Investigating grounded conceptualization: motor system state-dependence facilitates familiarity judgments of novel tools.

ABSTRACT: Theories of embodied cognition propose that we recognize tools in part by reactivating sensorimotor representations of tool use in a process of simulation. If motor simulations play a causal role in tool recognition then performing a concurrent motor task should differentially modulate recognition of experienced vs. non-experienced tools. We sought to test the hypothesis that an incompatible concurrent motor task modulates conceptual processing of learned vs. non-learned objects by directly manipulating the embodied experience of participants. We trained one group to use a set of novel, 3-D printed tools under the pretense that they were preparing for an archeological expedition to Mars (manipulation group); we trained a second group to report declarative information about how the tools ar

SUBMITTER: Matheson HE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7050595 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature