sensitive enough to pick up activation for idiomatic sentences.

Question 23

What did Glenberg & Kaschak (2002) do?

Answer 23

Investigated the action-sentence compatibility effect by asking participants to decide whether sentences involving movements towards or away from oneself made sense by pressing buttons which were either further or closer than the middle button, which they held while reading the sentence.

Question 24

What did Glenberg & Kaschak (2002) find?

Answer 24

Participants are faster to move their hands in the direction that’s implied in the sentence.

Question 25

Does the action-sentence compatibility effect work in abstract transactions?

Answer 25

Yes, e.g. when telling/being told a story, where the direction of information transmission is important but no actual bodily movement is implied.

Question 26

What did Zwaan, Taylor & de Boer (2010) do?

Answer 26

Used a similar method to Glenberg & Kaschak (2002) in which participants made a story appear phrase-by-phrase by turning a dial (half clockwise, half anti-clockwise). Measured RTs for the sentences 1. He started the car, and 2. He wanted to start the car.

Question 27

What did Zwaan, Taylor & de Boer (2010) find?

Answer 27

Mismatch effects for current actions - RTs faster for clockwise condition, as it matches the direction of the key turn. No mismatch effects found for intended actions.

Question 28

What is the body specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009)?

Answer 28

According to the theories of embodied cognition thoughts comprise mental stimulations of bodily experiences. If this is true:

• People with different kinds of bodies must represent language differently
• People with different bodily characteristics, who interact with their daily environment in systematically different ways, should form correspondingly different mental representations.

Question 29

What does the body specificity hypothesis imply for handedness?

Answer 29

There should be a handedness effect (when imagining performing activity with hands):
- Left hemisphere activity for right-handers
- Right hemisphere activity for left-handers
Similar handedness effect observed when reading action verbs (Willems, Hagoort & Cassanto, 2010).

Question 30

What is the problem with abstract concepts and mental representation?

Answer 30

How can perceptuomotor simulations help to represent things we can never perceive with the senses or act upon with the muscles?

Question 31

How is body specificity relevant to the mental representation of more abstract concepts?

Answer 31

In a drawing task, when given the choice, people tend to draw things they like (‘good things’) on the side of their dominant hand.

Question 32

What are the linguistic associations of the handedness effect for the abstract concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’?

Answer 32

• “The right answer” and “my right-hand man” associate good things with rightward space
• “Out in left field” and “two left feet” associate bad things with leftward space
• The Latin words for right (dexter) and left (sinister) form the roots of English words meaning skilful and evil respectively (dextrous and sinister).

Question 33

How do abstract concepts interact with body specific associations?

Answer 33

• Most people have a dominant hand (usually right) and therefore interact with their environment more fluently on one side of body-centred space than the other.
• People come to implicitly associate good things with the side of space they can interact with more fluently and bad things with the other side.

Question 34

What did Cassanto (2011) find?

Answer 34

That left-handers are more likely to gesticulate with their left hands when talking about positive things, and their right hands when discussing negative topics. The opposite is true for right-handers.

Question 35

What did Holt and Beilock (2006) do?

Answer 35

Investigated the interaction between action and expertise by having Ice hockey experts and novices read sentences describing hockey and non-hockey situations, where the helmet was either in position for being on or off, and was described in both situations. Participants answered the question: Was the target mentioned in the previous sentence?

Question 36

What did Holt and Beilock (2006) find?

Answer 36

Experts were significantly faster to respond to the hockey sentences for both match and mismatch conditions than novices, and the mismatch effect was found only for experts. This suggests that the nature of expertise affects mental representations.

Question 37

What are the problems with embodiment?

Answer 37

1. It’s difficult to falsify and test:
   - If you believe it, how do you uncover the nature of the simulations that people produce?
   - If you don’t believe it, how do you provide evidence for ‘no simulation’?
2. Much of the existing evidence demonstrates the effect of language on picture recognition/bodily movement, rather than the other way round.
3. Abstract sentences:
   - What functional simulation might underlie ‘Mary promised John she wouldn’t be late’
   - If it’s simply an ‘away’ simulation, this wouldn’t seem to help much with capturing meaning

Question 38

What questions should be considered in relation to embodiment?

Answer 38

• How exactly do simulations work in relation to comprehension
• What do simulations actually consist of?
• How do their real-time characteristics relate to the time it takes to comprehend a sentence?
• Are these questions really answered by paradigms such as the action-sentence compatibility?