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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 30, 2026

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Flexibility in embodied language understanding.

Roel M Willems¹, Daniel Casasanto

¹Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Frontiers in Psychology

|July 23, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Neurocognitive studies show that sensori-motor cortices activate during language comprehension for both concrete and abstract concepts. This brain activity, though context-dependent, functionally contributes to meaning construction in language processing.

Keywords:

EEG embodied fMRI language neuroimaging semantics

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Linguistics

Background:

The role of sensori-motor cortices in language comprehension is debated.
Embodied theories propose that language understanding involves simulating sensory and motor experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

To review neurocognitive studies on language comprehension in healthy adults.
To evaluate the contribution of sensori-motor cortices to theories of language in the brain.
To explore the functional role and contextual dependency of sensori-motor activation in language processing.

Main Methods:

Review of neurocognitive studies on language comprehension.
Analysis of evidence for embodied semantic representations.
Examination of four key debated issues regarding sensori-motor cortex involvement.

Main Results:

Sensori-motor cortices are activated during comprehension of both concrete and abstract language.
Activation in these areas is dependent on linguistic and extra-linguistic context.
Modality-specific cortical activity is not essential but contributes functionally to meaning.

Conclusions:

Sensori-motor cortices play a functional role in constructing meaning during language comprehension.
These findings support the incorporation of sensori-motor regions into neurocognitive models of language.
Embodied theories of language understanding are supported by evidence of context-dependent sensori-motor activation.