Preschooler's ERPs of online/offline visualizations and embodiment theory

Preschooler’s ERPs of online/offline visualizations and embodiment theory Patricia Van Roon (patriciavanroon@cmail.carleton.ca) Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada Amedeo D’Angiulli (amedeo_dangiulli@carleton.ca) Department of Neuroscience & Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada Abstract We explored the relationships between a perceptual-attention task and a word-verification task using event-related potential (ERPs) in preschool children. Adopting an embodied multiple representation perspective, we set up the relationships between online (visual attention) and offline (mental imagery) simulation in the two tasks to test key aspects of abstract word acquisition. Online visualization of all word types, during visual selective attention, elicited early frontal and occipital activation (~ 100 ms). The extent of such activation was correlated with a higher occipital late component (800 ms) during offline visualization concurrent with processing more abstract/difficult words. Consistent with developmental vision-language interaction embodiment models, our results support the tenet that the transmission of word meanings by typically developing children may be intimately linked to the visual perceptual contexts in which words are learned. Key words: embodied cognition; vision-language interaction; Event-Related Potentials; visual attention; word verification. Visual mental imagery can be defined in terms of embodied cognition; a form of visual simulation or re-enactment of perceptual, motor, and introspective states acquired during experience with the world, body, and mind (Barsalou, 2008). A major challenge in the last 30 years has been the question of generated visual mental images and when their use becomes part of cognitive activity for action or language (Paivio, 2007). There is overwhelming evidence that the growth of the latter abilities are at the centre of human development and begin consolidating once they are formally practiced in school through language acquisition (Bornstein & Lamb, 2011). Thus, it seems plausible that there may be a narrow developmental period between infancy and formal schooling in which tasks valid for young children could be pragmatically used to capture correlates of offline simulation (such as visual mental imagery – i.e. sensory and perceptual reactivation) as clearly distinct from online simulation (readiness for action and planning) such as attention, prediction, or expectation on how things look and behave in the perceived world. The purpose of the present work was to explore the interplay between an embodied perceptual activity (goal-directed visual selective attention; VSAT) and an embodied socially-acquired cognitive activity (word-verification; WVT). To this end, we examined the neural correlates of the online and offline visualizations underlying such activities in preschool children. Here, we define “online simulation” as the dynamic processes of early automatic sensorimotor system activation during perception and action, while observing and attending to one or more objects (Gallese, 2009), whereas, we define “offline simulation” as the classic notion of mental imagery, that is, effortful, voluntary, goal-based late activation of larger systems including sensorimotor areas – i.e., ventral and/or dorsal visual pathways – (Decety & Grezes, 2006) specifically associated with re-enactment of previous experience and knowledge for the purpose of deep elaboration (DE) and planning. Particularly relevant for differentiating which types of brain processes underlie different simulations and cognitive tasks are recent attempts to explain abstract concepts. Indeed, understanding the way we simulate the meaning of abstract words is critical for the evaluation of embodied language theories, according to which language is grounded in perception, action, and emotional systems (Scorolli et al., 2011). According to Paivio’s (2007) dual coding theory (DCT), abstract words are represented in a linguistic system while concrete words would be represented in two systems, imagery and linguistic. Consistent with DCT, some embodied perspectives propose that perceptual simulations play an important role in highly image-able concepts or words (e.g., Dove, 2010). Different from DCT, however, would be that abstract words are explained as elaborations of sensorimotor experiences to abstract image-schemas and metaphors [i.e., “container” as and exemplification of the notion of “category”; or a concrete object (newspaper) standing for the action of giving news, Glenberg et al., 2008] whose format could nevertheless be amodal (e.g., symbols detached from perceptual and motor experience). Other embodied proposals, although sharing the tenet of multiple representations, differ from DCT by hypothesizing that not only concrete, but also abstract words are embodied. Notably, Barsalou et al. (2008)’s Perceptual Symbol System (PSS) theorizes that the linguistic system, instantiated in the left-hemisphere language areas, is involved mainly during shallow linguistic elaboration, whereas, deep elaboration involves language in a variety of tasks necessarily implying an offline simulation system comprising the bilateral posterior areas associated with mental imagery. Yet, most recently it has been argued that the language and situated simulation framework may neglect the social foundation of cognition. Indeed, according to the Words as