Embodied memories: Reviewing the role of the body in memory processes

Oxytocin predicts positive affect gains in a role-play interaction

Introduction

Role-play, a key creative process in theatre, is used in therapeutic interventions to improve social skills, emotion regulation, and memory. Although role-play is widely used as a psychotherapeutic technique, its mechanisms of action are not fully understood.

Methods

Our study introduces a standardized controlled procedure for promoting role-play in the laboratory based on the portrayal of a fictional persona and examines its effects on anxiety, affect, prosocial attitudes, and salivary oxytocin dynamics in 38 participants.

Results

In our experiment, role-play significantly increased positive affect and prosocial attitudes and decreased anxiety compared to a control condition. Basal salivary oxytocin levels predicted higher gains in positive affect following role-play, suggesting a specific moderating effect of oxytocin. The fictional persona used in the procedure was rated as very happy by subjects, creating a positive social context for the role-play social interaction.

Discussions

We propose that the observed moderation effect of oxytocin in our study is specific to the role-play condition due to the capacity of role-play to generate an affective regulatory context based on congruency toward the emotional state of the fictional persona. Our findings indicate that basal oxytocin levels could predict specific outcomes of role-play in therapeutical setting. We discuss several psychological and biological mechanisms that could account for the observed effects of role-play and how oxytocin could act as a substrate for them.

Exploring Embodied and Bioenergetic Approaches in Trauma Therapy: Observing Somatic Experience and Olfactory Memory

Recent studies highlight how body psychotherapy is becoming highly cited, especially in connection with studies on trauma-related disorders. This review highlights the theoretical assumptions and recent points in common with embodied simulation and new sensory theories by integrating bioenergetic analysis, embodiment, and olfactory memory in trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) therapy. Embodied memory, rooted in sensorimotor experiences, shapes cognitive functions and emotional responses. Trauma, embodied in somatic experiences, disrupts these processes, leading to symptoms such as chronic pain and dissociation. The literature discussed highlights the impact of burning odors on individuals with PTSD and those who have experienced childhood maltreatment. Burning odors can increase stress and heart rate in war veterans, with sensitivity to these odors intensifying over time since the trauma. Additionally, adults who experienced childhood maltreatment exhibit faster processing of unpleasant odors and increased symptom severity. Grounding techniques, such as adopting a balanced posture, enhance breathing and sensory capabilities, potentially aiding in managing symptoms associated with trauma-related disorders such as PTSD.

Does context matter for memory? Testing the effectiveness of learning by imagining situated interactions with objects

Mounting evidence supports the efficacy of mental imagery for verbal information retention. Motor imagery, imagining oneself interacting physically with the object to be learned, emerges as an optimal form compared to less physically engaging imagery. Yet, when engaging in mental imagery, it occurs within a specific context that may affect imagined actions and consequently impact the mnemonic benefits of mental imagery. In a first study, participants were given instructions for incidental learning: mental rehearsal, visual imagery, motor imagery or situated motor imagery. The latter, which involved imagining physical interaction with an item within a coherent situation, produced the highest proportion of correct recalls. This highlights memory's role in supporting situated actions and offers the possibility for further developing the mnemonic potential of embodied mental imagery. Furthermore, item-level analysis showed that individuals who engaged in situated motor imagery remembered words primarily due to the sensorimotor characteristics of the words' referent. A second study investigating the role of inter-item distinctiveness in this effect failed to determine the extent to which the situational and motor elements need to be distinctive in order to be considered useful retrieval cues and produce an optimal memory performance.

Explicit and implicit memory for the QWERTY keyboard: the role of motor simulation and deictic gestures

In three experiments, we investigated explicit and implicit knowledge about the location of letters on the QWERTY keyboard in young students, and the mechanisms involved. Participants completed a verbal report task in which they were asked to locate the 21 letters of the Italian alphabet on a blank QWERTY keyboard (explicit memory). Subsequently, they carried out a motor production task, i.e., typing letters on a blank keyboard (implicit memory). Consistent with previous studies and several theories emphasizing the importance of implicit knowledge in typing, results showed that explicit knowledge about the QWERTY keyboard is systematically worse than procedural knowledge (Experiment 1). These two types of knowledge, however, are related. Second, we showed that explicit memory for letter position was affected when participants were engaged in a secondary task that required hands/arms movements. Specifically, loading participants' sensorimotor resources led to a decrease in explicit memory performance when the secondary task required hand/arm movements (hand/arms tapping) compared to when it required legs-feet movements (control condition). This result suggests that explicit knowledge is modulated by sensorimotor simulation (Experiment 2). Third, compared to a purely verbal response, pointing to the key on the keyboard did not improve explicit memory accuracy (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results indicate that sensorimotor simulation, and not just gestures, modulates the accessibility to explicit mental representations of verbal/spatial material, like letters on a keyboard.

Journeying to the past: time travel and mental time travel, how far apart?

Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the twentieth century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in accounting for memory. While in previous work I have addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory, the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past.

The role of bodily self-consciousness in episodic memory of naturalistic events: an immersive virtual reality study

Recent studies suggest that the human body plays a critical role in episodic memory. Still, the precise relationship between bodily self-consciousness (BSC) and memory formation of specific events, especially in real-life contexts, remains a topic of ongoing research. The present study investigated the relationship between BSC and episodic memory (EM) using immersive virtual reality (VR) technology. Participants were immersed in an urban environment with naturalistic events, while their visuomotor feedback was manipulated in three within-subjects conditions: Synchronous, Asynchronous, and No-body. Our results show that asynchronous visuomotor feedback and not seeing one's body, compared to synchronous feedback, decrease the sense of self-identification, self-location and agency, and sense of presence. Moreover, navigating in the Asynchronous condition had a detrimental impact on incidental event memory, perceptual details, contextual association, subjective sense of remembering, and memory consolidation. In contrast, participants in the No-Body condition were only impaired in egocentric spatial memory and the sense of remembering at ten-day delay. We discuss these findings in relation to the role of bodily self-representation in space during event memory encoding. This study sheds light on the complex interplay between BSC, sense of presence, and episodic memory processes, and strengthens the potential of embodiment and VR technology in studying and enhancing human cognition.

Imagery, emotion, and bioinformational theory: From body to brain

The bioinformational theory of emotional imagery is a model of the hypothetical mental representations activated when people imagine emotionally engaging events, and was initially proposed to guide research and practice in the use of imaginal exposure as a treatment for fear and anxiety (Lang, 1979). In this 50 year overview, we discuss the development of bioinformational theory and its impact on the study of psychophysiology and psychopathology, most importantly assessing its viability and predictions in light of more recent brain-based studies of neural functional activation. Bioinformational theory proposes that narrative imagery, typically cued by language scripts, activates an associative memory network in the brain that includes stimulus (e.g., agents, contexts), semantic (e.g., facts and beliefs) and, most critically for emotion, response information (e.g., autonomic and somatic) that represents relevant real-world coping actions and reactions. Psychophysiological studies in healthy and clinical samples reliably find measurable response output during aversive and appetitive narrative imagery. Neuroimaging studies confirm that emotional imagery is associated with significant activation in motor regions of the brain, as well as in regions implicated in episodic and semantic memory retrieval, supporting the bioinformational view that narrative imagery prompts mental simulation of events that critically includes the actions and reactions engaged in emotional contexts.

The Role of Motor Representation in Enactment Effect of Action Memory

Noun-verb phrases are more efficiently remembered when they are enacted during learning than when they are only verbally studied, a phenomenon known as the enactment effect. While studies have debated whether motor information is key to this effect, our study explores whether the organization of motor information can support the enactment effect. We used the retrieval-practice paradigm to induce retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). In Experiment 1, we found an RIF effect of categorization into physical motor properties (e.g., rotation-motor category), which was significantly stronger during enactment learning. In Experiment 2, we also found an RIF effect of categorization into physical motor properties with additional imagery features (e.g., the hand-physical and round-object category), but there was no significant difference between enactment learning and verbal learning. These findings suggest that motor information is fundamental to the enactment effect, but it is not primarily assimilated, even in the presence of various types of information, in the processing of action memory. We discuss these findings in the context of multimodal theory and episodic integration theory.

How the body remembers: Examining the default mode and sensorimotor networks during moral injury autobiographical memory retrieval in PTSD

Neural representations of sensory percepts and motor responses constitute key elements of autobiographical memory. However, these representations may remain as unintegrated sensory and motor fragments in traumatic memory, thus contributing toward re-experiencing and reliving symptoms in trauma-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here, we investigated the sensorimotor network (SMN) and posterior default mode network (pDMN) using a group independent component analysis (ICA) by examining their functional connectivity during a script-driven memory retrieval paradigm of (potentially) morally injurious events in individuals with PTSD and healthy controls. Moral injury (MI), where an individual acts or fails to act in a morally aligned manner, is examined given its inherent ties to disrupted motor planning and thus sensorimotor mechanisms. Our findings revealed significant differences in functional network connectivity across the SMN and pDMN during MI retrieval in participants with PTSD (n = 65) as compared to healthy controls (n = 25). No such significant group-wise differences emerged during retrieval of a neutral memory. PTSD-related alterations included hyperconnectivity between the SMN and pDMN, enhanced within-network connectivity of the SMN with premotor areas, and increased recruitment of the supramarginal gyrus into both the SMN and the pDMN during MI retrieval. In parallel with these neuroimaging findings, a positive correlation was found between PTSD severity and subjective re-experiencing intensity ratings after MI retrieval. These results suggest a neural basis for traumatic re-experiencing, where reliving and/or re-enacting a past morally injurious event in the form of sensory and motor fragments occurs in place of retrieving a complete, past-contextualized narrative as put forth by Brewin and colleagues (1996) and Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000). These findings have implications for bottom-up treatments targeting directly the sensory and motoric elements of traumatic experiences.

Action and posture influence the retrieval of memory for objects

The embodied approach states that memory traces are retrieved, at least in part, through a sensorimotor simulation of the original events, i.e., during retrieval we use our body and its sensorimotor pathways to simulate what happened during encoding. Thus, body manipulations that are incongruent with the motor elements involved at encoding should modulate memory performance. To test this hypothesis, we devised two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants had to observe (observation task) or observe and also perform an action on (enactment task) a series of objects. At recognition, they recognised the enacted objects faster and more accurately than the observed ones. Crucially, in Experiment 2, we manipulated body posture during recognition: one group was asked to hold their hands/arms in front of them (non-interfering group), and the other group was asked to block their hands/arms behind their back (interfering group). The results on reaction times, but not those on accuracy, showed a critical interaction: while the noninterfering group recognised enacted objects faster than observed objects, this advantage disappeared for the interfering group. This suggests that adopting a posture inconsistent with action at encoding could influence the time needed to correctly recognise the objects, but not the accuracy of the recognition.

The role of gestures in autobiographical memory

Speakers employ co-speech gestures when thinking and speaking; however, gesture's role in autobiographical episodic representations is not known. Based on the gesture-for-conceptualization framework, we propose that gestures, particularly representational ones, support episodic event representations by activating existing episodic elements and causing new ones to be formed in the autobiographical recollections. These gestures may also undertake information-chunking roles to allow for further processing during remembering, such as a sense of recollective experience. Participants (N = 41) verbally narrated three events (a past autobiographical, a future autobiographical, and a non-autobiographical event) and then rated their phenomenological characteristics. We found that, even though gesture use was not different across the three event conditions, representational gestures were positively associated with the episodic event details as well as their recollective quality within the past autobiographical event narratives. These associations were not observed in future event narrations. These findings suggest that gestures are potentially instrumental in the retrieval of details in autobiographical memories.

The implicit effect of action mental simulation on action evaluation

The main assumption underlying the present investigation is that action observation elicits a mandatory mental simulation representing the action forward in time. In Experiment 1, participants observed pairs of photos portraying the initial and the final still frames of an action video; then they observed a photo depicting the very same action but either forward or backward in time. Their task was to tell whether the action in the photo portrayed something happened before or after the action seen at encoding. In this explicit task, the evaluation was faster for forward photos than for backward photos. Crucially, the effect was replicated when instructions asked only to evaluate at test whether the photo depicted a scene congruent with the action seen at encoding (implicit task from two still frames, Experiment 2), and when at encoding, they were presented a single still frame and evaluated at test whether a photo depicted a scene congruent with the action seen at encoding (implicit task from single still frame; Experiment 3). Overall, the results speak in favour of a mandatory mechanism through which our brain simulates the action also in tasks that do not explicitly require action simulation.

Intrinsic hippocampal connectivity is associated with individual differences in retrospective duration processing

The estimation of incidentally encoded durations of time intervals (retrospective duration processing) is thought to rely on the retrieval of contextual information associated with a sequence of events, automatically encoded in medial temporal lobe regions. "Time cells" have been described in the hippocampus (HC), encoding the temporal progression of events and their duration. However, whether the HC supports explicit retrospective duration judgments in humans, and which neural dynamics are involved, is still poorly understood. Here we used resting-state fMRI to test the relation between variations in intrinsic connectivity patterns of the HC, and individual differences in retrospective duration processing, assessed using a novel task involving the presentation of ecological stimuli. Results showed that retrospective duration discrimination performance predicted variations in the intrinsic connectivity of the bilateral HC with the right precentral gyrus; follow-up exploratory analyses suggested a role of the CA1 and CA4/DG subfields in driving the observed pattern. Findings provide insights on neural networks associated with implicit processing of durations in the second range.

Why art? The role of arts in arts and health

This article is an answer to a report called "What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?" The authors conclude that the arts have an impact on mental and physical health. Yet, the question of the role of the arts remains unanswered. What is and what is not an art effect? Recently, embodied theory has inspired articles on the perception of art. These articles have not yet received attention in the field of Arts and Health. Scholars in psychosomatic medicine have argued for an approach based on recent work in enactive embodied theory to investigate the connection between the body and the mind. The present article examines how key concepts in this theory relate to art. This leads to a discussion of art in terms of empathy-the relation between the internal state of the artist and the internal state of the beholder. I exemplify with a conceptual framework of musical empathy. Implications for health are addressed.

Improving middle school students' geometry problem solving ability through hands-on experience: An fNIRS study

Hands-on learning is proposed as a prerequisite for mathematics learning in kindergarten and primary school. However, it remains unclear that whether hands-on experience aids understanding of geometry knowledge for middle school students. We also know little about the neural basis underlying the value of hands-on experience in math education. In this study, 40 right-handed Chinese students (20 boys and 20 girls) with different academic levels were selected from 126 seventh-grade students in the same school, who learnt "Axisymmetric of an Isosceles Triangle" in different learning style (hands-on operation vs. video observation). Half of them operated the concrete manipulatives while the other half watched the instructional videos. The learning-test paradigm and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technique were used to compare the differences in geometry reasoning involved in solving well-structured problems and ill-structured problems. Behavioral results showed that hands-on experience promoted students' performances of geometry problem-solving. Students with lower academic level were more dependent on hands-on experience than those with higher academic level. The fNIRS results showed that meaningful hands-on experience with concrete manipulatives related to learning contents increased reactivation of the somatosensory association cortex during subsequent reasoning, which helped to improve the problem-solving performance. Hands-on experience also reduced students' cognitive load during the well-structured problem-solving process. These findings contribute to better understand the value of hands-on experience in geometry learning and the implications for future mathematics classroom practices.

Motor imagery and engagement favour spatial reasoning

Based on the assumption that spatial reasoning relies on the construction of mental models of the states of affairs described in the premises, and on evidence that sensory-motor imagery can enhance cognitive abilities, we hypothesised that imagining moving the objects mentioned in the premises to the specific spatial locations should favour spatial reasoning. The results of Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction: when participants imagined moving the objects mentioned in the premises (dynamic-engagement condition), they drew accurate inferences faster compared with participants who merely read the premises (static-non-engagement condition). Experiment 2 was in part a replication of Experiment 1 but included two additional experimental conditions to control for possible effects of self-engagement in reasoning: in one condition, participants imagined that someone else was moving the objects (dynamic-non-engagement condition), and in the other condition, participants imagined that they were observing the objects (static-engagement condition). The results revealed an interaction between motor imagery and engagement in decreasing response times to spatial problems. We discuss the practical implications of the current results.

Emotion Regulation Scale and Mindfulness Scale in School Aged Children: Construction and Validation of French Versions

Few measuring scales seem to evaluate Mindfulness and emotion regulation in school aged children. This article aims to present four studies describing the construction and validation of two French measuring scales for children: French Emotion Regulation Scale for Children (FERS-C) and Mindfulness Scale for Children French version (MSC-F). We discuss the elaboration and choice of the items for each measure, examine their phrasing and comprehensibility from the children's standpoint. The main sample consisted of 421 non-clinical, 6 to 12 years old children, who consented to fill out the measuring scales in order to test the factor structure. Additionally, we assessed and confirmed temporal stability and determined convergent validity. Results support that both scales appear to be reliable emotion regulation and mindfulness measures for school aged children. Results also reveal a relevant factor structure for both measures. The results of these studies support that the two scales are appropriate and useful measures of mindfulness and emotion regulation capacities for school aged children. In conclusion, we call for further research to improve and develop measures assessing child mindfulness skills in both clinical and research contexts.

Therapeutic Alliance as Active Inference: The Role of Therapeutic Touch and Biobehavioural Synchrony in Musculoskeletal Care

Touch is recognised as crucial for survival, fostering cooperative communication, accelerating recovery, reducing hospital stays, and promoting overall wellness and the therapeutic alliance. In this hypothesis and theory paper, we present an entwined model that combines touch for alignment and active inference to explain how the brain develops "priors" necessary for the health care provider to engage with the patient effectively. We appeal to active inference to explain the empirically integrative neurophysiological and behavioural mechanisms that underwrite synchronous relationships through touch. Specifically, we offer a formal framework for understanding - and explaining - the role of therapeutic touch and hands-on care in developing a therapeutic alliance and synchrony between health care providers and their patients in musculoskeletal care. We first review the crucial importance of therapeutic touch and its clinical role in facilitating the formation of a solid therapeutic alliance and in regulating allostasis. We then consider how touch is used clinically - to promote cooperative communication, demonstrate empathy, overcome uncertainty, and infer the mental states of others - through the lens of active inference. We conclude that touch plays a crucial role in achieving successful clinical outcomes and adapting previous priors to create intertwined beliefs. The ensuing framework may help healthcare providers in the field of musculoskeletal care to use hands-on care to strengthen the therapeutic alliance, minimise prediction errors (a.k.a., free energy), and thereby promote recovery from physical and psychological impairments.

Psychotherapeutic Techniques for Distressing Memories: A Comparative Study between EMDR, Brainspotting, and Body Scan Meditation

Objectives: We explored the effects of a single 40-min session of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting (BSP), and Body Scan Meditation (BSM) in the processing of distressing memories reported by a non-clinical sample of adult participants. Design: A within-subject design was used. Methods: Participants (n = 40 Psychologists/MDs) reported four distressing memories, each of which treated with a single intervention. EMDR, BSP, and BSM were compared with each other, and with a Book Reading (BR) active control condition, using as dependent measures, SUD (Subjective Units of Disturbance) and Memory Telling Duration (MTD) on a 4-point timeline: Baseline, Pre-Intervention, Post-Intervention, Follow-up. Results: SUD scores associated with EMDR, BSP, and BSM significantly decreased from Pre- to Post-Intervention (p < 0.001). At Post-Intervention and Follow-up, EMDR and BSP SUD scores were significantly lower than BSM and BR scores (p < 0.02). At both Post-Intervention and Follow-up, BSM SUD scores were lower than BR scores (p < 0.01). A reduction in MTD was observed from Pre- to Post-Intervention for EMDR and BSP conditions (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Overall, results showed beneficial effects of single sessions of EMDR, BSP, or BSM in the processing of healthy adults’ distressing memories. Study limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Is motor activity the key to the observation-inflation effect? The role of action simulation

Observing others performing an action can lead to false memories of self-performance - the observation-inflation effect. The action simulation hypothesis proposes that an action simulation caused by people's observation of an action is the key reason for this effect. Previous studies have inconsistent views of this hypothesis. In the present study, we re-examined the role of action simulation and discussed the key aspects of the mental processes associated with it. We examined the hypotheses that (a) the magnitude of the observation-inflation effect would decrease as the action simulation was impeded and (b) the magnitude of the observation-inflation effect would not be significantly different in conditions in which participants watched either a part of a video or a full video. The results are consistent with the hypotheses. This study provides strong evidence that action simulation influences the generation of observation-inflation effects and that the process is continuous and can refer to further action information.

Enhancing memory using enactment: does meaning matter in action production?

ABSTRACTEnactment is an encoding strategy in which performing an action related to a target item enhances memory for that word, relative to verbal encoding. Precisely how this motor activity aids recall is unclear. We examined whether the action created during encoding needed to be semantically relevant to the to-be-remembered word, to enhance memory. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to either (a) enact, (b) perform unrelated motoric gestures, or (c) read forty-five action verbs. On a subsequent free-recall test, memory for enacted words was significantly higher relative to words read, or encoded with unrelated gestures. In Experiment 2, to reduce the ambiguity associated with initiating an unrelated gesture, participants were instructed to write target words in the air. Results were similar to Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we replicated the results of Experiment 2 using video conferencing to record the onset time of action initiation for enacted, unrelated gesture, and read trials. Results showed that planning of meaningful actions may also contribute to the memory performance as evidenced by a longer onset time to initiate an action on enactment relative to gesturing and reading trials. These findings suggest that planning and executing meaningful actions drive the enactment benefit.

On the Neurocognitive Co-Evolution of Tool Behavior and Language: Insights from the Massive Redeployment Framework

Understanding the link between brain evolution and the evolution of distinctive features of modern human cognition is a fundamental challenge. A still unresolved question concerns the co-evolution of tool behavior (i.e., tool use or tool making) and language. The shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis suggests that the emergence of the combinatorial component of language skills within the frontal lobe/Broca's area made possible the complexification of tool-making skills. The importance of the frontal lobe/Broca's area in tool behavior is somewhat surprising with regard to the literature on neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience, which has instead stressed the critical role of the left inferior parietal lobe. Therefore, to be complete, any version of the shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis needs to integrate the potential interactions between the frontal lobe/Broca's area and the left inferior parietal lobe as well as their co-evolution at a phylogenetic level. Here, we sought to provide the first elements of answer through the use of the massive deployment framework, which posits that evolutionarily older brain areas are deployed in more cognitive functions (i.e., they are less specific). We focused on the left parietal cortex, and particularly the left areas PF, PGI, and anterior intraparietal (AIP), which are known to be involved in tool use, language, and motor control, respectively. The deployment of each brain area in different cognitive functions was measured by conducting a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Our results confirmed the pattern of specificity for each brain area and also showed that the left area PGI was far less specific than the left areas PF and AIP. From these findings, we discuss the different evolutionary scenarios depicting the potential co-evolution of the combinatorial and generative components of language and tool behavior in our lineage.

Visual recognition of words learned with gestures induces motor resonance in the forearm muscles

According to theories of Embodied Cognition, memory for words is related to sensorimotor experiences collected during learning. At a neural level, words encoded with self-performed gestures are represented in distributed sensorimotor networks that resonate during word recognition. Here, we ask whether muscles involved in gesture execution also resonate during word recognition. Native German speakers encoded words by reading them (baseline condition) or by reading them in tandem with picture observation, gesture observation, or gesture observation and execution. Surface electromyogram (EMG) activity from both arms was recorded during the word recognition task and responses were detected using eye-tracking. The recognition of words encoded with self-performed gestures coincided with an increase in arm muscle EMG activity compared to the recognition of words learned under other conditions. This finding suggests that sensorimotor networks resonate into the periphery and provides new evidence for a strongly embodied view of recognition memory.

Under-standing: How embodied states shape inference-making

How do embodied states influence the inferences people make about the meaning that is intended by communicators? We propose that embodied states encourage mental representation of certain meanings while inhibiting others, thereby facilitating or hindering comprehension in social interactions and potentially causing miscommunication. Four experiments demonstrate that bodily postures incompatible with the intended meaning of a sentence attenuated inferences of those meanings, especially when the intended meaning was not articulated directly and required more extensive inference-making effort. Participants were faster at responding to sentences containing verbs inferring a sitting position when they were sitting than when they were standing, and vice versa. Participants were also more likely to interpret the intended meaning of sentences as relevant to sitting when participants were themselves sitting, and relevant to standing when participants were standing. These outcomes were especially evident when the sentences required higher-interpretive effort (e.g., used indirect language) than lower-interpretive effort (e.g., used literal language). These results suggest that embodied states shape inference-making and can thereby influence comprehension and affect communication success, especially when inferences are more effortful to make.

Mental representation of autobiographical memories along the sagittal mental timeline: Evidence from spatiotemporal interference

Time is usually conceived of in terms of space: many natural languages refer to time according to a back-to-front axis. Indeed, whereas the past is usually conceived to be "behind us", the future is considered to be "in front of us." Despite temporal coding is pivotal for the development of autonoetic consciousness, little is known about the organization of autobiographical memories along this axis. Here we developed a spatial compatibility task (SCT) to test the organization of autobiographical memories along the sagittal plane, using spatiotemporal interference. Twenty-one participants were asked to recall both episodic and semantic autobiographical memories (EAM and SAM, respectively) to be used in the SCT. Then, during the SCT, they were asked to decide whether each event occurred before or after the event presented right before, using a response code that could be compatible with the back-to-front axis (future in front) or not (future at back). We found that performance was significantly worse during the non-compatible condition, especially for EAM. The results are discussed in light of the evidence for spatiotemporal encoding of episodic autobiographical memories, taking into account possible mechanisms explaining compatibility effects.

Embodied cognition: So flexible as to be "disembodied"?

This review aims to explore what I call the "Embodiment Cost Hypothesis" (ECH), according to which, when humans "embody" a part of the world other than their bodies, a measurable cost is detectable on their real bodies. The review analyzes experimental evidence in favor of the ECH by examining studies from different research fields, including studies of action observation (2), tool-use (3), rubber hand illusion (4), and full-body illusions (5). In light of this literature, this review argues that embodiment effects can profitably be seen as phenomena associated with both benefits (resulting from the embodiment of external objects/bodies) and costs (resulting from the disembodiment at various levels of the subject's own body). Implications are discussed in relation to the ongoing debate on the embodied cognition (EC) approach.

Integrative representation of semantic and motor information underlies the enactment effect in memory for actions

The present study adopted the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) effect to determine whether semantic representation might favour the enactment effect, in which noun-verb phrases are remembered better by enacting during learning (subject-performed tasks, SPTs) than by studying verbally (verbal tasks, VTs). Experiment 1 controlled the semantic category to investigate the RIF effect in SPT vs. VT conditions. The RIF effect was similar irrespective of the mode of encoding (SPT vs.VT), indicating that semantic representation was not the main factor for favouring the enactment effect. Furthermore, Experiment 2 added motor physical properties to simultaneously control the semantic category and one category by motor features. The results of Experiment 2 showed stronger cooperative representation of semantic and motor information under the VT condition, indicating that the processing of action memory may be conceptual.

Beyond action observation: Neurobehavioral mechanisms of memory for visually perceived bodies and actions

Examining the processing of others' body-related information in the perceivers' brain (action observation) is a key topic in cognitive neuroscience. However, what happens beyond the perceptual stage, when the body is not within view and it is transformed into an associative form that can be stored, updated, and later recalled, remains poorly understood. Here we examine neurobehavioural evidence on the memory processing of visually perceived bodily stimuli (dynamic actions and images of bodies). The reviewed studies indicate that encoding and maintaining bodily stimuli in memory recruits the sensorimotor system. This process arises when bodily stimuli are either recalled through action recognition or reproduction. Interestingly, the memory capacity for these stimuli is rather limited: only 2 or 3 bodily stimuli can be simultaneously held in memory. Moreover, this process is disrupted by increasing concurrent bodily operations; i.e., moving one's body, seeing or memorising additional bodies. Overall, the evidence suggests that the neural circuitry allowing us to move and feel ourselves supports the encoding, retention, and memory recall of others' visually perceived bodies.