Do resonance mechanisms in language and action depend on intentional processes?

The quest in unraveling the mysteries of how the mind produces action has taken on a new perspective: The mind develops from interactions between the individual and the environment, and as such, is embodied in these interactions. This perspective opens new explanations and predictions in the understanding and examination of the connection between cognition and behavior. For instance, reading the word dancing automatically may elicit activation in the brain’s motor system required for dancing, and executing the act of whistling automatically may elicit activation in the brain’s semantic system required to comprehend the concept of whistling. In other words, language and action are bi-directionally linked and share overlapping features that are recruited for understanding and doing. Rueschmeyer and colleagues explore and review empirical evidence for such a brain mechanism supporting language and action from the context of embodied cognition. Specifically, they discuss the concept of motor resonance to understand effects of language processing on motor systems, and introduce the concept of semantic resonance to predict effects of actions on language processing. Working in the area of social cognition, we are very pleased with these new perspectives on language and action. In fact, research on social cognitive processes of behavior has a rich empirical tradition in showing that language and action entertain an intimate and reciprocal relation. Most of the studies in this domain have focused on effects of concept priming on social behavior. Thus, priming the concept of elderly has been shown to slow down participants’ walking pace, due to an assumed overlap between representations of the stereotypical trait of slowness and corresponding motor programs associated with slow walking (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). Moreover, concept priming has not only been shown to tune ongoing behavior; it also motivates behavior, such that people put more energy or resources in a task (e.g., squeezing more forcefully in a hand-grip) as a result of subtle exposure to words that change the concept of exertion into a positive or rewarding behavior the person wants to engage in (Aarts, Custers, & Marien, 2008). And there are many other demonstrations of this language effect on concrete action, even when the concepts are primed subliminally, outside of conscious awareness (see for an overview, Dijksterhuis, Chartrand, & Aarts, 2007). Furthermore, there is also evidence for the reverse route—that is, action performance affects language comprehension processes. For instance, performing an overt behavior such as shaking one’s head from left to right (or up and down) under the disguise of a fitness test of a headphone facilitates recognition and processing of evaluative congruent (i.e., negative or positive) words (Forster & Strack, 1996), and decreases (or increases) the effectiveness of attitude change in a persuasion context (Wells & Petty, 1980). In addition, manipulating bodily postures (e.g., sitting in either an upright or slumped position) affects reactions towards performance feedback in an achievement task (Riskind & Gotay, 1982) Whereas, these social cognitive demonstrations of a bi-directional link between language and action pertain to relatively abstract features of behavior, they concur with Rueschmeyer and colleagues’ proposal that language processing affects motor systems through a process of automatic motor resonance, and action modulates language processing via a process of automatic semantic resonance.