Chapter 62 What Does It Mean? A Review of the Neuroscientific Evidence for Embodied Lexical Semantics

Abstract:

The idea that concepts are represented as mental images that revoke sensory experiences is intuitive and has a long history in philosophy. The empirical question regarding the degree to which these processes are embodied or grounded in sensory-motor brain systems still remains controversial after several decades of neuroscientific research. This controversy revolves around theoretical issues of how neuroscientific data can constrain models of semantics and to what degree semantics requires conscious or unconscious processes, as well as empirical issues such as how to weigh evidence from different measurement modalities and the reliability of evidence. This chapter provides an overview of the major theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical literature in neuroscientific research on embodied lexical semantics. A number of studies have reported activation in sensory-motor systems during semantic processing, but the more specific role of these systems in semantics is still underspecified. There are currently no benchmark data that can distinguish different models of embodied semantics.