Ownership language informs ownership psychology.

Many languages grammatically distinguish between alienable and inalienable possessions. The latter are sometimes restricted to body parts, but they often include other kinds of personally significant entities too. These cross-linguistic patterns suggest that one's most precious owned objects tend to fall within a complex self system that includes not only the core (corporeal) self, but also the extended (noncorporeal) self.

Interactions between language, thought, and perception: Cognitive and neural perspectives.

ABSTRACT The role that language plays in shaping non-linguistic cognitive and perceptual systems has been the subject of much theoretical and experimental attention over the past half-century. Understanding how language interacts with non-linguistic systems can provide insight into broader constraints on cognitive and brain organization. The papers that form this volume investigate various ways in which linguistic structure can interact with and influence how speakers think about and perceive the world, and the related issue of the constraints that in turn shape linguistic representations. These theoretical and empirical contributions support deeper understanding of the interactions between language, thought, and perception, and motivate new approaches for developing directional predictions at both the neural and cognitive levels.

Body ownership and beyond: connections between cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology.

During the past few decades, two disciplines that rarely come together-namely, cognitive neuroscience and linguistic typology-have been generating remarkably similar results regarding the representational domain of personal possessions. Research in cognitive neuroscience indicates that although the core self is grounded in body ownership, the extended self encompasses a variety of noncorporeal possessions, especially those that play a key role in defining one's identity. And research in linguistic typology indicates that many languages around the world contain a distinct grammatical construction for encoding what is commonly called "inalienable" possession-a category of owned objects that almost always includes body parts, but that also tends to include several other kinds of personally relevant entities. Both of these independent lines of investigation are summarized, and a number of interdisciplinary connections between them are discussed.

Grounded Cognition Entails Linguistic Relativity: A Neglected Implication of a Major Semantic Theory.

According to the popular Grounded Cognition Model (GCM), the sensory and motor features of concepts, including word meanings, are stored directly within neural systems for perception and action. More precisely, the core claim is that these concrete conceptual features reuse some of the same modality-specific representations that serve to categorize experiences involving the relevant kinds of objects and events. Research in semantic typology, however, has shown that word meanings vary significantly across the roughly 6500 languages in the world. I argue that this crosslinguistic semantic diversity has significant yet previously unrecognized theoretical consequences for the GCM. In particular, to accommodate the typological data, the GCM must assume that the concrete features of word meanings are not merely stored within sensory/motor brain systems, but are represented there in ways that are, to a nontrivial degree, language-specific. Moreover, it must assume that these conceptual representations are also activated during the nonlinguistic processing of the relevant kinds of objects and events (e.g., during visual perception and action planning); otherwise, they would not really be grounded, which is to say, embedded inside sensory/motor systems. Crucially, however, such activations would constitute what is traditionally called linguistic relativity-that is, the influence of language-specific semantic structures on other forms of cognition. The overarching aim of this paper is to elaborate this argument more fully and explore its repercussions. To that end, I discuss in greater detail the key aspects of the GCM, the evidence for crosslinguistic semantic diversity, pertinent work on linguistic relativity, the central claim that the GCM entails linguistic relativity, some initial supporting results, and some important limitations and future directions.

Grounded Cognition Entails Linguistic Relativity: Response to Commentators.

In this paper, I respond to eight commentaries on my target article called "Grounded cognition entails linguistic relativity: A neglected implication of a major semantic theory." The commentaries span a broad range of disciplines and perspectives. I have organized my response around the following topics: (1) an introductory synopsis of my main argument; (2) grounded versus amodal theories of concepts; (3) language-specific versus language-independent concepts; (4) language, culture, and cognition; (5) language itself as a source of conceptual grounding; (6) abstract concepts, linguistic relativity, and contextual and individual variability; (7) word meanings as language-specific predictions; and (8) some final remarks about the importance of cross-linguistic diversity.

Revisiting the relation between syntax, action, and left BA44.

Among the many lines of research that have been exploring how embodiment contributes to cognition, one focuses on how the neural substrates of language may be shared, or at least closely coupled, with those of action. This paper revisits a particular proposal that has received considerable attention-namely, that the forms of hierarchical sequencing that characterize both linguistic syntax and goal-directed action are underpinned partly by common mechanisms in left Brodmann area (BA) 44, a cortical region that is not only classically regarded as part of Broca's area, but is also a core component of the human Mirror Neuron System. First, a recent multi-participant, multi-round debate about this proposal is summarized together with some other relevant findings. This review reveals that while the proposal is supported by a variety of theoretical arguments and empirical results, it still faces several challenges. Next, a narrower application of the proposal is discussed, specifically involving the basic word order of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V) in simple transitive clauses. Most languages are either SOV or SVO, and, building on prior work, it is argued that these strong syntactic tendencies derive from how left BA44 represents the sequential-hierarchical structure of goal-directed actions. Finally, with the aim of clarifying what it might mean for syntax and action to have "common" neural mechanisms in left BA44, two different versions of the main proposal are distinguished. Hypothesis 1 states that the very same neural mechanisms in left BA44 subserve some aspects of hierarchical sequencing for syntax and action, whereas Hypothesis 2 states that anatomically distinct but functionally parallel neural mechanisms in left BA44 subserve some aspects of hierarchical sequencing for syntax and action. Although these two hypotheses make different predictions, at this point neither one has significantly more explanatory power than the other, and further research is needed to elaborate and test them.

Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science.

English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior: the individuals studied by cognitive scientists, as well as most of the scientists themselves, are frequently English speakers. However, English differs from other languages in ways that have consequences for the whole of the cognitive sciences, reaching far beyond the study of language itself. Here, we review an emerging body of evidence that highlights how the particular characteristics of English and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias the field by both warping research programs (e.g., overemphasizing features and mechanisms present in English over others) and overgeneralizing observations from English speakers' behaviors, brains, and cognition to our entire species. We propose mitigating strategies that could help avoid some of these pitfalls.

What modulates the Mirror Neuron System during action observation?: Multiple factors involving the action, the actor, the observer, the relationship between actor and observer, and the context.

Seeing an agent perform an action typically triggers a motor simulation of that action in the observer's Mirror Neuron System (MNS). Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that during action observation the patterns and strengths of responses in the MNS are modulated by multiple factors. The first aim of this paper is therefore to provide the most comprehensive survey to date of these factors. To that end, 22 distinct factors are described, broken down into the following sets: six involving the action; two involving the actor; nine involving the observer; four involving the relationship between actor and observer; and one involving the context. The second aim is to consider the implications of these findings for four prominent theoretical models of the MNS: the Direct Matching Model; the Predictive Coding Model; the Value-Driven Model; and the Associative Model. These assessments suggest that although each model is supported by a wide range of findings, each one is also challenged by other findings and relatively unaffected by still others. Hence, there is now a pressing need for a richer, more inclusive model that is better able to account for all of the modulatory factors that have been identified so far.

A functional role for motor simulation in identifying tools.

Embodied cognition promotes the involvement of the motor system in cognitive processing, such as tool identification. Although neuropsychological studies suggest that the motor system is not necessary for identifying tools, it may still have a functional role in tool recognition. To test this possibility, we used a motor interference task: Participants squeezed a rubber ball in one hand while naming pictures of tools and animals. Participants were faster and more accurate in naming the tools that were oriented with the handle facing away from the squeezing hand than in naming the tools that were oriented with the handle facing toward the squeezing hand. There was no effect of orientation for animals. Given that participants simulate grasping a tool with the hand closest to the handle, this result demonstrates that interfering with the ability to simulate grasping impairs tool naming and suggests that motor simulation has a functional role in tool identification.

Knowledge of the Semantic Constraints on Adjective Order Can Be Selectively Impaired.

When multiple adjectives are used to modify a noun, they tend to be sequenced in the following way according to semantic class: value > size > dimension > various physical properties > color. To investigate the neural substrates of these semantic constraints on adjective order, we administered a battery of three tests to 34 brain-damaged patients and 19 healthy participants. Six patients manifested the following performance profile. First, they failed a test that required them to discriminate between semantically determined correct and incorrect sequences of adjectives-e.g., thick blue towel vs. *blue thick towel. Second, they passed a test that assessed their knowledge of two purely syntactic aspects of adjective order-specifically, that adjectives can precede nouns, and that adjectives can precede other adjectives. Finally, they also passed a test that assessed their knowledge of the categorical (i.e., class-level) features of adjective meanings that interact with the semantic constraints underlying adjective order-e.g., that thick is a dimensional adjective and that blue is a color adjective. Taken together, these behavioral findings suggest that the six patients have selectively impaired knowledge of the abstract principles that determine how different semantic classes of adjectives are typically mapped onto different syntactic positions in NPs. To identify the neuroanatomical lesion patterns that tend to correlate with defective processing of adjective order, we combined lesion data from the six patients just described with lesion data from six other patients who we reported in a previous study as having similar impairments [Kemmerer, D. (2000). Selective impairment of knowledge underlying adjective order: Evidence for the autonomy of grammatical semantics. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 13, 57-82.] We found that the most common areas of damage included the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus and the left inferior parietal lobule. Overall, these results shed new light on the neural substrates of the syntax-semantics interface.

Naming dynamic and static actions: neuropsychological evidence.

There has been considerable interest in identifying the neural correlates of action naming, but the bulk of previous work on this topic has utilized static stimuli. Recent research comparing the visual processing of dynamic versus static actions suggests that these two types of stimuli engage largely overlapping neural systems, raising the possibility that the higher-order processing requirements for naming dynamic and static actions might not be very different. To explore this issue in greater depth, we developed the Dynamic Action Naming Test (DANT), which consists of 158 video clips 3-5s in length, for each of which the participant is asked to produce the most appropriate verb. We administered the DANT to 78 brain-damaged patients drawn from our Patient Registry, and to a demographically matched group of 50 normal participants. Out of the 16 patients who performed defectively on the DANT, nearly all (15/16) had damage in the left hemisphere. Lesion analysis indicated that the frontal operculum was the most frequent area of damage in the 15 patients; also, damage to the posterolateral temporal-occipital sector (in and near MT) was specifically related to defective dynamic action naming. Most of the brain-damaged participants (n=71) also received our Static Action Naming Test (SANT), and we found that performances on verb items that were common across the DANT and SANT were highly correlated (R=.91). Moreover, patients who failed the DANT almost invariably also failed the SANT. These findings lend further support to the hypothesis that there is considerable commonality in the neural systems underlying the use of verbs to orally name dynamic and static actions, a conclusion that is in turn compatible with the concept of "representational momentum". Our results also contribute more generally to the rapidly growing field of research on embodied cognition.

A case of impaired verbalization but preserved gesticulation of motion events.

In most cultures, most of the time, when people talk they gesture. We took advantage of a rare opportunity to explore the relation between the verbalization and gesticulation of motion events by studying Marcel, an English speaker with a unilateral left-hemisphere lesion affecting frontal, parietal, and temporal sectors of the perisylvian cortex. Marcel has intact semantic knowledge of the three major classes of words that are commonly used in English descriptions of motion events - specifically, concrete nouns, action verbs, and spatial prepositions - as well as intact syntactic knowledge of how these word classes are typically combined in the intransitive motion construction (e.g., The ball rolled down the hill). However, his ability to retrieve the lexical-phonological structures of these words is severely impaired. Despite this profound anomia, he is still remarkably skilled at producing iconic manual depictions of motion events, as demonstrated in two experiments involving spontaneous gestures and one experiment involving elicited gestures. Moreover, the structural characteristics of Marcel's gestures are clearly sensitive to the idiosyncratic meanings of English verbs and prepositions, and they may also be sensitive to the way motion events are syntactically packaged in the intransitive motion construction. These findings improve our understanding of how some brain-damaged individuals with severe aphasia but without manual apraxia can successfully employ gesture to augment the semantic content of their speech.

Big brown dog or brown big dog? An electrophysiological study of semantic constraints on prenominal adjective order.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read and made acceptability judgments about sentences containing three types of adjective sequences: (1) normal sequences--e.g., Jennifer rode a huge gray elephant; (2) reversed sequences that violate grammatical-semantic constraints on linear order--e.g., *Jennifer rode a gray huge elephant; and (3) contradictory sequences that violate lexical-semantic constraints on compositionality--e.g., *Jennifer rode a small huge elephant. Relative to the control condition, the second adjective elicited a reduced N400 and an enhanced P600 in both the reversal condition and the contradiction condition. We present several alternative accounts of these two effects, but favor an interpretation which treats them as reflecting semantic and syntactic aspects of a temporary reanalysis of the adjective order construction. Furthermore, relative to the control condition, the final noun elicited a robust N400 in the contradiction condition but not in the reversal condition. We suggest that this effect indexes the full registration of the lexical-semantic incompatibility of the two adjectives in the contradiction condition. Finally, we discuss how all of these findings fit into the broader context of recent ERP studies that have reported atypical N400s and robust P600s in response to certain types of semantic anomalies.

Engagement of the left extrastriate body area during body-part metaphor comprehension.

Grounded cognition explanations of metaphor comprehension predict activation of sensorimotor cortices relevant to the metaphor's source domain. We tested this prediction for body-part metaphors using functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants heard sentences containing metaphorical or literal references to body parts, and comparable control sentences. Localizer scans identified body-part-specific motor, somatosensory and visual cortical regions. Both subject- and item-wise analyses showed that, relative to control sentences, metaphorical but not literal sentences evoked limb metaphor-specific activity in the left extrastriate body area (EBA), paralleling the EBA's known visual limb-selectivity. The EBA focus exhibited resting-state functional connectivity with ipsilateral semantic processing regions. In some of these regions, the strength of resting-state connectivity correlated with individual preference for verbal processing. Effective connectivity analyses showed that, during metaphor comprehension, activity in some semantic regions drove that in the EBA. These results provide converging evidence for grounding of metaphor processing in domain-specific sensorimotor cortical activity.

The semantics of space: integrating linguistic typology and cognitive neuroscience.

In the cognitive neuroscience literature on the distinction between categorical and coordinate spatial relations, it has often been observed that categorical spatial relations are referred to linguistically by words like English prepositions, many of which specify binary oppositions-e.g., above/below, left/right, on/off, in/out. However, the actual semantic content of English prepositions, and of comparable word classes in other languages, has not been carefully considered. This paper has three aims. The first and most important aim is to inform cognitive neuroscientists interested in spatial representation about relevant research on the kinds of categorical spatial relations that are encoded in the 6000+ languages of the world. Emphasis is placed on cross-linguistic similarities and differences involving deictic relations, topological relations, and projective relations, the last of which are organized around three distinct frames of reference--intrinsic, relative, and absolute. The second aim is to review what is currently known about the neuroanatomical correlates of linguistically encoded categorical spatial relations, with special focus on the left supramarginal and angular gyri, and to suggest ways in which cross-linguistic data can help guide future research in this area of inquiry. The third aim is to explore the interface between language and other mental systems, specifically by summarizing studies which suggest that although linguistic and perceptual/cognitive representations of space are at least partially distinct, language nevertheless has the power to bring about not only modifications of perceptual sensitivities but also adjustments of cognitive styles.

The neural basis of conceptualizing the same action at different levels of abstraction.

People can conceptualize the same action (e.g. 'riding a bike') at different levels of abstraction (LOA), where higher LOAs specify the abstract motives that explain why the action is performed (e.g. 'getting exercise'), while lower LOAs specify the concrete steps that indicate how the action is performed (e.g. 'gripping handlebars'). Prior neuroimaging studies have shown that why and how questions about actions differentially activate two cortical networks associated with mental-state reasoning and action representation, respectively; however, it remains unknown whether this is due to the differential demands of the questions per se or to the shifts in LOA those questions produce. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants judged pairs of action phrases that varied in LOA and that could be framed either as a why question (Why ride a bike? Get exercise.) or a how question (How to get exercise? Ride a bike.). Question framing (why vs how) had no effect on activity in regions of the two networks. Instead, these regions uniquely tracked parametric variation in LOA, both across and within trials. This suggests that the human capacity to understand actions at different LOA is based in the relative activity of two cortical networks.

The spatial and temporal meanings of English prepositions can be independently impaired.

English uses the same prepositions to describe both spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., at the corner, at 1:30), and other languages worldwide exhibit similar patterns. These space-time parallelisms have been explained by the Metaphoric Mapping Theory, which maintains that humans have a cognitive predisposition to structure temporal concepts in terms of spatial schemas through the application of a TIME IS SPACE metaphor. Evidence comes from (among other sources) historical investigations showing that languages consistently develop in such a way that expressions that originally have only spatial meanings are gradually extended to take on analogous temporal meanings. It is not clear, however, if the metaphor actively influences the way that modern adults process prepositional meanings during language use. To explore this question, a series of experiments was conducted with four brain-damaged subjects with left perisylvian lesions. Two subjects exhibited the following dissociation: they failed a test that assesses knowledge of the spatial meanings of prepositions, but passed a test that assesses knowledge of the corresponding temporal meanings of the same prepositions. This result suggests that understanding the temporal meanings of prepositions does not necessarily require establishing structural alignments with their spatial correlates. Two other subjects exhibited the opposite dissociation: they performed better on the spatial test than on the temporal test. Overall, these findings support the view that although the spatial and temporal meanings of prepositions are historically linked by virtue of the TIME IS SPACE metaphor, they can be (and may normally be) represented and processed independently of each other in the brains of modern adults.

The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility: accuracy of self-report and the memory for items.

Whereas early studies have found moderately high agreement between self- and observer-rated scores on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A), these studies shared a common confound in that participants were aware of being directly observed. In the present study, confederates made surreptitious observations of group participants' hypnotic responding. Following the hypnotic procedure, participants indicated whether or not they remembered each item and provided self-reports of their hypnotic response. The study assesses the accuracy of participant self-report for hypnosis items when individuals are unaware of being observed. Thirty-two percent of participants failed to recognize at least one item from the hypnosis session, suggesting that the inability to remember items is a common phenomenon. When participants reported not remembering an item, the accuracy of their self-reported response was no better than chance.