Semantic embodiment, disembodiment or misembodiment? In search of meaning in modules and neuron circuits

Embodied proposals claim that the meaning of at least some words, concepts and constructions is grounded in knowledge about actions and objects. An alternative disembodied position locates semantics in a symbolic system functionally detached from sensorimotor modules. This latter view is not tenable theoretically and has been empirically falsified by neuroscience research. A minimally-embodied approach now claims that action-perception systems may color, but not represent, meaning; however, such minimal embodiment (misembodiment?) still fails to explain why action and perception systems exert causal effects on the processing of symbols from specific semantic classes. Action perception theory (APT) offers neurobiological mechanisms for embodied referential, affective and action semantics along with disembodied mechanisms of semantic abstraction, generalization and symbol combination, which draw upon multimodal brain systems. In this sense, APT suggests integrative-neuromechanistic explanations of why both sensorimotor and multimodal areas of the human brain differentially contribute to specific facets of meaning and concepts. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.