Embodied Simulation Theory Research Articles

Motor Simulation and Ostensive-inferential communication: insights and clarifications

In the article , a theoretical model of how motor simulation is a mechanism that underlies language acquisition is described. It is argued that motor areas might play a role in both the recognition of linguistic communicative and informative intentions in infants, by activating brain regions dedicated to speech processing. In this paper, I will extend the position taken there (i) by connecting my model to the features of infant-caregiver interaction in speech perception, (ii) by explaining the process that causes brains to create networks between speech areas and the motor cortex, and (iii) by showing how the most influential mindreading models can be made compatible with both the embodied simulation theory and with the cognitive abilities in children.

Similarity Judgments and Exemplars

The paper takes up the complex Kuhnian concept of the “exemplar” through some key passages from the Postscript-1969 and The Essential Tension. The term “exemplar” refers to the deeper philosophical meaning of the scientific paradigm: the “normal” scientist, with reference to the paradigm, can carry out his or her research by making similarity judgments between different problems. Such judgments are based on a perceptive ability that precedes any explicit rule and which is defined as both learned and primitive.This paper intends to analyze this dual aspect of similarity perception from the point of view of Embodied Simulation Theory. The Kuhnian concept of exemplar can be clarified and deepened by considering the value of embodiment. The mechanisms of an “educated” perception can be identified in those automatic mechanisms of perceptual mirroring on which embodied cognition is based.

Toward Production Design Metaphor: Implications of Situated Authorship and Meaning-Making

Abstract The task of production design is to create locations where cinematic events occur. Since the subjective experiences of the characters in the film are mainly observable externally, the entire film practice aims to express them through secondary means, for example by design and cinematography. The filmmaker can choose what she brings to the foreground from the character’s experience and what aspects she emphasizes. In the case of production design, it is possible to express metaphorical correlations through the spatialization process of cinematic events while anticipating the embodied situatedness of the camera and the eventual film viewer. The notion of situated authorship is discussed through iconic design examples from Gone With the Wind and The Birds, which have historically shaped the concept of production design practice. In the case study referring to my work as a designer, I intend to evaluate the schemas used in the spatialization process in the context of Embodied Simulation Theory (EST) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Here, I propose the idea of a dynamic staging scenario that indicates how cinematic movement – especially the action of the scene and the movement of the camera onset – is considered in spatialization. With the discussion, I conduct a design analysis with which the properties of the space can be evaluated based on the concepts of image schema, primary metaphor, and conceptual metaphor.

Tools and peripersonal space: an enactive account of bodily space

AbstractPeripersonal space (PPS) is frequently defined as a plastic, pragmatic and goal-directed multisensory buffer that connects the brain-body with its immediate environment. While such characterisations indicate that peripersonal spatiality is profoundly embodied and enactive, comparatively few attempts have aimed to systematically synthesise PPS literature with compatible phenomenological accounts of lived space provided by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Moreover, in traditional cognitive neuroscience, neurophysiological activity is thought to map onto discrete ‘cognitive correlates’. In contemporary 4E approaches to cognition, however, phenomenology-derived notions such as ‘pre-reflective cognition’ and ‘motor-intentionality’ frequently appear, yet their neural correlates may be comparatively difficult to pin down. Pre-reflectively, agents seemingly do not thematise spatial properties as operationalised in key experimental paradigms (e.g., spatial rotation tasks) but are instead inherently spatially embedded within the world. To refine this distinction, I survey how tools co-determine this distinctly spatial ‘world-embeddedness’ using a neurophenomenological methodology (Varela, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3(4), 330–349, 1996). Specifically, I conduct two neurophenomenological analyses of tool-perception and tool-use, examining both how distance modulates affordance-perception and how tool-use remaps bodily space via the withdrawal of tools from intentional-objects into co-constituting motor-intentionality itself. I conclude by briefly distinguishing this interpretation of spatial cognition from cognitivist frameworks. Thereafter, I briefly highlight the temporal scaffolding underlying PPS while conceptually grounding my account within Embodied Simulation Theory (Gallese, Reti, Saperi, Linguaggi, (1), 31–46, 2018). What is at stake is thus both an explicitly embodied-enactive account of bodily space that is qualitative and situational instead of quantitative and positional, as well as a viable, interdisciplinary strategy for unifying pre-reflective cognition with neurophysiological data.

Language and Meaning: The Perspective of Embodied Simulation Theory

يروم هذا المقالُ بسطَ الأدوات الإجرائية التي يتوسل بها الإطار النظري الموسوم بدلالة المحاكاة، الذي يتخذ من المحاكاة المجسدنة مُنطلقًا له؛ لاستكناه كيفية تشكُّل المعنى إدراكيًا وتصوريًا في ذهن مستخدِم اللغة، وهو إطار يندرج ضمن الأنموذج العرفاني المجسدن. لقد انبثقت دلالة المحاكاة كرد فعل تجاه النظريات الرمزية المجردة التي تنص على أن المحتويات القضوية لا تتأثر بالكيفيات الإدراكية والحالات الجسدية والأفعال الموقفية. وتنطلق هذه المقاربة التليدة من مجموعة من الفرضيات القائمة في مجملها على افتراض تقييد السياقات اللغوية والفيزيائية والمتغيرات الموقفية لعملية المحاكاة ومحتواها الدلالي والتصوري، وتقييد المحاكاة لفهم اللغة وإنتاجها، وغيرها من القضايا الشائكة التي باتت تقض مضجع المقاربات الرمزية غير المجسدنة. وانسجاما مع ما سطره المبحث من مبادئ وفرضيات، ظهرت مجموعة من الأبحاث المهتمة بفحص المعنى بوصفه نتاجًا تحصيليًا للمعالجة العصبية الآنية الموزعة، التي تسترجع الحالات الإدراكية والجسدية وتتعداها، متوسلةً في ذلك بالأُطر التصورية والخلفيات المعرفية والأوليات العرفانية من قبيل التخطيط والدمج والتكرار. وتؤكد هذه الأبحاث على أهمية المحاكاة الموقفية في النسق التصوري من حيث تحديد البنيات التصورية الدلالية تحديدًا تضطلع فيه الوحداتُ اللغوية بدورٍ تخطيطيٍ وسائطيٍ موازٍ، بحيث إن الكلمات والتوليفات والقرائن السياقية توجِّه المحاكاة كمًا ونوعًا من خلال تنشيط الأطر التصورية الملائمة لالتقاط التجارب الإدراكية الحسية الحركية أو الوجدانية المراد تمثيلها في مواقف معينة.

كلمة العدد (الإنجليزي)

Learning is based on scientific research and sober studies, provided that the researcher is free from the consequences of a position that he/she seeks or fears from. And this is what the ancestors have always done, so they were bright lamps in the tracts of Arabic. Their books and dictionaries are the best witness to that. Arabic is one of the broadest languages, and one of the most vocabulary, and those who dealt with its service and sought to develop it in keeping with its time realized the breadth of its meanings. In accordance with the framework of the magazine's concern - within its scope of competence - to advance research in linguistics and its related areas, this issue contains five research papers and a book review. Four of these papers belong to the field of linguistics, and one of them belongs to rhetoric. The first research, "Partial deceptive analogues between the Arabic and Turkish languages," is a contrastive study whose distinction comes from paying attention to the comparison between Arabic and Turkish, which despite its closeness to Arabic in terms of vocabulary, is not paid much attention to in this research direction. As for the second research, "Language and meaning from the perspective of embodied simulation theory," it starts from the perspective of cognitive or perceptual linguistics, in order to try to address the procedural tools that can lead to understanding how meaning is perceptually and conceptually formed in the mind of the language user. The third research is "Language and Identity in the Discourse of Edward Said’s Memoirs". It falls within the social linguistics related to identity that deviates from the traditional framework in this type of studies that is not usually concerned with people and media. This is because it provides us with an important, real example to study one of the manifestations of intense linguistic identity the singularity of Edward Said. In order to conclude that the discourse of identity and its association with language for him represents a unique bilateral aesthetic discourse laden with connotations and implicit messages, by making an alignment and a paradox that depends on the employment of the achievements of the foreign, empowered, incoming essay tongue; To express the identity of the mother's tongue and money. As for the fourth research, "The Chronology of Metaphor from Ancient Rhetoric to Interpretive Rhetoric," it is concerned with rhetoric. It falls within the orbit of its renewal investigations, by tracing the concept of metaphor in traditional Arabic rhetoric and in the contemporary trend called interpretive rhetoric, in which metaphor has become a method for analyzing discourse, contributing to understanding the meaning and building new connotations that led to the emergence of the metaphor mechanism in the field of expanded rhetoric. The fifth research is “Interpretive Semiotics: A Study of the Levels of Interpretation and Perception”. Its interpretive semiotic perspective examines the concept of “signs” that were able to transform the elements of existence and the universe into abstract symbolic worlds, all with the aim of observing the components of signs and explaining their methods of work and their endless semantic process. As for the presentation of the book "Linguistic Change and Linguistic Diversity...", it is an important review in defining a pioneering modern contribution to the field of historical linguistics, typological classification of languages, and documentation, by focusing on presenting examples that draw attention to isolated marginalized languages. In addition to the scientific issues that we benefit from through the presentation of the book, the reader benefits - and this is an important piece of information derived from the presentation of the books - getting acquainted with a group of specialized scholars, represented here by a person who is celebrated in the book, and he is Lyle Campbell, who devoted most of his effort to studying the Central American languages. In addition to getting to know the three editors and co-chapters, all of whom are distinguished academics in the book's core subjects. The research papers presented reflect a realistic picture of contemporary and other linguistics research, whose branches and subtleties of specialization vary, and ranges between the two approaches: theoretical and applied, although some of them are sometimes dominated by the theoretical side, which is not sufficient. Added to this is the significance of these researches on the paths of using the scientific term and the need to review it and try to edit and control it.

“The image of black in a thousand different ways”: Materiality and visual perception in the work of Franz Kline, David Smith, Ad Reinhardt and F. N. Souza

This paper reviews the literature on the physical, cognitive and perceptual aspects of black materiality in the art of the modern period, and considers how we perceive the physical methods, materials and processes used in the work of Franz Kline, David Smith, Ad Reinhardt and Francis Newton Souza. The paper highlights the value of embodied simulation theory in understanding work in black paintings and drawings in the modern period, and considers the various ontologies for these objects. It concludes that how we perceive abstract black monochromatic and gestural works of art may be seen as being dependent on a carefully structured relationship between choice and manipulation of material by the artist and a number of complex cognitive functions that occur as part of our visual perception.

Cranes, Drones and Eisenstein

In this article, a neurohumanistic, “third culture” approach to “gesture” is delineated. Grounded in an exegesis of Eisenstein’s sensorimotor theory and extending to both contemporary and historical thinkers, a “constellation” of the notion of both visual and musical gestures is triangulated and operationalized into empirical research. An overlap between Eisenstein’s model of audio/visual gestures and the contemporary frameworks of embodied simulation theory and embodied music cognition is revealed. Through artistic collaborations with a filmmaker and a film composer, custom-made, naturalistic video clips (filmed with a drone) and musical tracks were created using the film The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov 1957) as an aesthetic model. Empirical results demonstrate an increased sense of movement and involvement in the perception of both visual and musical “ascent.”

Does embodied simulation contain schematic motional imagery when it comes to action concepts?

This study explores the reasons behind the high frequency of homonym words in languages, despite their lack of semantic relationships. Additionally, it survey how it does not contradict language optimality to have a significant amount of homonyms with no semantic relationship between them. The study is based on the Natural Theory of Language and Embodied Simulation Theory. Its goal is to illustrate the gap between linguistics and neurological studies. Moreover, its findings suggest that linguistics can pave the way for deeper neural studies. The study puts forward the hypothesis of Schematic Motional Imageries (SMI). Each SMI works as a framework for structuring different concepts with a single form. Each SMI contains a linguistic form and imagery, these present as generalizations of different conceptual mappings, based on special body movements. Once these SMI emerge in a language they are a frame to create both concrete and abstract concepts with identical or related linguistic forms. SMI provides findings in favor of the Neural Reuse Theory. Accordingly, it suggests that SMIs can interfere with neural activation of the motor cortex areas in task-based experiments. Finally, the presence of different SMIs in languages displays the role of social cognition and historical backgrounds of different societies, suggesting a similarity in distinctive aspects of common actions.

Hypomimia May Influence the Facial Emotion Recognition Ability in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.

Hypomimia is a clinical feature of Parkinson's disease (PD). Based on the embodied simulation theory, the impairment of facial mimicry may worsen facial emotion recognition; however, the empirical results are inconclusive. We aimed to explore the worsening of emotion recognition by hypomimia. We further explored the relationship between the hypomimia, emotion recognition, and social functioning. A total of 114 participants were recruited. The patients with PD and normal controls (NCs) were matched for demographic characteristics. All the participants completed the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Chinese Multi-modalities Emotion Recognition Test. In addition to the above tests, the patients were assessed with the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and Parkinson's Disease Social Functioning Scale (PDSFS). Patients with PD with hypomimia had worse recognition of disgust than NCs (p = 0.018). The severity of hypomimia was predictive of the recognition of disgust (β= -0.275, p = 0.028). Facial emotion recognition was predictive of the PDSFS score of PD patients (β= 0.433, p = 0.001). We also found that recognizing disgust could mediate the relationship between hypomimia and the PDSFS score (β= 0.264, p = 0.045). Patients with hypomimia had the worst disgust facial recognition. Hypomimia may affect the social function of PD patients, which is related to recognizing the expression of disgust. Emotion recognition training may improve the social function of patients with PD.

The Impact of Visual Art and High Affective Arousal on Heuristic Decision-Making in Consumers.

In marketing, the use of visual-art-based designs on products or packaging crucially impacts consumers’ decision-making when purchasing. While visual art in product packaging should be designed to induce consumer’s favorable evaluations, it should not evoke excessive affective arousal, because this may lead to the depletion of consumer’s cognitive resources. Thus, consumers may use heuristic decision-making and commit an inadvertent mistake while purchasing. Most existing studies on visual arts in marketing have focused on preference (i.e., affective valence) using subjective evaluations. To address this, we applied a neuroscientific measure, electroencephalogram (EEG) to increase experimental validity. Two successive tasks were designed to examine the effects of affective arousal and affective valence, evoked by visual artwork, on the consecutive cognitive decision-making. In task 1, to evaluate the effect of visual art, EEG of two independent groups of people was measured when they viewed abstract artwork. The abstract art of neoplasticism (AbNP) group (n = 20) was showing Mondrian’s artwork, while the abstract art of expressionism (AbEX) group (n = 18) viewed Kandinsky’s artwork. The neoplasticism movement strove to eliminate emotion in art and expressionism to express the feelings of the artist. Building on Gallese’s embodied simulation theory, AbNP and AbEX artworks were expected to induce lower and higher affect, respectively. In task 2, we investigated how the induced affect differentially influenced a succeeding cognitive Stroop task. We anticipated that the AbEX group would deplete more cognitive resources than AbNP group, based on capacity limitation theory. Significantly stronger affect was induced in the AbEX group in task 1 than in the AbNP group, especially in affective arousal. In task 2, the AbEX group showed a faster reaction time and higher error rate in the Stroop task. According to our hypotheses, the higher affective arousal state of the AbEX group might deplete more cognitive resources during task 1 and result in poorer performance in task 2 because affect impacted their cognitive resources. This is the first study using neuroscientific measures to prove that high affective arousal induced by visual arts on packaging may induce heuristic decision-making in consumers, thereby advancing our understanding of neuromarketing.

Husserlian empathy and embodied simulation

In this article, I show that Husserl’s account of empathy supports embodied simulation theory. Both Husserl and embodied simulation accounts of intersubjectivity face the difficulty of accounting for the relations of similarity and difference between self and other, but there is ample neurological data available to the simulationist to establish the relations of similarity and difference, and Husserlian concepts provide a useful interpretive framework for this data. I then respond to the criticism that the theory of embodied simulation involves imitation and is therefore indirect and nonperceptual. Yet, some extra process must distinguish perceptual intersubjectivity from nonsocial perception, and the most direct additional process possible is the interbodily resonances of the kinaesthetic system endorsed by both simulationists and Husserl. Husserl gives an account of kinaesthetic sensations amounting to a phenomenological description of embodied simulation. This article exemplifies phenomenological correlationism whereby cognitive science and phenomenology serve to enlighten one another.

Problems with Facial Mimicry Might Contribute to Emotion Recognition Impairment in Parkinson's Disease.

Difficulty with emotion recognition is increasingly being recognized as a symptom of Parkinson's disease. Most research into this area contends that progressive cognitive decline accompanying the disease is to be blamed. However, facial mimicry (i.e., the involuntary congruent activation of facial expression muscles upon viewing a particular facial expression) might also play a role and has been relatively understudied in this clinical population. In healthy participants, facial mimicry has been shown to improve recognition of observed emotions, a phenomenon described by embodied simulation theory. Due to motor disturbances, Parkinson's disease patients frequently show reduced emotional expressiveness, which translates into reduced mimicry. Therefore, it is likely that facial mimicry problems in Parkinson's disease contribute at least partly to the emotional recognition deficits that these patients experience and might greatly influence their social cognition abilities and quality of life. The present review aims to highlight the need for further inquiry into the motor mechanisms behind emotional recognition in Parkinson's disease by synthesizing behavioural, physiological, and neuroanatomical evidence.

Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease: A review and new hypotheses

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder classically characterized by motor symptoms. Among them, hypomimia affects facial expressiveness and social communication and has a highly negative impact on patients' and relatives' quality of life. Patients also frequently experience nonmotor symptoms, including emotional‐processing impairments, leading to difficulty in recognizing emotions from faces. Aside from its theoretical importance, understanding the disruption of facial emotion recognition in PD is crucial for improving quality of life for both patients and caregivers, as this impairment is associated with heightened interpersonal difficulties. However, studies assessing abilities in recognizing facial emotions in PD still report contradictory outcomes. The origins of this inconsistency are unclear, and several questions (regarding the role of dopamine replacement therapy or the possible consequences of hypomimia) remain unanswered. We therefore undertook a fresh review of relevant articles focusing on facial emotion recognition in PD to deepen current understanding of this nonmotor feature, exploring multiple significant potential confounding factors, both clinical and methodological, and discussing probable pathophysiological mechanisms. This led us to examine recent proposals about the role of basal ganglia‐based circuits in emotion and to consider the involvement of facial mimicry in this deficit from the perspective of embodied simulation theory. We believe our findings will inform clinical practice and increase fundamental knowledge, particularly in relation to potential embodied emotion impairment in PD. © 2018 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Cinema and the embodied mind: metaphor and simulation in understanding meaning in films

Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies. Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema. The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims.

Does Facial Amimia Impact the Recognition of Facial Emotions? An EMG Study in Parkinson's Disease.

According to embodied simulation theory, understanding other people’s emotions is fostered by facial mimicry. However, studies assessing the effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion are still controversial. In Parkinson’s disease (PD), one of the most distinctive clinical features is facial amimia, a reduction in facial expressiveness, but patients also show emotional disturbances. The present study used the pathological model of PD to examine the role of facial mimicry on emotion recognition by investigating EMG responses in PD patients during a facial emotion recognition task (anger, joy, neutral). Our results evidenced a significant decrease in facial mimicry for joy in PD, essentially linked to the absence of reaction of the zygomaticus major and the orbicularis oculi muscles in response to happy avatars, whereas facial mimicry for expressions of anger was relatively preserved. We also confirmed that PD patients were less accurate in recognizing positive and neutral facial expressions and highlighted a beneficial effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion. We thus provide additional arguments for embodied simulation theory suggesting that facial mimicry is a potential lever for therapeutic actions in PD even if it seems not to be necessarily required in recognizing emotion as such.

Embodied simulation and ambiguous stimuli: The role of the mirror neuron system

According to the “embodied simulation theory,” exposure to certain visual stimuli would automatically trigger action simulation in the mind of the observer, thereby originating a “feeling of movement” modulated by the mirror neuron system (MNS). Grounded on this conceptualization, some of us recently suggested that when exposed to the Rorschach inkblots, in order to see a human movement (e.g., “a person running”) in those ambiguous stimuli, the observer would need to experience a “feeling of movement” via embodied simulation. The current study used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to further test this hypothesis. Specifically, we investigated whether temporarily interfering with the activity of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG; a putative MNS area) using rTMS would decrease the propensity to see human movement (M) in the Rorschach inkblots. Thirty-six participants were exposed to the Rorschach stimuli twice, i.e., during a baseline (without rTMS) and soon after inhibitory rTMS. As for the rTMS condition, half of the sample was stimulated over the LIFG (experimental group) and the other half over the Vertex (control group). In line with our hypothesis, the application of rTMS over LIFG, but not over Vertex, yielded a statistically significant reduction in the attribution of M to the ambiguous stimuli, with large effect size. These findings may be interpreted as being consistent with the hypothesis that there is a link between the MNS and the “feeling of movement” people may experience, when observing ambiguous stimuli such as the Rorschach cards.

Empathy, but not mimicry restriction, influences the recognition of change in emotional facial expressions.

The current study addressed the hypothesis that empathy and the restriction of facial muscles of observers can influence recognition of emotional facial expressions. A sample of 74 participants recognized the subjective onset of emotional facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutral) in a series of morphed face photographs showing a gradual change (frame by frame) from one expression to another. The high-empathy (as measured by the Empathy Quotient) participants recognized emotional facial expressions at earlier photographs from the series than did low-empathy ones, but there was no difference in the exploration time. Restriction of facial muscles of observers (with plasters and a stick in mouth) did not influence the responses. We discuss these findings in the context of the embodied simulation theory and previous data on empathy.

I Feel Your Pain: Embodied Knowledges and Situated Neurons

The widely touted discovery of mirror neurons has generated intense scientific interest in the neurobiology of intersubjectivity. Social neuroscientists have claimed that mirror neurons, located in brain regions associated with motor action, facial recognition, and somatosensory processing, allow us to automatically grasp other people's intentions and emotions. Despite controversies, mirror neuron research is animating materialist, affective, and embodied accounts of intersubjectivity. My view is that mirror neurons raise issues that are directly relevant to feminism and cultural studies, but interventions are needed for the work to be compatible with nonreductionist critical thought. In this article I critique the dominant neuroscientific account of mirror neurons, called embodied simulation theory. I draw from feminist epistemologies as well as alternative interpretations of mirror neurons in cognitive science and philosophy of mind to consider mirroring as situated, embodied perception.

A test of the embodied simulation theory of object perception: potentiation of responses to artifacts and animals

Theories of embodied object representation predict a tight association between sensorimotor processes and visual processing of manipulable objects. Previous research has shown that object handles can 'potentiate' a manual response (i.e., button press) to a congruent location. This potentiation effect is taken as evidence that objects automatically evoke sensorimotor simulations in response to the visual presentation of manipulable objects. In the present series of experiments, we investigated a critical prediction of the theory of embodied object representations that potentiation effects should be observed with manipulable artifacts but not non-manipulable animals. In four experiments we show that (a) potentiation effects are observed with animals and artifacts; (b) potentiation effects depend on the absolute size of the objects and (c) task context influences the presence/absence of potentiation effects. We conclude that potentiation effects do not provide evidence for embodied object representations, but are suggestive of a more general stimulus-response compatibility effect that may depend on the distribution of attention to different object features.