A comprehensive investigation of the roles of sensorimotor and emotional information in embodied cognition
Abstract
A broad literature suggests that simulations underlie cognition, as suggested by cognitive embodiment theories (e.g., Barsalou, 2008; Pexman, 2017). Indeed, when representing concepts and during cognitive processes like reading, “perceptual, motor, and introspective states acquired during experience” (Barsalou, 2008, p. 618) are reenacted. Recent proposals suggest that this information may be differentially recruited based on whether a word’s referent is concrete (e.g., cookie) or abstract (e.g., democracy). Specifically, the affective embodiment account (AE; Kousta et al., 2011; Vigliocco et al., 2009) argues that concrete concepts are predominantly embodied through sensorimotor information, while abstract concepts are predominantly embodied through emotional and linguistic information, suggesting stronger emotional effects for abstract word processing. Despite support for these claims, questions remain about the interaction of sensorimotor and emotional information during embodiment, which this thesis addresses. First, some propose that concrete concepts elicit stronger emotional effects due to sensorimotor associations facilitating relevant emotional information (Yao et al., 2018; Kanske & Kotz, 2007). Chapter 2 presents an analysis of two large corpora containing concreteness, emotionality, sensorimotor, and reaction time (RT) data to resolve this inconsistency. The analyses demonstrate stronger emotionality effects for words that are hard to perceive sensorily, aligning with AE. In Chapter 3, this is extended through an investigation of whether words’ dominant sensory modalities prompt uniform or different emotionality effects, addressing a gap in how specific sensory systems interact with emotionality due to the prevalence of composite sensory variables like concreteness (Khanna & Cortese, 2021). Words associated with chemical senses (smell and taste) evoked less emotional interference than words associated with vision (albeit only when general perceptibility was low), suggesting that not all sensory systems interact with emotions similarly during embodiment. Lastly, Chapter 4 extends Chapter 2’s findings with an eye-tracking analysis of online reading comparing children to adults, an understudied area in embodiment research (Pexman, 2017). While both groups showed consistency in later, integrative processing, only adults used emotional information to compensate for weak sensorimotor availability in early, lexical access processing. These findings support AE and underscore the importance of sensorimotor and emotional information in embodiment across the lifespan, while perhaps also reflecting adults’ greater language experience. Together, this thesis clarifies the roles of sensorimotor and emotional information in embodiment and how readers rely on this information from youth to adulthood.