Abstract
The theory of embodied language states that language comprehension relies on an internal reenactment of the sensorimotor experience associated with the processed word or sentence. Most evidence in support of this hypothesis had been collected using linguistic material without any emotional connotation. For instance, it had been shown that processing of arm-related verbs, but not of those leg-related verbs, affects the planning and execution of reaching movements; however, at present it is unknown whether this effect is further modulated by verbs evoking an emotional experience. Showing such a modulation might shed light on a very debated issue, i.e. the way in which the emotional meaning of a word is processed. To this end, we assessed whether processing arm/hand-related verbs describing actions with negative connotations (e.g. to stab) affects reaching movements differently from arm/hand-related verbs describing actions with neutral connotation (e.g. to comb). We exploited a go/no-go paradigm in which healthy participants were required to perform arm-reaching movements toward a target when verbs expressing emotional hand actions, neutral hand actions or foot actions were shown, and to refrain from moving when no-effector-related verbs were presented. Reaction times and percentages of errors increased when the verb involved the same effector as used to give the response. However, we also found that the size of this interference decreased when the arm/hand-related verbs had a negative emotional connotation. Crucially, we show that such modulation only occurred when the verb semantics had to be retrieved. These results suggest that the comprehension of negatively valenced verbs might require the simultaneous reenactment of the neural circuitry associated with the processing of the emotion evoked by their meaning and of the neural circuitry associated with their motor features.
Highlights
The way in which concepts are represented is still much debated
Semantic task As a first step, we assessed the effect of verb categories on reaching movements by comparing the length of reaction times (RTs) and the error rates with a two-way repeated-measures ANOVA [factors: verb category; and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA)]
For RTs we found a main effect of verb category [F(2,58) = 43.6, p,0.0001, g2 = 0.11] and of SOA [F(1,29) = 1441.44, p,0.0001, g2 = 0.93]
Summary
The way in which concepts are represented is still much debated. On the one hand classical theories of cognition [1] or the more recent so-called ‘disembodied cognition hypothesis’ (see [2]) state that conceptual representations are amodal or symbolic (linguistic), i.e. they are qualitatively distinct and entirely separated from sensory and motor information. According to the disembodied cognition hypothesis the comprehension of the concept expressed by the verb ‘to cut’ would rely on the retrieval of a symbolic representation released from any link with sensorimotor experience. In one version of the task, participants had to perform arm-reaching movements toward a visual target when verbs expressing either hand or foot actions were shown, and to refrain from moving when no-effector-related verbs were presented (semantics task). In the other version of the task, the same verbs were presented but this time participants had to decide whether to move or to stop according to the color in which the verbs were printed, disregarding their meaning Under these conditions any difference between arm/
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