Action and perception are functionally linked in the brain, but a hotly debated question is whether perception and comprehension of stimuli depend on motor circuits. Brain language mechanisms are ideal for addressing this question. Neuroimaging investigations have found specific motor activations when subjects understand speech sounds, word meanings and sentence structures. Moreover, studies involving transcranial magnetic stimulation and patients with lesions affecting inferior frontal regions of the brain have shown contributions of motor circuits to the comprehension of phonemes, semantic categories and grammar. These data show that language comprehension benefits from frontocentral action systems, indicating that action and perception circuits are interdependent.

Active perception: sensorimotor circuits as a cortical basis for language

A growing body of research suggests that comprehending verbal descriptions of actions relies on an internal simulation of the described action. To assess this motor resonance account of language comprehension, we first review recent developments in the literature on perception and action, with a view towards language processing. We then examine studies of language processing from an action simulation perspective. We conclude by discussing several criteria that might be helpful with regard to assessing the role of motor resonance during language comprehension.

Embodied language: A review of the role of the motor system in language comprehension

In this presentation, we discuss embodied cognition in the human brain from perspectives of spatial cognition, sensorimotor processing, face processing, and mobile EEG recordings. The argument is based upon experimental evidence gathered from five separate studies. First, we focus on spatial representations and demonstrate that, given time pressure, information on the spatial orientation of houses, independent of a participant's own location, is best retrieved when it directly relates to potential actions. Thus providing evidence that even spatial representations code information in a manner directly related to the action. Next, we discuss the concept of representations as such. Using the example of face processing in the human visual system, we argue that the concept of representations should be confined to cases where neuronal activity contains explicit information on the variable of interest and, in turn, that this variable explains the complete part of the explainable variance, i.e. reaches the noise limit. Next, to push towards an investigation of cognition under natural conditions we present a benchmark test of mobile and research-grade EEG systems. Specifically, we demonstrate that the variance over systems contributes a significant part to the total variance of recorded event related potentials. As a next step, using Independent Component Analysis of EEG data we demonstrate that in cognitive tasks some independent components systematically relate to sensory processing as well as to action execution. This supports theories of the common coding theory and, thus, a mechanistic part of the embodied cognition framework. Finally, we demonstrate a real world application investigating face processing in the form of the N170 event related potential during natural visual exploration in a fully mobile setup. This technique allows investigating the physiological basis of cognitive processes under real world conditions. In this presentation we argue that understanding cognitive processes will need to consider the (inter)actions in the natural environment.

Embodied cognition

Modern neuroimaging provides a common platform for neuroscience and related disciplines to explore the human brain, mind, and behavior. We base our review on the social shaping of the human mind an...

K. A. Jellinger

Papers

Motor Cognition What Actions Tell the Self