Perceptual motor simulation during sentence comprehension

Abstract

This article introduces the embodied cognitive view of language comprehension; especially, of the sentence comprehension. This view of research was started based on the criticism of the traditional cognitive sciences and was encouraged by the discovery of mirror neurons. Although many problems are still unanswered, extensive behavioral and neural research suggests that perceptual-motor simulation contributes towards the comprehension of words and sentences. Reading sentences causes the perceptual-motor simulation, which alters flexibly according to many factors, such as syntax, context,comprehension levels, knowledges, and perceptual-motor experiences of readers. The readers then construct the mental simulation with fragmented modal information and multimodal information.