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      Pupillary Responses to Words That Convey a Sense of Brightness or Darkness

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          Abstract

          Theories about embodiment of language hold that when you process a word’s meaning, you automatically simulate associated sensory input (e.g., perception of brightness when you process lamp) and prepare associated actions (e.g., finger movements when you process typing). To test this latter prediction, we measured pupillary responses to single words that conveyed a sense of brightness (e.g., day) or darkness (e.g., night) or were neutral (e.g., house). We found that pupils were largest for words conveying darkness, of intermediate size for neutral words, and smallest for words conveying brightness. This pattern was found for both visually presented and spoken words, which suggests that it was due to the words’ meanings, rather than to visual or auditory properties of the stimuli. Our findings suggest that word meaning is sufficient to trigger a pupillary response, even when this response is not imposed by the experimental task, and even when this response is beyond voluntary control.

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          Grounding language in action

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            Coming of age: a review of embodiment and the neuroscience of semantics.

            Over the last decade, there has been an increasing body of work that explores whether sensory and motor information is a necessary part of semantic representation and processing. This is the embodiment hypothesis. This paper presents a theoretical review of this work that is intended to be useful for researchers in the neurosciences and neuropsychology. Beginning with a historical perspective, relevant theories are placed on a continuum from strongly embodied to completely unembodied representations. Predictions are derived and neuroscientific and neuropsychological evidence that could support different theories is reviewed; finally, criticisms of embodiment are discussed. We conclude that strongly embodied and completely disembodied theories are not supported, and that the remaining theories agree that semantic representation involves some form of convergence zones (Damasio, 1989) and the activation of modal content. For the future, research must carefully define the boundaries of semantic processing and tackle the representation of abstract entities. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
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              How neurons make meaning: brain mechanisms for embodied and abstract-symbolic semantics.

              How brain structures and neuronal circuits mechanistically underpin symbolic meaning has recently been elucidated by neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and neurocomputational research. Modality-specific 'embodied' mechanisms anchored in sensorimotor systems appear to be relevant, as are 'disembodied' mechanisms in multimodal areas. In this paper, four semantic mechanisms are proposed and spelt out at the level of neuronal circuits: referential semantics, which establishes links between symbols and the objects and actions they are used to speak about; combinatorial semantics, which enables the learning of symbolic meaning from context; emotional-affective semantics, which establishes links between signs and internal states of the body; and abstraction mechanisms for generalizing over a range of instances of semantic meaning. Referential, combinatorial, emotional-affective, and abstract semantics are complementary mechanisms, each necessary for processing meaning in mind and brain. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Psychol Sci
                Psychol Sci
                PSS
                sppss
                Psychological Science
                SAGE Publications (Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA )
                0956-7976
                1467-9280
                14 June 2017
                August 2017
                : 28
                : 8
                : 1116-1124
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen
                [2 ]Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 7290, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Aix-Marseille University
                [3 ]Laboratoire Parole et Langage, UMR 7309, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University
                Author notes
                [*]Sebastiaan Mathôt, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen, The Netherlands E-mail: s.mathot@ 123456cogsci.nl

                Author Contributions: All the authors contributed to the design of the experiment. S. Mathôt conducted the analyses and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the revision of the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

                Article
                10.1177_0956797617702699
                10.1177/0956797617702699
                5549816
                28613135
                0f34fa60-7802-4956-bf28-36c78538d6a9
                © The Author(s) 2017

                This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

                History
                : 26 July 2016
                : 13 March 2017
                Funding
                Funded by: Seventh Framework Programme, FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004963;
                Award ID: 302807
                Funded by: Seventh Framework Programme, FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004963;
                Award ID: 622738
                Funded by: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003246;
                Award ID: VENI 451-16-023
                Categories
                Research Articles
                Custom metadata
                open-data
                open-materials

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                pupillometry,language comprehension,embodied cognition,pupillary light response,open data,open materials

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