Language as a Physical Tool

Anna M. Borghi

doi:10.1017/9781108913294.003

Chapter 1 - Language as a Physical Tool

from Part I - Language and Its Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2023

Anna M. Borghi

Show author details

Anna M. Borghi: Affiliation:
University of Rome

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter shows that language works as a physical tool by impacting how we perceive our body (interoception) and how we perceive and interact with the external world (perception and action). First, I contend that language might help us detect bodily inner signals and states . Then, I show that language recruits object affordances, the opportunities to act objects offer us, but that it does so in its own distinctive way. Language exploits previously originated structures and mechanisms, those of the motor system, but uses them flexibly. Consistent with this, I show that language shapes perception and object manipulation, extends the space we perceive as near, and modulates our perception of objects in space. Finally, using an example of the concept of color, I suggest that not only the faculty of language but also the different languages we use, through spoken words or signs, shape our world differently.

Keywords

words as tools interoception affordances theories of reuse language and perception concept of color linguistic relativity language and space perception

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Freedom of Words
Abstractness and the Power of Language
, pp. 15 - 51

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913294.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agrillo, C., & Roberson, D. (2009). Colour language and colour cognition: Brown and Lenneberg revisited. Visual Cognition, 17(3), 412–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506280802049247 Google Scholar

Ambrosini, E., Scorolli, C., Borghi, A. M., & Costantini, M. (2012). Which body for embodied cognition? Affordance and language within actual and perceived reaching space. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1551–1557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.06.010 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Anderson, M. L. (2010). Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(4), 245–266; discussion 266–313. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000853 Google Scholar

Anderson, M. L. (2014). After phrenology: Neural reuse and the interactive brain. MIT Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Ardizzi, M., Ambrosecchia, M., Buratta, L., Ferri, F., Peciccia, M., Donnari, S., ... Gallese, V. (2016). Interoception and positive symptoms in schizophrenia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 379.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Athanasopoulos, P., & Bylund, E. (2021). Whorf in the wild: Naturalistic evidence from human interaction. Applied Linguistics, 41(6), 947–970. https://doi.org/10.1093/APPLIN/AMZ050 CrossRef Google Scholar

Athanasopoulos, P., Bylund, E., & Casasanto, D. (2016). Introduction to the Special Issue: New and interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic relativity. Language Learning, 66(3), 482–486. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12196 Google Scholar

Barrett, L. F., Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., & Barsalou, L. W. (2015). The conceptual act theory: A roadmap. Barrett, In L. F. & Russell, J. A., eds., The psychological construction of emotion. The Guilford Press, pp. 83–110.Google Scholar

Batisti, F. (2021). An argument for languages in languaging. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 15(2), 159–175.Google Scholar

Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. University of California Press.Google Scholar

Binkofski, F., & Buxbaum, L. J. (2013). Two action systems in the human brain. Brain and Language, 127(2), 222–229.Google Scholar

Blasi, D. E., Henrich, J., Adamou, E., Kemmerer, D., & Majid, A. (2022). Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.015 Google Scholar

Bonfiglioli, C., Finocchiaro, C., Gesierich, B., Rositani, F., & Vescovi, M. (2009). A kinematic approach to the conceptual representations of this and that. Cognition, 111(2), 270–274. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.01.006 Google Scholar

Bonnardel, V. (2006). Color naming and categorization in inherited color vision deficiencies. Visual Neuroscience, 23(3–4), 637–643. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952523806233558 Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M. (2012). Language comprehension: Action, affordances and goals. In Coello, Y., & Bartolo, A., eds., Language and action in cognitive neuroscience. Psychology Press, pp. 143–162.Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M. (2016). Commentary: Weighty data: Importance information influences estimated weight of digital information storage devices. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 709. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00709 Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M. (2018). Affordances, context and sociality. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229–018-02044-1 CrossRef Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M., & Cimatti, F. (2010). Embodied cognition and beyond: Acting and sensing the body. Neuropsychologia, 48(3), 763–773.Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M., Flumini, A., Natraj, N., & Wheaton, L. A. (2012). One hand, two objects: Emergence of affordance in contexts. Brain and Cognition, 80(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2012.04.007 Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M., & Riggio, L. (2009). Sentence comprehension and simulation of object temporary, canonical and stable affordances. Brain Research, 1253, 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2008.11.064 Google Scholar

Borghi, A. M., & Riggio, L. (2015). Stable and variable affordances are both automatic and flexible. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 351. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00351 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Borghi, A. M., Scorolli, C., Caligiore, D., Baldassarre, G., & Tummolini, L. (2013). The embodied mind extended: Using words as social tools. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 214. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00214 Google Scholar

Brewer, R., Cook, R., & Bird, G. (2016). Alexithymia: A general deficit of interoception. Royal Society Open Science, 3(10), 150664.Google Scholar

Brouwer, A.-M., Georgiou, I., Glover, S., & Castiello, U. (2006). Adjusting reach to lift movements to sudden visible changes in target’s weight. Experimental Brain Research, 173(4), 629–636.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Bub, D. N., Masson, M. E., & Cree, G. S. (2008). Evocation of functional and volumetric gestural knowledge by objects and words. Cognition, 106(1), 27–58.Google Scholar

Bub, D. N., Masson, M. E., & Kumar, R. (2018). Time course of motor affordances evoked by pictured objects and words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(1), 53.Google Scholar

Caldano, M., & Coventry, K. R. (2019). Spatial demonstratives and perceptual space: To reach or not to reach? Cognition, 191, 103989.Google Scholar

Calvino, I. (2012). Lezioni americane. Edizioni Mondadori.Google Scholar

Cardinali, L., Frassinetti, F., Brozzoli, C., Urquizar, C., Roy, A. C., & Farnè, A. (2009). Tool-use induces morphological updating of the body schema. Current Biology, 19(12), R478–R479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.009 Google Scholar

Carlson, L. E., & van der Zee, E. E. (2005). Functional features in language and space: Insights from perception, categorization, and development. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Cattaneo, L. (2010). Tuning of ventral premotor cortex neurons to distinct observed grasp types: A TMS-priming study. Experimental Brain Research, 207(3), 165–172.Google Scholar

Chemero, A. (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances. Ecological Psychology, 15(2), 181–195.Google Scholar

Chemero, A. (2011). Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT Press.Google Scholar

Cisek, P. (2007). Cortical mechanisms of action selection: The affordance competition hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1485), 1585–1599.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Clark, A. (2013). Are we predictive engines? Perils, prospects, and the puzzle of the porous perceiver. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 233–253.Google Scholar

Clark, A., & Toribio, J. (2012). Magic words: How language augments human computation. In Clark, A., & Toribio, J., eds., Language and Meaning in Cognitive Science. Routledge, pp. 33–51.Google Scholar

Clore, G. L., & Proffitt, D. R. (2016). The myth of pure perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39(1), e235.Google Scholar

Costantini, M., Ambrosini, E., Scorolli, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2011). When objects are close to me: Affordances in the peripersonal space. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18(2), 302–308. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423–011-0054-4 Google Scholar

Coventry, K. R., & Garrod, S. C. (2004). Saying, seeing and acting: The psychological semantics of spatial prepositions. Psychology Press.Google Scholar

Cowley, S. J. (2019). Languaging evolved: Chinese Semiotic Studies, 15(4), 461–482.Google Scholar

Davidoff, J., Davies, I., & Roberson, D. (1999). Colour categories in a stone-age tribe. Nature, 398(6724), 203–204.Google Scholar

Di Paolo, E. A., Cuffari, E. C., & De Jaegher, H. (2018). Linguistic bodies: The continuity between life and language. MIT Press.Google Scholar

Diessel, H., & Coventry, K. R. (2020). Demonstratives in spatial language and social interaction: An interdisciplinary review. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.555265 Google Scholar

Dils, A. T., & Boroditsky, L. (2010). Processing unrelated language can change what you see. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(6), 882–888. https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.6.882 Google Scholar

Dove, G. (2020). More than a scaffold: Language is a neuroenhancement. Cognitive neuropsychology, 37(5–6), 288–311.Google Scholar

Ehrsson, H. H., Fagergren, A., Jonsson, T., Westling, G., Johansson, R. S., & Forssberg, H. (2000). Cortical activity in precision-versus power-grip tasks: An fMRI study. Journal of Neurophysiology, 83(1), 528–536.Google Scholar

Ellis, R. (2018). Bodies and other objects: The sensorimotor foundations of cognition. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Farnè, A., Iriki, A., & Làdavas, E. (2005). Shaping multisensory action–space with tools: Evidence from patients with cross-modal extinction. Neuropsychologia, 43(2), 238–248.Google Scholar

Ferretti, G. (2021). Visual phenomenology versus visuomotor imagery: How can we be aware of action properties? Synthese, 198(4), 3309–3338.Google Scholar

Flumini, A., Barca, L., Borghi, A. M., & Pezzulo, G. (2015). How do you hold your mouse? Tracking the compatibility effect between hand posture and stimulus size. Psychological Research, 79(6), 928–938. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426–014-0622-0 Google Scholar

Foerster, F. R., Borghi, A. M., & Goslin, J. (2020). Labels strengthen motor learning of new tools. Cortex, 129, 1–10.Google Scholar

Forder, L., & Lupyan, G. (2019). Hearing words changes color perception: Facilitation of color discrimination by verbal and visual cues. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(7), 1105–1123. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000560 Google Scholar

Franklin, A., Drivonikou, G. V., Bevis, L., Davies, I. R., Kay, P., & Regier, T. (2008). Categorical perception of color is lateralized to the right hemisphere in infants, but to the left hemisphere in adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(9), 3221–3225.CrossRef Google Scholar

Fugate, J. M., & Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D. (2022 ). Embodied emotion, emotional granularity, and mindfulness: Improved learning in the classroom. In Macrine, S. L., and Fugate, J. M. B. (eds.). Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning. MIT Press, ch. 18. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.003.0027 Google Scholar

Gallese, V. (2008). Mirror neurons and the social nature of language: The neural exploitation hypothesis. Social Neuroscience, 3(3–4), 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470910701563608 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological Psychology, 104, 65–74.Google Scholar

Garofalo, G., Marino, B. F., Bellelli, S., & Riggio, L. (2021). Adjectives modulate sensorimotor activation driven by nouns. Cognitive Science, 45(3), e12953.Google Scholar

Garofalo, G., & Riggio, L. (2022). Influence of colour on object motor representation. Neuropsychologia, 164, 108103.Google Scholar

Gentilucci, M., Benuzzi, F., Bertolani, L., Daprati, E., & Gangitano, M. (2000). Language and motor control. Experimental Brain Research, 133(4), 468–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002210000431 Google Scholar

Gerlach, C., Law, I., & Paulson, O. B. (2002). When action turns into words. Activation of motor-based knowledge during categorization of manipulable objects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1230–1239.Google Scholar

Geurts, K. (2003). Culture and the senses. University of California Press.Google Scholar

Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Psychology Press.Google Scholar

Gilbert, A. L., Regier, T., Kay, P., & Ivry, R. B. (2006). Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(2), 489–494.Google Scholar

Glenberg, A. M. (1997). What memory is for. Behavioral and brain sciences, 20(1), 1–19.Google Scholar

Glenberg, A. M., & Robertson, D. A. (2000). Symbol grounding and meaning: A comparison of high-dimensional and embodied theories of meaning. Journal of Memory and Language, 43(3), 379–401.Google Scholar

Glover, S., & Dixon, P. (2002). Semantics affect the planning but not control of grasping. Experimental Brain Research, 146(3), 383–387.Google Scholar

Glover, S., Rosenbaum, D. A., Graham, J., & Dixon, P. (2004). Grasping the meaning of words. Experimental Brain Research, 154(1), 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221–003-1659-2 Google Scholar

Goldstone, R. L., & Hendrickson, A. T. (2010). Categorical perception. WIREs Cognitive Science, 1(1), 69–78. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.26 Google Scholar

González-Peña, P., Coventry, K. R., Bayliss, A. P., & Doherty, M. J. (2022). The extended development of mapping spatial demonstratives onto space. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 215, 105336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105336 Google Scholar

Gough, P. M., Riggio, L., Chersi, F., Sato, M., Fogassi, L., & Buccino, G. (2012). Nouns referring to tools and natural objects differentially modulate the motor system. Neuropsychologia, 50(1), 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.10.017 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Gudde, H. B., Coventry, K. R., & Engelhardt, P. E. (2016). Language and memory for object location. Cognition, 153, 99–107.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Hatfield, T. R., Brown, R. F., Giummarra, M. J., & Lenggenhager, B. (2019). Autism spectrum disorder and interoception: Abnormalities in global integration? Autism, 23(1), 212–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361317738392 Google Scholar

Heider, E. R. (1972). Universals in color naming and memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 93(1), 10–20. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0032606 Google Scholar

Hobson, H., Hogeveen, J., Brewer, R., Catmur, C., Gordon, B., Krueger, F., ... Grafman, J. (2018). Language and alexithymia: Evidence for the role of the inferior frontal gyrus in acquired alexithymia. Neuropsychologia, 111, 229–240.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Hurley, S. L. (1998). Consciousness in action. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Jax, S. A., & Buxbaum, L. J. (2010). Response interference between functional and structural actions linked to the same familiar object. Cognition, 115(2), 350–355.Google Scholar

Jenmalm, P., Schmitz, C., Forssberg, H., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2006). Lighter or heavier than predicted: Neural correlates of corrective mechanisms during erroneously programmed lifts. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(35), 9015–9021.Google Scholar

Jonauskaite, D., Camenzind, L., Parraga, C. A., Diouf, C. N., Ducommun, M. M., Müller, , … Mohr, C. (2021). Colour-emotion associations in individuals with red-green colour blindness. PeerJ, 9, e11180.Google Scholar

Kalénine, S., Shapiro, A. D., Flumini, A., Borghi, A. M., & Buxbaum, L. J. (2014). Visual context modulates potentiation of grasp types during semantic object categorization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(3), 645–651. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423–013-0536-7 Google Scholar

Kay, P., & Regier, T. (2007). Color naming universals: The case of Berinmo. Cognition, 102(2), 289–298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.12.008 Google Scholar

Kemmerer, D. (2019). Concepts in the brain: The view from cross-linguistic diversity. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342(6156), 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918 Google Scholar

Kidd, D., & Castano, E. (2019). Reading literary fiction and theory of mind: Three preregistered replications and extensions of Kidd and Castano (2013). Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(4), 522–531.Google Scholar

Kiverstein, J., & Rietveld, E. (2021). Scaling-up skilled intentionality to linguistic thought. Synthese, 198(1), 175–194.Google Scholar

Kiverstein, J., Van Dijk, L., & Rietveld, E. (2021). The field and landscape of affordances: Koffka’s two environments revisited. Synthese, 198(9), 2279–2296.Google Scholar

Kundera, M. (2020). The unbearable lightness of being. Faber & Faber.Google Scholar

Lalumera, E. (2014). Whorfian effects in color perception: Deep or shallow? The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 9(1), 1–13.Google Scholar

Liberman, A. M., Harris, K. S., Hoffman, H. S., & Griffith, B. C. (1957). The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54(5), 358.Google Scholar

Lindsey, D. T., & Brown, A. M. (2006). Universality of color names. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(44), 16608–16613. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0607708103 Google Scholar

Lindsey, D. T., Brown, A. M., Brainard, D. H., & Apicella, C. L. (2015). Hunter-gatherer color naming provides new insight into the evolution of color terms. Current Biology, 25(18), 2441–2446.Google Scholar

Lupyan, G. (2015). Cognitive penetrability of perception in the age of prediction: Predictive systems are penetrable systems. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 6(4), 547–569.Google Scholar

Lupyan, G., & Bergen, B. (2016). How language programs the mind. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(2), 408–424. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12155 Google Scholar

Lupyan, G., & Clark, A. (2015). Words and the world: Predictive coding and the language-perception-cognition interface. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(4), 279–284.Google Scholar

Lupyan, G., Rahman, R. A., Boroditsky, L., & Clark, A. (2020). Effects of language on visual perception. Trends In Cognitive Sciences, 24(11), 930–944.Google Scholar

Mahon, B. Z., & Kemmerer, D. (2020). Interactions between language, thought, and perception: Cognitive and neural perspectives. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 37(5–6), 235–240.Google Scholar

Ma-Kellams, C. (2014). Cross-cultural differences in somatic awareness and interoceptive accuracy: A review of the literature and directions for future research. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1379.Google Scholar

Maravita, A., & Iriki, A. (2004). Tools for the body (schema). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(2), 79–86.Google Scholar

Marino, B. F., Sirianni, M., Volta, R. D., Magliocco, F., Silipo, F., Quattrone, A., & Buccino, G. (2014). Viewing photos and reading nouns of natural graspable objects similarly modulate motor responses. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 968.Google Scholar

Mehling, W. E., Acree, M., Stewart, A., Silas, J., & Jones, A. (2018). The multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness, version 2 (MAIA-2). PLoS ONE, 13(12), e0208034.Google Scholar

Mirolli, M., & Parisi, D. (2011). Towards a Vygotskyan cognitive robotics: The role of language as a cognitive tool. New Ideas in Psychology, 29(3), 298–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.001 Google Scholar

Mohr, C., Jonauskaite, D., Dan-Glauser, E. S., Uusküla, M., & Dael, N. (2018). Unifying research on colour and emotion. Progress in Colour Studies: Cognition, Language and Beyond, 209.Google Scholar

Moreira, H., Lillo, J., & Álvaro, L. (2021). “Red-green” or “brown-green” dichromats? The accuracy of dichromat basic color terms metacognition supports denomination change. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.624792 Google Scholar

Morlino, G., Gianelli, C., Borghi, A. M., & Nolfi, S. (2015). Learning to manipulate and categorize in human and artificial agents. Cognitive Science, 39(1), 39–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12130 Google Scholar

Myung, J., Blumstein, S. E., & Sedivy, J. C. (2006). Playing on the typewriter, typing on the piano: Manipulation knowledge of objects. Cognition, 98(3), 223–243.Google Scholar

Peeters, D., Hagoort, P., & Özyürek, A. (2015). Electrophysiological evidence for the role of shared space in online comprehension of spatial demonstratives. Cognition, 136, 64–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.10.010 Google Scholar

Proctor, R. W., & Miles, J. D. (2014). Does the concept of affordance add anything to explanations of stimulus–response compatibility effects? In Ross, B. H., ed., Psychology of learning and motivation, vol. 60. Elsevier, pp. 227–266.Google Scholar

Pylyshyn, Z. (1999). Is vision continuous with cognition?: The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(3), 341–365.Google Scholar

Regier, T., & Kay, P. (2009). Language, thought, and color: Whorf was half right. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(10), 439–446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.07.001 Google Scholar

Regier, T., Kay, P., & Cook, R. S. (2005). Focal colors are universal after all. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(23), 8386–8391.Google Scholar

Rietveld, E., & Kiverstein, J. (2014). A rich landscape of affordances. Ecological Psychology, 26(4), 325–352.Google Scholar

Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I. R., & Shapiro, L. R. (2005). Color categories: Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 50(4), 378–411.Google Scholar

Roberson, D., Davies, I., & Davidoff, J. (2000). Color categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(3), 369–398. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.129.3.369 Google Scholar

Roberson, D., & Hanley, J. R. (2009). Only half right: Comment on Regier and Kay. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(12), 500–501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.10.004 Google Scholar

Rocca, R., Tylén, K., & Wallentin, M. (2019). This shoe, that tiger: Semantic properties reflecting manual affordances of the referent modulate demonstrative use. PLoS ONE, 14(1), e0210333.Google Scholar

Rueschemeyer, S.-A., van Rooij, D., Lindemann, O., Willems, R. M., & Bekkering, H. (2010). The function of words: Distinct neural correlates for words denoting differently manipulable objects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(8), 1844–1851.Google Scholar

Saccuman, M. C., Cappa, S. F., Bates, E. A., Arevalo, A., Della Rosa, P., Danna, M., & Perani, D. (2006). The impact of semantic reference on word class: An fMRI study of action and object naming. NeuroImage, 32(4), 1865–1878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.04.179 Google Scholar

Sakreida, K., Effnert, I., Thill, S., Menz, M. M., Jirak, D., Eickhoff, C. R., Ziemke, T., Eickhoff, S. B., Borghi, A. M., & Binkofski, F. (2016). Affordance processing in segregated parieto-frontal dorsal stream sub-pathways. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 69, 89–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.07.032 Google Scholar

Samaha, J., Boutonnet, B., Postle, B. R., & Lupyan, G. (2018). Effects of meaningfulness on perception: Alpha-band oscillations carry perceptual expectations and influence early visual responses. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 6606. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598–018-25093-5 Google Scholar

Saysani, A., Corballis, M. C., & Corballis, P. M. (2021). Seeing colour through language: Colour knowledge in the blind and sighted. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1866726 Google Scholar

Schnall, S. (2017). Social and contextual constraints on embodied perception. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(2), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616660199 Google Scholar

Schneider, I. K., Parzuchowski, M., Wojciszke, B., Schwarz, N., & Koole, S. L. (2015). Weighty data: Importance information influences estimated weight of digital information storage devices. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1536.Google Scholar

Scorolli, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2015). Square bananas, blue horses: The relative weight of shape and color in concept recognition and representation. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1542. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01542 Google Scholar

Scorolli, C., Borghi, A. M., & Glenberg, A. (2009). Language-induced motor activity in bi-manual object lifting. Experimental Brain Research, 193(1), 43–53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221–008-1593-4 Google Scholar

Scorolli, C., Borghi, A. M., & Tummolini, L. (2018). Cues of control modulate the ascription of object ownership. Psychological Research, 82(5), 929–954. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426–017-0871-9 Google Scholar

Scorolli, C., Daprati, E., Nico, D., & Borghi, A. M. (2016). Reaching for objects or asking for them: Distance estimation in 7- to 15-year-old children. Journal of Motor Behavior, 48(2), 183–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222895.2015.1070787 Google Scholar

Shah, P., Hall, R., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2016). Alexithymia, not autism, is associated with impaired interoception. Cortex, 81, 215–220.Google Scholar

Stokes, D. (2013). Cognitive Penetrability of Perception. Philosophy Compass, 8(7), 646–663. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12043 Google Scholar

Trevisan, D. A., Altschuler, M. R., Bagdasarov, A., Carlos, C., Duan, S., Hamo, E., … McPartland, J. C. (2019). A meta-analysis on the relationship between interoceptive awareness and alexithymia: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy and sensibility. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128(8), 765–776. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000454 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Tsakiris, M., & Critchley, H. (2016). Interoception beyond homeostasis: Affect, cognition and mental health. In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (vol. 371, 1708, p. 20160002). The Royal Society.Google Scholar

Tucker, M., & Ellis, R. (1998). On the relations between seen objects and components of potential actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24(3), 830.Google Scholar

Tucker, M., & Ellis, R. (2004). Action priming by briefly presented objects. Acta Psychologica, 116(2), 185–203.Google Scholar

Tversky, B. (2019). Mind in motion: How action shapes thought. Hachette UK.Google Scholar

Tylén, K., Weed, E., Wallentin, M., Roepstorff, A., & Frith, C. D. (2010). Language as a tool for interacting minds. Mind & Language, 25(1), 3–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01379.x CrossRef Google Scholar

van Elk, M., van Schie, H., & Bekkering, H. (2014). Action semantics: A unifying conceptual framework for the selective use of multimodal and modality-specific object knowledge. Physics of Life Reviews, 11(2), 220–250.Google Scholar

Vicario, C. M., Nitsche, M. A., Salehinejad, M. A., Avanzino, L., & Martino, G. (2020). Time processing, interoception, and insula activation: A mini-review on clinical disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1893.Google Scholar

Vygotsky, L. S. ([1934] 1986). Thought and language, rev. ed. MIT Press.Google Scholar

Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., Henriques, A., Barsalou, L. W., & Barrett, L. F. (2019). Primary interoceptive cortex activity during simulated experiences of the body. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 31(2), 221–235.Google Scholar

Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(19), 7780–7785.Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. (1953/2009). Philosophical investigations. (Trans. Anscombe, G. E. M., Hacker, P. M. S., & Schulte, J.. Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar

Zaslavsky, N., Kemp, C., Tishby, N., & Regier, T. (2020). Communicative need in colour naming. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 37(5–6), 312–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2019.1604502 Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.