The Body in Embodiment: Specifying the Role of Peripheral Input in Grounded Cognition – EMBODIED

There is increasing scientific attention to the role that the body plays in human mental functioning. The view is bolstered by an exponential growth in supportive evidence revealing that mental contents are often grounded in bodily experiences and that models that rely on symbolic, abstract, and amodal representations are not sufficient to account for such observations. In this emerging work on embodiment, ‘simulation’, namely the reenactment of perceptual, motor, and introspective states as a central mechanism for human functioning, has become a central explanatory point of reference. The accumulating empirical evidence has revealed important roles of extero- and interoceptive simulations for many psychological phenomena. The three integrated pillars of this program are designed to answer a question that is left open in current embodiment research: where are the causal sources of embodiment effects located in the stream between retrieval of motor programs, virtual simulation, signaling motor commands downstream and finally proprioceptive and interoceptive feedback from executing the motor response in the body’s periphery? We intend to provide a general theoretical answer to these questions with experimental studies deploying innovative methods, the use of unique patient samples, medical interventions, and the application of an interdisciplinary perspective spanning behavioral, emotional, psychophysiological, neural, and social psychological insights. The focus common to the three teams’ proposed research is the innovative idea of systematically triangulating the sources of what simulation entails by systematically blocking the different stages of the motor stream, namely via motor interference (interference with motor retrieval, efference, and re-afference), higher/central paralysis (disrupted motor retrieval, disabled efference and hence reafference), lower/peripheral paralysis (intact motor retrieval, disabled efference and hence reafference), anesthesia (intact motor-retrieval and efference, but disabled re-afference), and peripheral lesions (re-organization of motor representation). The converging pillars of the program are designed to specify the function of afferent and efferent motor processes in (1) embodied simulations during repeated exposure of verbal stimuli; (2) the facial expression of emotions, in particular happiness and anger, and affect processing, and (3) facial expression, specifically different types of smile with specific predictions about how behavioral and brain processes ground judgments of the meaning of facial expression. The proposed collaborative research efforts will combine a unique set of complementary expertise in the respective research laboratories. Each investigative team has already made significant contributions pertinent to the field of embodiment. The Wuerzburg group was undoubtedly the forerunner in this field at least a decade and a half before it even emerged, with a set of studies that are absolute classics. The Utrecht group has a unique reputation on language and communication along with recent contributions on embodiment, language and emotions. The Clermont-Ferrand group consists of the foremost emotion researchers internationally. The combination of this top expertise in a research field – embodiment - the common denominator to all three provides this group with an unusual integration that is expected to yield innovative theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature.