Abstract

MARMOLEJO-RAMOS, Fernando  and  DUNN, John. On the activation of sensorimotor systems during the processing of emotionally-laden stimuli. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2013, vol.12, n.spe5, pp.1515-1546. ISSN 1657-9267.

A series of experiments were devised to test the idea that sensorimotor systems activate during the processing of emotionally laden stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2 participants were asked to judge the pleasantness of emotionally laden sentences while participants held a pen in the mouth. Experiments 3 and 4 were similar to the previous experiments, but the experimental materials were emotionally laden images. In Experiment 5 and 6 the same bodily manipulation used throughout the previous experiments was kept while participants judged facial expressions. The first pair of experiments replicated findings suggesting that sensorimotor systems are activated during the processing of emotionally laden language. However, follow-up experiments suggested that dual activation of both perceptual and motor systems is not always necessary. For the particular case of emotionally laden stimuli, results suggested that the perceptual system seems to drive the processing. It is also shown that a high resonance between sensorimotor properties afforded by the stimuli and the sensorimotor systems activated in the cogniser elicit emotional states. The results invite to review radical versions of embodiment accounts and rather support a graded-embodiment view.

Keywords : Graded-embodied theory; emotions; images; faces; language comprehension; Cognitive Science; Cognition; Language.

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