Special topic on Action, Perception and Language

In the last decade some scholars in the cognitive sciences opposed the idea of a disembodied Cartesian mind, arguing that the mind is embedded in our perceptual and motor system (e.g. BARSALOU, 1999; GLENBERG, 1997, 2010; LAKOFF, 1987). In this view, perception and action are directly linked and mutually influenced. Embodied-situated theories of cognition claim that objects are represented in terms of perceptual symbols (BARSALOU, 1999). As grounded on our actual interactions with the external world, perceptual symbols are dynamic, changeable and multimodal (PECHER, ZEELENBERG, & BARSALOU, 2003): conceptual information is distributed over modality specific domains (BARSALOU, SIMMONS, BARBEY, & WILSON, 2003; GALLESE & LAKOFF, 2005; MARTIN, WIGGS, UNGERLEIDER, & HAXBY, 1996). The multimodality of object concepts and the centrality of action information in their construction is demonstrated in a variety of experiments showing that visual stimuli activate motor information (see SMITH, 2005). According to the embodied-situated theories, words mediating concepts also enhance the neural pathways involved in perceiving objects and interacting with them. Nowadays strong empirical evidence from fields ranging from psychology to neuroscience and cognitive linguistics (see BERGEN, 2005; GIBBS, 2003; PECHER & ZWAAN, 2005) provides support for the view that language comprehension results in embodied representations (GALLESE & GOLDMAN, 1998; ZWAAN, 2004; GLENBERG, & KASCHAK, 2002). Crucially much recent evidence suggests that the mental simulation we run is rather specific, as sensitive to differences pertaining intrinsic object properties – as shape, size, color – (e.g. ZWAAN, STANFIELD & YAXLEY, 2002; GLOVER & DIXON, 2002) as well as extrinsic ones – as orientation – (e.g. STANFIELD & ZWAAN, 2001). Moreover this simulation is quite detailed as actions seem to be represented and encoded both at a proximal and at distal level (see HOMMEL, MÜSSELER, ASCHERSLEBEN, & PRINZ, 2001), as shown by studies manipulating the effector the verbs refers to – i.e. hands, foot, mouth – (PULVERMÜLLER, HÄRLE & HUMMEL, 2001; SCOROLLI & BORGHI, 2007; BUCCINO, RIGGIO, MELLI, BINKOFSKI, GALLESE, & RIZZOLATTI, 2005), as well as the final goal expressed by the sentence (BORGHI & SCOROLLI, 2009). The empirical studies (for a review see SCOROLLI & BORGHI, 2008) show that to understand language we recruit the same perceptual, motor and emotional systems used to interact with objects to perform action. Nevertheless the emphasis on words and their referents led embodied theories on language understanding to neglect the fact that being immersed in a linguistic context is a sensori-motor and social experience. This experience can modulate the way in which we represent words’ meanings. The aim of this special issue of the Italian Journal of Philosophy of Language (Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, RIFL) is to investigate language grounding from different perspectives, addressing new challenges, and providing insights into different problems.