Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-r6c6k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-09T01:34:21.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Embodied semantic processing: The body-object interaction effect in a non-manual task

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Michele Wellsby ,
Paul D. Siakaluk ,
William J. Owen  and
Penny M. Pexman
Michele Wellsby
Affiliation:
University of Northern British Columbia
Paul D. Siakaluk*
Affiliation:
University of Northern British Columbia
William J. Owen
Affiliation:
University of Northern British Columbia
Penny M. Pexman
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
Correspondence addresses: P. Siakaluk, Psychology Department, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, CanadaV2N 4Z9. E-mail: siakaluk@unbc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Body-object interaction (BOI) measures people's perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. Facilitatory BOI effects, involving faster responses for high BOI words, have been reported in a number of visual word recognition tasks using button press responses. Since BOI effects have only been observed in button-press tasks, it is possible that the effects may be due to priming by high BOI words of the motor system, rather than activation of stored motor information in the lexical semantic system. If this hypothesis is correct, BOI effects should not be observed in tasks using verbal responses. We tested this hypothesis in three versions of a go/no-go semantic categorization task: one version required button press responses, whereas the other two versions required verbal responses. Contrary to the motor priming hypothesis, we observed facilitatory BOI effects in all three versions of the semantic categorization task. These results support the inference that stored motor information is indeed an important component of the lexical semantic system.

Keywords

embodied cognitionsensorimotor knowledgesemantic processingvisual word recognition

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R. & Gulikers, L.. 1995. The CELEX lexical database [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Balota, D. A., Pilotti, M. & Cortese, M. J.. 2001. Subjective frequency estimates for 2,938 monosyllabic words. Memory and Cognition 29. 639–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 1999. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22. 577–660.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2003a. Abstraction in perceptual symbol systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 358. 1177–1187.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2003b. Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes 18. 513–562.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., Simmons, W. K., Barbey, A. K. & Wilson, C. D.. 2003. Grounding conceptual knowledge in modality-specific systems. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7. 84–91.Google Scholar
Buchanan, L., Westbury, C. & Burgess, C.. 2001. Characterizing semantic space: Neighborhood effects in word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 8. 531–544.Google Scholar
Cortese, M. J. & Fugett, A.. 2004. Imageability ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 36. 384–387.Google Scholar
Cortese, M. J., Simpson, G. B. & Woolsey, S.. 1997. Effects of association and imageability on phonological mapping. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 4. 226–231.Google Scholar
Davis, C. J. 2005. N-Watch: A program for deriving neighborhood size and other psycholinguistic statistics. Behavior Research Methods 37. 65–70.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. & Kaschak, M. P.. 2002. Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 9. 558–565.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M., Sato, M., Cattaneo, L., Riggio, L., Palumbo, D. & Buccino, G.. 2008. Processing abstract language modulates motor system activity. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61. 905–919.Google Scholar
Hino, Y. & Lupker, S. J.. 1996. Effects of polysemy in lexical decision and naming: An alternative to lexical access accounts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 22. 1331–1356.Google Scholar
Hino, Y., Lupker, S. J. & Pexman, P. M.. 2002. Ambiguity and synonymy effects in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks: Interactions between orthography, phonology, and semantics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28. 686–713.Google Scholar
ITP Nelson Canadian dictionary of the English language: An encyclopedic reference. 1997. Scarborough, ON: ITP Nelson.Google Scholar
Myung, J.-Y., Blumstein, S. E. & Sedivy, J. C.. 2006. Playing on the typewriter, typing on the piano: Manipulation knowledge of objects. Cognition 98. 223–243.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L. & Schreiber, T. A.. 1998. The University of South Florida word association, rhyme, and word fragment norms. Retrieved March 15, 2006, from http://www.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/.Google Scholar
Plaut, D. C. & Shallice, T.. 1993. Deep dyslexia: A case study of connectionist neuropsychology. Cognitive Neuropsychology 10. 377–500.Google Scholar
Schneider, W., Eschmann, A. & Zuccolotto, A.. 2002. E-Prime user's guide. Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.Google Scholar
Siakaluk, P. D., Pexman, P. M., Aguilera, L., Owen, W. J. & Sears, C. R.. 2008. Evidence for the activation of sensorimotor information during visual word recognition: The body-object interaction effect. Cognition 106. 433–443.Google Scholar
Siakaluk, P. D., Pexman, P. M., Sears, C. R., Wilson, K., Locheed, K. & Owen, W. J.. 2008. The benefits of sensorimotor knowledge: Body-object interaction facilitates semantic processing. Cognitive Science 32. 591–605.Google Scholar
Simmons, W. K. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2003. The similarity-in-topography principle: Reconciling theories of conceptual deficits. Cognitive Neuropsychology 20. 451–486.Google Scholar
Strain, E., Patterson, K. & Seidenberg, M. S.. 1995. Semantic effects in single-word naming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21. 1140–1154.Google ScholarPubMed
Tillotson, S. M., Siakaluk, P. D. & Pexman, P. M.. 2008. Body-object interaction ratings for 1,618 monosyllabic nouns. Behavior Research Methods 40. 1075–1078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, J. C., Stone, G. O. & Jacobs, A. M.. 1997. What's the pronunciation for –ough and the spelling for /u/? A database for computing feedforward and feedback inconsistency in English. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 29. 600–618.Google Scholar