Embodied semantics and the mirror neurons: Past research and some proposals for the future

Abstract

Embodied approaches to language propose that higher order mental processes, such as meaning construction, rely on the sensorimotor neural devices of our brain (Barsalou in Behav Brain Sci 22:577–660, 1999; Tettamanti et al. in J Cog Neurosci 17:273–281, 2005; Pulvermüller in Symbols and embodiment: debates on meaning and cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 85–116, 2008). According to the Embodied Semantics paradigm, linguistic concepts are represented in the brain within partially overlapping neural substrates recruited to enact and experience the action a word refers to (Kemmerer in Lang Cogn 7(3):450–475, 2015). Mirror neurons are a class of cells capable of discharging congruently both when a person executes an action and when s/he perceives the same action performed by another individual. Recent research has demonstrated the involvement of mirror neurons in motor language processing: perceiving a word such as “to grasp” activates the same brain motor areas triggered as if we were enacting the same action (Buccino et al. in Cogn Brain Res 24:355–363, 2005; Kemmerer & Castillo in Brain and Language 112:54-76, 2010). The debate is open on whether similar somatotopic mirror neuron activations happen also in experiments involving abstract motor language comprehension, with scholars debating this point and trying to ascertain if congruent motor areas are triggered both when the motor component of a sentence is concrete (e.g. “to kick the ball”), and when it is abstract (e.g. “to kick the bucket”, Aziz-Zadeh and Damasio in J Physiol 102:35–39, 2008; Cacciari et al. in Brain Lang 119:149–157, 2011). In this chapter I offer a critical overview of mirror neurons involvement in concrete and abstract motion meaning construction and discuss some of the issues raised against the hypothesis that language comprehension makes use of the mirror neuron system. I also stress the importance that further research be conducted which takes into due account linguistic relativity and second language competence.