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How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing

The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words rela...

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Autores principales: Lachmair, Martin, Ruiz Fernandez, Susana, Bury, Nils-Alexander, Gerjets, Peter, Fischer, Martin H., Bock, Otmar L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5094761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27812155
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165795
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author Lachmair, Martin
Ruiz Fernandez, Susana
Bury, Nils-Alexander
Gerjets, Peter
Fischer, Martin H.
Bock, Otmar L.
author_facet Lachmair, Martin
Ruiz Fernandez, Susana
Bury, Nils-Alexander
Gerjets, Peter
Fischer, Martin H.
Bock, Otmar L.
author_sort Lachmair, Martin
collection PubMed
description The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant’s body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1) a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2) a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3) no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space.
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spelling pubmed-50947612016-11-18 How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing Lachmair, Martin Ruiz Fernandez, Susana Bury, Nils-Alexander Gerjets, Peter Fischer, Martin H. Bock, Otmar L. PLoS One Research Article The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant’s body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1) a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2) a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3) no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space. Public Library of Science 2016-11-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5094761/ /pubmed/27812155 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165795 Text en © 2016 Lachmair et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lachmair, Martin
Ruiz Fernandez, Susana
Bury, Nils-Alexander
Gerjets, Peter
Fischer, Martin H.
Bock, Otmar L.
How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title_full How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title_fullStr How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title_full_unstemmed How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title_short How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing
title_sort how body orientation affects concepts of space, time and valence: functional relevance of integrating sensorimotor experiences during word processing
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5094761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27812155
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165795
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