Full Download Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and Acting PDF

Full download ebooks at ebookmeta.
com
Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking,

Feeling, and Acting
https://ebookmeta.com/product/handbook-of-embodied-
psychology-thinking-feeling-and-acting/
OR CLICK BUTTON
DOWLOAD NOW
Download more ebook from https://ebookmeta.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth

Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition Benjamin
Harrison
https://ebookmeta.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-
history-workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-
edition-benjamin-harrison/
The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition 1st

Edition Lawrence Shapiro
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-routledge-handbook-of-embodied-
cognition-1st-edition-lawrence-shapiro/
The Actor and the Character Explorations in the

Psychology of Transformative Acting 1st Edition
Vladimir Mirodan
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-actor-and-the-character-
explorations-in-the-psychology-of-transformative-acting-1st-
edition-vladimir-mirodan/
Primary Mathematics 3A Hoerst
https://ebookmeta.com/product/primary-mathematics-3a-hoerst/
The Indian Boss at Work: Thinking Global Acting Indian
1st Edition Steve Correa
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-indian-boss-at-work-thinking-
global-acting-indian-1st-edition-steve-correa/
The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology

Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology Danny Osborne
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-cambridge-handbook-of-
political-psychology-cambridge-handbooks-in-psychology-danny-
osborne/
The Renaissance of Feeling Erasmus and Emotion Kirk

Essary
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-renaissance-of-feeling-erasmus-
and-emotion-kirk-essary/
The Psychology of Thinking: Reasoning, Decision-Making

and Problem-Solving 2nd Edition John Paul Minda
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-psychology-of-thinking-
reasoning-decision-making-and-problem-solving-2nd-edition-john-
paul-minda/
Essential acting a practical handbook for actors

teachers and directors 2nd Edition Brigid Panet Fiona
Mchardy
https://ebookmeta.com/product/essential-acting-a-practical-
handbook-for-actors-teachers-and-directors-2nd-edition-brigid-
panet-fiona-mchardy/
Michael D. Robinson
Laura E. Thomas Editors
Handbook
of Embodied
Psychology
Thinking, Feeling, and Acting
Handbook of Embodied Psychology
Michael D. Robinson · Laura E. Thomas
Editors
Handbook of Embodied
Psychology
Editors
Michael D. Robinson Laura E. Thomas
NDSU Department of Psychology NDSU Department of Psychology
North Dakota State University North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND, USA Fargo, ND, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-78470-6 ISBN 978-3-030-78471-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
1 Introduction to Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling,

and Acting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Michael D. Robinson and Laura E. Thomas
Part I Theoretical Foundations

2 Dynamic Grounding of Concepts: Implications for Emotion
and Social Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Joshua D. Davis, Seana Coulson, Andrew J. Arnold,
and Piotr Winkielman
3 Feeling, Seeing, and Liking: How Bodily Resources Inform
Perception and Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Gerald L. Clore, Dennis R. Proffitt, and Jonathan R. Zadra
4 Interoceptive Approaches to Embodiment Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
André Schulz and Claus Vögele
5 Metaphorical Embodiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Raymond W. Gibbs
Part II Cognitive and Neuroscience Perspectives

6 The Extended Mind Thesis and Its Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Mirko Farina and Sergei Levin
7 Measuring the Mathematical Mind: Embodied Evidence
from Motor Resonance, Negative Numbers, Calculation
Biases, and Emotional Priming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Martin H. Fischer, Arianna Felisatti, Elena Kulkova,
Melinda A. Mende, and Alex Miklashevsky
8 The Challenges of Abstract Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Guy Dove
v
vi Contents
9 Abstract Concepts and Metacognition: Searching for Meaning

in Self and Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Anna M. Borghi, Chiara Fini, and Luca Tummolini
10 Phonemes Convey Embodied Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Christine S. P. Yu, Michael K. McBeath, and Arthur M. Glenberg
11 Location, Timing, and Magnitude of Embodied Language
Processing: Methods and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Claudia Gianelli and Katharina Kühne
12 Embodied Attention: Integrating the Body and Senses to Act
in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Catherine L. Reed and Alan A. Hartley
13 The Role of Motor Action in Long-Term Memory for Objects . . . . . 291
Diane Pecher, Fabian Wolters, and René Zeelenberg
14 Embodied Perception and Action in Real and Virtual
Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Jeanine K. Stefanucci, Morgan Saxon, and Mirinda Whitaker
Part III Social and Personality Perspectives

15 Towards Theory Formalization in (Social) Embodiment:
A Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Anna Szabelska, Olivier Dujols, Thorsten M. Erle,
Alessandro Sparacio, and Hans IJzerman
16 The 4Es and the 4As (Affect, Agency, Affordance, Autonomy)
in the Meshed Architecture of Social Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Shaun Gallagher
17 Forms and Functions of Affective Synchrony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Adrienne Wood, Jennie Lipson, Olivia Zhao, and Paula Niedenthal
18 Joint Action Enhances Subsequent Social Learning
by Strengthening a Mirror Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Tamer Soliman, A. K. Munion, Brenna Goodwin,
Benjamin Gelbart, Chris Blais, and Arthur M. Glenberg
19 Take a Walk on the Cultural Side: A Journey into Embodied
Social Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Maria Laura Bettinsoli, Caterina Suitner, and Anne Maass
20 Comparing Metaphor Theory and Embodiment in Research
on Social Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Mark J. Landau
Contents vii
21 Embodied Perspectives on Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Michael D. Robinson, Adam K. Fetterman, Brian P. Meier,
Michelle R. Persich, and Micheal R. Waters
22 Embodiment in Clinical Disorders and Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
John H. Riskind, Shannon W. Schrader, and Jennifer M. Loya
Part IV Current Issues and Future Directions

23 Mechanisms of Embodied Learning Through Gestures
and Actions: Lessons from Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Eliza L. Congdon and Susan Goldin-Meadow
24 An Evolutionary Perspective on Embodiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Paul Cisek
25 Experiencing Embodied Cognition from the Outside . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Robert W. Proctor and Isis Chong
26 The Future of Embodiment Research: Conceptual Themes,
Theoretical Tools, and Remaining Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Bernhard Hommel
27 Embodiment in the Lab: Theory, Measurement,
and Reproducibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
Michael P. Kaschak and Julie Madden
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Chapter 1
Introduction to Embodied Psychology:
Michael D. Robinson and Laura E. Thomas
Abstract Psychological phenomena are embodied to the extent that bodily

processes (whether perceptual, expressive, or action-oriented) contribute to them.
A great deal of research, most of which has occurred in the past several decades, has
revealed that embodied influences are seemingly ubiquitous and findings of this type
have led to the suggestion that embodiment is foundational to the manner in which
individuals think, feel, and act. In the present introductory chapter, phenomena of this
type are initially reviewed in outlining the scope of enquiry. Subsequently, five major
theoretical perspectives on embodiment are summarized as well as briefly compared
and contrasted with each other. After a discussion of key questions and directions
for research, the chapter introduces the content of the book, which consists of four
sections related to Theoretical Foundations, Cognitive and Neuroscience Perspec-
tives, Social and Personality Perspectives, and Current Issues and Future Directions.
Although the book concentrates on the areas of cognitive and social psychology, it
does so in broad terms, such that some of the chapters approach their content from
ecological, philosophical, developmental, clinical, or evolutionary viewpoints. Thus,
the volume is comprehensive and should appeal to multiple audiences.
Keywords Embodiment · Psychology · Cognition · Emotion · Behavior
Introduction to Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling,

and Acting
Consider the following empirical results. Pecher et al. (2003) found that it took
longer to verify that nouns had certain qualities (e.g., being loud) if the previous
trial had suggested a different sense-modality, even if no objects were actually
sensed. Topolinski and Boecker (2016) found that potential food products were rated
more favorably if articulating their nonsense names would involve backward (e.g.,
PASOKI), relative to forward (e.g., KASOPI), movements of the mouth and tongue,
M. D. Robinson (B) · L. E. Thomas

North Dakota State University, NDSU Dept. 2765, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

M. D. Robinson and L. E. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of Embodied Psychology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3_1
2 M. D. Robinson and L. E. Thomas
consistent with eating something. Meier et al. (2012) found that nicer, more agree-
able people liked sweet foods to a greater extent and others who claimed to like
sweet foods were viewed as friendlier too. Finally, and consistent with a long line of
research (starting with Dehaene et al., 1993), Pinhas et al. (2014) found that partic-
ipants tended to point to the right when solving addition problems, but point to the
left when solving subtraction problems.
What all of the above findings have in common is the fact that they all involve
bodily representation processes in one way or another. For example, Pecher et al.
(2003) suggested that people simulate the sensory qualities of text they read, resulting
in difficulties when the text shifts from one modality (e.g., hearing) to another (e.g.,
taste). Meier et al. (2012) pointed out that metaphors for affect and personality
frequently reference sweet tastes (e.g., a sweet person). Owing to associations of this
type, nicer people are drawn to sweet foods and thinking about sweet foods activates
thoughts about friendliness. In broader terms, all of the above-referenced findings
are consistent with embodiment—the idea that our thoughts, feelings, and actions
are shaped by the types of bodies we have and the types of experiences they enable
(Adams, 2010). Or, stated a different way, embodiment occurs because the way we
think is tied, in intimate yet subtle ways, to the ways that we perceive and act (Pecher
et al., 2011).
Embodiment represents a challenge to traditional ideas about thinking, which
posit that the cognitive system works with abstract amodal representational units,
like a computer (Adams, 2010; Barsalou, 1999; Fodor, 1983). In contrast to such
suggestions, embodied perspectives contend that there are no sharp dividing lines
between perceiving, thinking, or doing, and thinking would be very difficult if we
could not borrow from more concrete representations, like those involved in percep-
tion or action (Foglia & Wilson, 2013). One can consider embodied psychology a
relatively new field in that much of this work has followed from publications in the
late 1990s and early 2000s (Barsalou, 1999; Meier & Robinson, 2004; Wilson, 2002).
Nonetheless, related ideas can be found in much earlier suggestions, such as those
of Gibson, Skinner, or James (Morgan, 2018; Schubert & Semin, 2009). Outside of
psychology, too, there are many precedents for embodiment, including in robotics
and philosophy (Shapiro, 2007).
Indeed, embodiment may be unique in its capacity to integrate different areas of
psychology as well as neighboring disciplines. Along these lines, Glenberg (2010)
reviewed the evidence for embodiment within many sub-disciplines of psychology,
such as those concerned with language comprehension, memory, neuroscience,
cognitive and social development, social psychology, clinical psychology, and educa-
tion. In all cases, key findings (e.g., concerning gesture) had suggested that indi-
viduals ground their thoughts and feelings in perception or action, pointing to the
possibility of a meta-psychology based on embodiment principles. Similarly, Schu-
bert and Semin (2009) traced the manner in which ideas about embodiment could be
found within both classic (e.g., James, 1890) and modern (Niedenthal et al., 2005)
ideas about personality, social behavior, and culture. Neighboring disciplines include
those focused on phenomenology, cognitive science, and sociology or anthropology
(Adams, 2010; Tirado et al., 2018).
1 Introduction to Embodied Psychology … 3
The present volume, titled “Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and

Acting”, seeks to facilitate these integration efforts. Because many of the devel-
opments in embodied psychology have emerged from its cognitive area, this area
features prominently in the book. Because implications for emotion and social
behavior have primarily occurred within social psychology, this area also features
prominently in the book. Some of the cognitive topics overlap with neuroscience
and some of the social topics overlap with personality and clinical psychology,
thus extending the reach of the volume. In addition, topical chapters are linked
to core theoretical perspectives, including theory-based chapters on interocep-
tion, grounded cognition, and conceptual metaphor. Finally, the book has a suit-
able concluding section dealing with critical issues such as replication concerns,
alternative interpretations, and future directions.
Major Theoretical Perspectives
Embodiment can be approached from several directions and at least five theoret-
ical perspectives can be identified. In part building on the theoretical work of James
(1884), researchers in the area of interoceptive processing study the manner in which
individuals use signals from the body as inputs to emotion and decision-making
(Herbert & Pollatos, 2012). These researchers have devised tasks, such as the heart-
beat detection task (Critchley & Garfinkel, 2017), to measure individuals’ capacities
to monitor and report on bodily processes. Individual differences are the rule rather
than the exception in such tasks and some individuals, more so than others, are
much more capable of reporting on the activity of their bodies (Herbert & Pollatos,
2012). Individuals displaying higher levels of interoceptive accuracy tend to experi-
ence more intense emotions (Pollatos et al., 2007) and are more empathetic (Tera-
sawa et al., 2014). Also, the somatic marker hypothesis (Ohira, 2010) suggests that
greater interoceptive awareness should support better decision-making and, consis-
tent with this hypothesis, lower levels of interoceptive accuracy have been linked to
lower levels of emotional intelligence (Murphy et al., 2018). In the present volume,
Schulz and Vögele review this area of research while calling for greater precision in
conceptualizing and measuring interoception-related constructs.
A resource-based theory, building in part on Gibson’s (1979) ideas concerning the
role of action and ecology in visual perception, instead contends that perceptions of
the environment reflect and track our abilities to act within it (Proffitt, 2006). When
resources are taxed or the body has limitations, perceptions are altered such that they
discourage actions that might be difficult to perform (e.g., climbing a hill). When
resources are plentiful or the body is particularly fit, perceptions are more supportive
of exploratory actions, including those that might require vigorous efforts (Schnall
et al., 2008). This theory has been extended to a consideration of emotional influences
(Stefanucci et al., 2011) and to the influence of sensorimotor skills on the actions
that one might perform in any particular context (Witt, 2011). Although a variety of
inputs have been highlighted in this work, dependent measures have tended to focus
on perceptual judgments, in particular (Witt, 2011). In the present volume, Clore,

Proffitt, and Zadra integrate the resource-based theory of perception with influences
from affect and emotion and Stefanucci, Saxon, and Whitaker extend the theory to
data obtained in a variety of settings, including within virtual reality paradigms.
Barsalou’s (1999) Perceptual Symbol Systems Theory and Barsalou’s (2008)
expanded theory of Grounded Cognition can be considered theories of knowledge
representation and its use. In contrast to theories of representation that emphasized
the mental manipulation of arbitrary and non-perceptual symbols (Fodor, 1983),
Barsalou (1999, 2008) has proposed that representations consist of simulations that
preserve features of perception and action. And in contrast to theories of representa-
tion that emphasized static elements, Barsalou (1999, 2008) has proposed that repre-
sentational processes are dynamic in mode and operation. A variety of sources of
evidence support these theories. Under certain conditions, for example, action-related
words activate regions of the premotor and motor cortex that would be involved in
the actual performance of those actions (Hauk et al., 2004). And behavioral studies
that suggest that particular sensory modalities (seeing, hearing, touching) appear
to be recruited when processing text of a given type (Pecher et al., 2003) support
simulation-based views of language processing. Although theories of this type were
once considered “outlandish”, they now occupy a central place in work on represen-
tational processes and language processing (Ostarek & Huettig, 2019). A number of
chapters in the present volume review research that has followed from this tradition
(e.g., Borghi, Fini, & Tumolini; Davis, Coulson, Arnold, & Winkielman; Fischer,
Felsatti, Kulkova, Menda, & Miklashevsky).
James (1890) argued in favor of an action-oriented view of cognition and a variety
of lines of research have pursued links of this type. According to the facial feedback
hypothesis, for example, posing particular facial expressions (e.g., smiling versus
frowning) should activate thoughts and feelings consistent with one’s momentary
expression (for a recent meta-analysis, see Coles et al., 2019). Bodily postures too,
such as laying down versus leaning forward, have been linked to thoughts and feel-
ings consistent with the current comportment of one’s body (Price & Harmon-Jones,
2015). In cognitive psychology, in particular, Glenberg (e.g., Glenberg & Gallese,
2012) has advanced views of this type by arguing that actions give rise to corre-
sponding perceptions, cognitions, and behavioral effects. Much of this evidence
has concerned language processing or memory (e.g., Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002),
but related evidence has been amassed in social psychology, clinical psychology,
and educational settings (Glenberg, 2010). Action-oriented inputs to both cognition
and social behavior are discussed throughout the present volume (e.g., Congdon &
Goldin-Meadow; Reed & Hartley; Riskind, Schrader, & Loya).
Abstract thoughts pose a particular challenge for embodiment (Dove, 2016) and
one theory has been especially generative in this context. According to concep-
tual metaphor theory (Gibbs, 2011; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), we can understand
abstract concepts (e.g., those related to personality or moral value) by drawing from
our knowledge of more concrete bodily and perceptual experiences (e.g., related to
visual perception or taste). In social psychology, conceptual metaphor theory has
contributed to new insights into the causes of social behavior, which can be affected
Table 1.1 Major theoretical perspectives and domains of application

Theory Key citation Independent variable Dependent variable (s)
Interoception Critchley and Interoception-related Emotion,
Garfinkel (2017) processes decision-making
Resource theory Proffitt (2006) Bodily & environmental Perceptual judgments
Affordances
Grounded cognition Barsalou (2008) Perceptual symbols, Language processing,
Simulations Knowledge
representations
Action-oriented Glenberg (2010) Manipulated actions Language processing,
perspectives Performance, social
behavior
Conceptual Lakoff and Johnson Perceptual experience Metaphor-linked
metaphor theory (1999) representations or
behavior
by manipulating perceptual experiences consistent with a given class of metaphors

(Landau et al., 2014). Cognitive psychology has also explored predictions derived
from conceptual metaphor theory (Pecher et al., 2011) and research of this type
is reviewed in several chapters of the present volume (Gibbs; Landau; Robinson,
Fetterman, Meier, Persich, & Waters).
As Anderson (2008) notes, theories in embodiment ought to make different predic-
tions (see Landau, present volume) and yet such theoretical differences are rarely
highlighted. Accordingly, Anderson (2008) further suggests that the vast majority of
research on embodiment probably contrasts predictions made from a generic embod-
iment perspective with predictions derived from a non-embodiment perspective and
critical tests pitting embodiment theories against each other are rare (for an excep-
tion, see Schneider et al., 2011). Yet, it would seem that each theoretical perspective
has domains of application that are non-overlapping to some extent, as suggested by
Table 1.1. At the present time, therefore, it seems best to recognize that there are
families of embodiment theories rather than just one theory.
Key Questions and Directions in Embodiment Research
One issue within embodiment research concerns how abstract concepts, which are
entities that have no direct physical manifestations, could be grounded (Dove, this
volume). Borghi et al. (present volume) suggest that such concepts are grounded
in a metacognitive way: When one encounters such a concept, it does not trigger a
great deal of specificity in motor planning or self-regulation and there is a search
for meaning. This search for meaning makes use of the mouth movement system in
the form of inner speech or by asking competent others what is being referred to.
Borghi et al. (present volume) offer several sources of support for this perspective.
In another interesting analysis, Jamrozik et al. (2016) suggest that each abstract
concept (e.g., love, truth) is metaphorically conceptualized in different, even mutually
incompatible ways (e.g., using metaphors for space, taste, and touch). Eventually, the
abstract concept loses its capacity to evoke any particular sort of sensorimotor detail
and the concept gains independence from sensorimotor representational processes.
As the result of such developments, people can think abstractly without the use of
sensorimotor metaphors or grounding processes, which accords with other sources
of data (Mahon & Caramazza, 2008).
Considerations of the latter type suggest that representational processes do not
always need to be grounded and, under certain task conditions or with certain mate-
rials, they would not be. If so, this creates a challenge to identify the conditions or
materials that do versus do not engage sensorimotor processing, as discussed within
several chapters in the present volume (Davis, Coulson, Arnold, & Winkielman;
Gianelli & Kühne; Kaschak & Madden). Furthermore, that sensorimotor grounding
does not always occur (e.g., when the task only promotes superficial processing:
Barsalou, 1999) means that, ultimately, cognitive processing could occur in either
a grounded or non-grounded manner and such considerations are consistent with
a weaker rather than stronger version of embodied cognition (Tirado et al., 2018).
Even in this context, though, it is possible that grounding was necessary for concept
acquisition despite some independence from grounding as expertise develops (e.g.,
see Congdon & Goldin-Meadow, present volume).
Another solution is to recognize that people differ—e.g., in terms of their tenden-
cies toward interoceptive processing (Schulz & Vögele, present volume) or in their
use of conceptual metaphors (Robinson, Fetterman, Meier, Persich, & Waters, present
volume)—and such differences are likely to matter in tasks that could be approached
in embodied or non-embodied manners. Consistent with this idea, Fetterman et al.
(2016) found that a perceptual manipulation (light versus dark font color) influenced
word evaluations among individuals who tended to use metaphors in their daily life,
but did not matter among more literal thinkers. Individual differences can be utilized
in other ways as well. For example, research has indicated that tall males, relative to
short males, are more likely to be selected for leadership positions (Judge & Cable,
2004) and adolescents with larger bodily sizes are more prone to antisocial behavior
(Ishikawa et al., 2001). In realms of this type and others, Casasanto (2011) presented
the body specificity hypothesis: People with different types of bodies should think,
feel, and act differently and influences of this type are consistent with the embodiment
thesis (also see Keehner & Fischer, 2012). Even within the individual, differences in
context in terms of action affordances (Reed et al., 2010; Thomas, 2015) and experi-
ence (Thomas, 2017), the availability of energy resources (e.g., Schnall et al., 2010)
and task priorities (Garza et al., 2013), and matters of design (Kaschak & Madden,
this volume) may shape the manner and extent to which embodied phenomena occur.
There are also questions about cultural differences in embodiment. Although
human bodies are similar in different cultures, cultures can select and amplify certain
particular bodily actions (e.g., whether smiling is encouraged) and cultural influences
of this type are likely to matter for the sorts of experiences that people have (Bettin-
soli, Suitner, & Maass, this volume). Relatedly, analyses of conceptual metaphors
(e.g., power is up) across cultures suggest that there is some degree of universality
to the conceptual metaphors that people use, but there are also important differ-
ences (Kövecses, 2005). A very interesting study of this type was conducted by
Gilead et al. (2015), who found that sweet taste experiences, which prime proso-
ciality among American participants (Meier et al., 2012), primed judgments of inau-
thenticity among Israeli participants, who view interpersonal “sweetness” in more
skeptical terms. Cultural differences in embodiment, then, deserve more extensive
analyses (Bettinsoli et al., present volume; Cohen & Leung, 2009).
In sum, although embodiment research has made considerable progress since
its initial appearances, future directions remain (Glenberg, 2010). There needs to
be more integration of disparate theories (Anderson, 2008) and we need a better
understanding of how mechanisms related to embodiment translate into particular
patterns of cognition, emotion, and behavior (Gianelli & Kühne, this volume; Ostarek
& Huettig, 2019). The challenges of abstract concepts (Dove, this volume) need to be
resolved (Borghi et al., this volume) and questions concerning individual, situational,
and cultural differences should receive greater attention. Regardless, we have learned
a great deal, as the chapters of the present volume will attest to.
Overview of Contributions
Theoretical Foundations
Although all definitions of embodiment emphasize the relevance of body-based (e.g.,

sensory or motoric) processes to some extent, there is actually a diversity of relevant
theoretical perspectives (Anderson, 2008). The first major section of the volume
gathers some of these perspectives into a single place as a basis for understanding the
chapters in the other sections of the volume. The relevant chapters cover several major
theoretical perspectives, which include grounded cognition and simulation (Barsalou,
2008), bodily resources and perception (Proffitt, 2006), interoception (Craig, 2003),
and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).
• Chapter 2: Dynamic Grounding of Concepts: Implications for Emotion and Social
Cognition. Josh Davis, Seana Coulson, Andrew J. Arnold, and Piotr Winkielman
present a general case for grounded cognition and then apply it to the processing
of affect and emotion concepts. The presentation of emotional stimuli has led
to changes in facial musculature that match the valence of the stimulus (e.g.,
smiling in the case of pleasant stimuli or frowning in the case of unpleasant
stimuli). Disorders related to movement (e.g., Parkinson’s disease) can interfere
with conceptual processing and interfering with emotionally expressive behavior
can also change the manner in which one processes emotional concepts. These
effects are flexible, however, and they seem to depend on attending to “hot”
or experiential qualities of the materials that one is processing. Behavioral and
brain-related dependent measures can also exhibit dissociations. In total, there are
multiple ways in which emotion processing can be grounded, but such relations
appear flexible rather than mandatory.
• Chapter 3: Feeling, Seeing, and Liking: How Bodily Resources Inform Perception
and Emotion. Gerald L. Clore, Dennis R. Proffitt, and Jonathan R. Zadra integrate
resource-based views of perception with the effects of emotional and mood states.
In both cases, individuals must decide whether to pursue a given course of action or
navigate the environment in a particular way. Perceptions of the environment (e.g.,
in relation to the steepness of hills or the distance to an object) play an important
role in deciding which actions to take and factors related to available energy as well
as the emotional state that one is feeling are influential. For example, a hill looks
steeper when one is stressed, fatigued, or atop it in a fearful state. Collectively,
this research supports an embodied view of perception that is dependent on both
energy-related and emotional states in a manner sensitive to resources as well as
information concerning social relationships and their supportiveness.
• Chapter 4: Interoceptive Approaches to Embodiment Research. André Schulz and
Claus Vögele review different approaches to interoception, which is thought to
play an important role in representations of bodily states and courses of action
that might follow from them. This research is broadly focused on perceptions of
signals from inside the body and considers questions related to how such signals
are perceived, whether they are perceived accurately, and how such sources of
information impact consciousness and behavior. Progress in this area depends
on making distinctions, such as distinctions between interoceptive accuracy,
sensibility, sensitivity, and awareness. Relevant indices can also be measured
through the use of self-reports, behavioral tasks, or neurophysiological assess-
ments. Given the important role that interoceptive processes play in emotion and
decision-making, attention to issues of measurement can result in precise models
concerning individual differences in emotionality as well as the sorts of clinical
conditions (such as alexithymia or eating disorders) that implicate disturbances
in interoceptive processing and its evaluation.
• Chapter 5: Metaphorical Embodiment. Raymond W. Gibbs notes that people often
use body-based metaphors in describing abstract features of their lives or in under-
standing concepts. Usually, in such analyses, the body is viewed in concrete
and non-symbolic terms. However, individuals also appear to use metaphors in
describing their bodily experiences. For example, chronic fatigue can be likened
to having been run over by a cement truck or experiences of pain are described
using adjectives (e.g., cutting, stabbing, flickering) that are highly metaphoric in
nature. The chapter amasses evidence of this type, which clearly makes the case
that bodily experience is often conceptualized in metaphoric terms. Furthermore,
there is some emerging evidence for the idea that thinking about bodily experi-
ences using different metaphoric frames can change the nature of that experience,
such as within psychotherapy contexts. At this point, more experimental evidence
is needed, but the mechanism of metaphor appears to be a bidirectional one in
linking bodily states to abstract concepts (the traditional focus of conceptual
metaphor theory) and in conceptualizing the types of bodily experiences that one
is having.
• Chapter 6: The Extended Mind Thesis and Its Applications. Mirko Farina and
Sergei Levin review lines of thinking that have crystallized into the Extended Mind
Thesis, which contends that many mental activities extend beyond the nervous
system to include features of the body, the environment, or technological sources
of information. Contributors to the extended mind thesis include philosophers who
have challenged Cartesian dualism. They also include psychologists and neuro-
scientists who have documented extended inputs to traditional cognitive domains
such as spatial cognition, planning, or autobiographical memory. In many cases,
relevant research seems to make the case that thinking is an extended activity
that encompasses environmental sources of information as well as the achieve-
ments of the brain, narrowly considered. For example, individuals with memory
problems are frequently observed to use notebooks to guide their behaviors in
a goal-directed and purposeful manner. Gestures, too, are often used in a way
that suggests that they contribute to information processing rather than merely
following from it. Extended mind principles cannot be used to understand all
mental activities, but they can be used to understand many of them.
Cognitive and Neuroscience Perspectives
Many of the key developments in embodiment have occurred within cognitive

psychology and within the allied area of cognitive neuroscience (Barsalou, 2008;
Glenberg, 2010). Section 2 gathers together both cognitive and neuroscience
approaches to embodiment in the areas of attention, language processing, thought,
and mathematical processing, among other areas. The chapters also tackle key ques-
tions concerning how it is that human beings can use their bodily experiences to
ground abstract concepts, the role of bodily experiences in evaluations of the envi-
ronment, and the manner in which intentions, goals, and tasks become coordinated
with what we see and do as bodily beings.
• Chapter 7: Measuring the Mathematical Mind: Evidence from Motor Reso-
nance, Negative Numbers, Calculation Biases, and Emotional Priming. Martin H.
Fischer, Arianna Felisatti, Elena Kulkova, Melinda A. Mende, and Alex Mikla-
shevsky review an impressive body of evidence for the idea that individuals use
spatial and bodily codes to represent numbers and operations concerning them.
A well-replicated effect of this type is the Mental Number Line, whereby the
processing of small numbers is facilitated by leftward responses and the processing
of large numbers is facilitated by rightward responses. Other embodiment effects
follow from an innate mechanism that assumes cross-modal associations between
magnitude qualities (e.g., faster entities are big and strong rather than small and
weak). Following from ideas of this type, it has been shown that larger numbers
facilitate more powerful grips involving the hands than smaller numbers do.
Magnitude comparisons are also facilitated when numbers are further apart (e.g.,
2 vs. 5), relative to closer together (e.g., 4 vs. 5). In total, this research has discov-
ered many interesting phenomena that all point to the idea that mathematical
processing is embodied rather than purely symbolic.
• Chapter 8: The Challenges of Abstract Concepts. Guy Dove elucidates the chal-
lenges that have emerged in attempting to characterize abstract concepts as well
as their grounding in experiential systems. There is a growing recognition that
concepts can be abstract in different ways, for example with reference to aesthetic
qualities (e.g., freedom), emotional tones (e.g., gratitude), sociocultural ideas
(e.g., celebrity), or mathematical and scientific concepts (e.g., infinity). Different
explanatory frameworks may be necessary in accounting for this diversity. Rele-
vant attempts to understand abstract concepts have either emphasized concrete-
ness, imageability, or emotion, but these qualities are not isomorphic with each
other and may play different roles in the representation of different concepts.
Neurological advances have also been made, but how the relevant brain structures
and their associated connections facilitate abstract concept processing is a work
in progress. Ultimately, we need to answer some fundamental questions about
abstractness in order to provide a convincing account of how it is that individuals
can represent concepts that they cannot see, hear, or touch.
• Chapter 9: Abstract Concepts and Metacognition: Searching for Meaning in Self
and Others. Anna M. Borghi, Chiara Fini, and Luca Tummolini contend that
abstract concepts are more challenging to understand and their understanding is
reliant, to a greater degree than concrete concepts, on metacognitive searching and
monitoring processes. Abstract words lead to greater activation in the left inferior
frontal regions of the brain, which are involved in searching for meaning. In under-
standing abstract concepts, individuals use the mouth motor system to a greater
extent. For example, they engage in inner speech or they ask competent individuals
how to assign meaning to complex and abstract concepts. Relevant experimental
studies of this type have shown that interfering with mouth movements affects
the processing of abstract concepts to a greater extent and interfering with hand
movements interferes with the processing of concrete concepts to a greater extent.
Word rating studies also suggest that metacognitive processes—both social and
non-social—play a larger role in comprehension as abstractness increases. Various
metacognitive processes thus play important roles in grounding abstract concepts.
• Chapter 10: Phonemes Convey Embodied Emotion. Christine S. P. Yu, Michael
K. McBeath, and Arthur M. Glenberg outline traditional views in linguistics,
which have treated phonemes as arbitrary symbols that are somewhat bereft of
connotation or meaning. In contradistinction to such accounts, several lines of
research have indicated that phonemes convey meaning. For example, sounds
such as “bouba” implicate rounder and perhaps larger objects, whereas sounds
such as “kiki” implicate sharper, spiked objects (the bouba-kiki effect). Recent
research has sought to understand the emotional connotations of sounds, which
are thought to arise from emotion-related facial expressions that also play a role
in generating the relevant phonemes. Just as emotions, in general, can be mapped
into a two-dimensional space anchored by valence and arousal, phonemes, too,
appear to occupy a similar space. The valence dimension can be represented by
distinctions among sounds such as gleam (positive) versus glum (negative) and the
arousal dimension is implicated in distinctions among sounds such as wham (high
arousal) versus womb (low arousal). Phonemes convey evaluative meaning and
can be linked to the sorts of facial actions that occur during emotional experiences.
• Chapter 11: Location, Timing, and Magnitude of Embodied Language Processing:
Methods and Results. Claudia Gianelli and Katharina Kühne review embodi-
ment effects and processes in the language processing domain. Behavioral results
have indicated that actions can facilitate or interfere with language processing,
depending on whether the actions are consistent or inconsistent with the move-
ments suggested by the sentences. Verbs implicating different motor effectors
(e.g., face vs. arm or leg) have also been shown to give rise to brain activation
patterns consistent with the given effector. However, findings in a number of
paradigms have been inconsistent and there are important questions concerning
location, timing, and magnitude in understanding the relevant effects. Although
neural activation patterns have consistently implicated motor and premotor areas,
questions concerning timing and magnitude remain. To address these questions,
researchers must use different methodologies. In addition, it may be necessary to
pay increased attention to matters of task context, which appear to affect matters
of timing and magnitude, if not location. As a final contribution, the chapter
considers questions related to whether materials are presented in participants’
first or second languages.
• Chapter 12: Embodied Attention: Integrating the Body and Senses to Act in the
World. Catherine L. Reed and Alan A. Hartley contend that spatial attention
should prioritize locations relevant to the actions that one intends to, or might,
perform in a particular situation. This functional view of spatial attention has
been supported by findings demonstrating that placing one’s hand near a partic-
ular region of space tends to facilitate processing for events that occur in that
proximal region. Other results, using non-human primate models, have similarly
documented ways in which physical actions and spatial attention processes appear
to use similar neural circuitry. More recent research has also indicated that the
manner in which one extends one’s hand, whether to support larger motor actions
or more precise grasping behaviors, alters attention in a manner consistent with
the actions implicated by the hand’s orientation. These effects appear to involve
several neural processes, some of which are more sensory in nature and some of
which are more cognitive. This research highlights multiple ways in which spatial
attention responds to the actions that oneself or others might perform in the near
future.
• Chapter 13: The Role of Motor Action in Long-Term Memory for Objects. Diane
Pecher, Fabian Wolters, and René Zeelenberg build on the idea that motor actions
are used to simulate representations for objects that can be manipulated. Evidence,
however, suggests that people can encode objects in a variety of ways that involve
perception, emotion, introspection, and abstraction in addition to motor actions
that might be performed. If this is the case, then possible motor actions need not
be simulated in representing objects. In a present study, participants attempted
to encode manipulable and nonmanipulable objects for a later memory test. At
retrieval, a manipulation of motor interference did not differentially affect recall

for objects that could, versus could not, be manipulated. Hence, the simulation of
motor actions may not be necessary in remembering objects, whether manipulable
or not. The results constrain embodiment theories and suggest that objects can
be encoded in a variety of ways, only some of which involve action simulations.
Simulations are probably made in a flexible manner and motor simulations may
occur particularly when people intend to act.
• Chapter 14: Embodied Perception and Action in Real and Virtual Environments.
Jeanine K. Stefanucci, Morgan Saxon, and Miranda Whitaker argue that percep-
tions of the body figure prominently in perceptions of the environment and actions
that might be performed in it. People scale their environmental perceptions to their
action capacities and in accordance with the emotional states that they are expe-
riencing. For example, fearful individuals, more so than non-fearful individuals,
overestimate the distance to the ground when placed in elevated settings. Tool use
can also alter perceptions of distance when reachable objects are involved. Many
of the factors that influence perception can be manipulated in virtual settings and
the authors review research in this area. Virtual hands that are larger or arms
that are longer quickly shift environmental perceptions in a manner consistent
with one’s new (virtual) action capacities. Emotional factors, too, can be manipu-
lated in virtual environments and they also shift judgments in manners consistent
with theorizing. Environmental perceptions are, therefore, malleable and they
accord with perceptions of the body and actions or outcomes suggested by one’s
emotional state. These perceptions, in turn, guide self-regulation efforts in both
real and virtual environments.
Social and Personality Perspectives
Like cognitive psychology, social psychology has been responsible for some of
the key evidence supporting bodily perspectives on thinking, feeling, and acting
(Glenberg, 2010; Niedenthal et al., 2005). Accordingly, Sect. 3 focuses on social-
personality approaches to embodiment. The authors detail the ways in which
embodied influences affect social cognition, relationship dynamics, personality traits,
and clinical symptoms. Additionally, the chapters call for new ways of thinking about
such dynamics, both within and across cultures.
• Chapter 15: Towards Theory Formulization in (Social) Embodiment: A Tutorial.
Anna Szabelska, Olivier Dujols, Thorsten M. Erle, Alessandro Sparacio, and Hans
IJzerman use the theory of social thermoregulation to offer a tutorial on how to
improve embodiment science. Thermoregulation posits that people use social rela-
tionships in an effort to regulate core body temperature, particularly when it drops
(i.e., one is colder than ideal). Research inspired by this framework has eviden-
tiary value, despite some small sample sizes, but there are many ways in which
this research could be improved so that it is capable of making precise predictions.
The measures that are used in some studies were ad hoc in nature or they were not
designed to tap the processes of interest. We, therefore, need to pay attention to
measurement and we need to develop new measures that have better psychome-
tric properties as well as capacities to capture the construct of interest in multiple
cultural settings. At the same time, we need to move past proto-theories toward
formal theories, which are capable of making precise (mathematical) predictions
concerning manipulation effects and moderating conditions. Work of this type
has begun and the results of these efforts should be of value to other researchers
who seek greater reproducibility in their embodied cognition research programs.
• Chapter 16: The 4 Es and the 4 As (Affect, Agency, Affordance, Autonomy) in the
Meshed Architecture of Social Cognition. Shaun Gallagher considers social inter-
action, especially among individuals who know each other well, to involve skilled
performance akin to members of a sports team or an orchestra performance. In
states of engaged social interaction, one can analyze behavior in both vertical and
horizontal ways. A vertical dimension integrates matters of reflection and intention
with automatized action schemas. A horizontal dimension then links individuals
to their social, environmental, and cultural circumstances. When both vertical and
horizontal dimensions are functioning effectively, skilled performance can result.
Such dynamics are first applied to interactions between mother and child, which
display considerable coordination in vocalization, affect, and action patterns.
Among close friends or relationship partners, too, the same mechanisms seem to
support dyadic interaction patterns that are highly skilled. The analysis explains
how it is that we are able to fully commit to social interactions to encompass
dyadic phenomena and beyond (e.g., effective group decision-making).
• Chapter 17: Forms and Functions of Affective Synchrony. Adrienne Wood,
Jennie Lipson, Olivia Zhao, and Paula Niedenthal begin with the observation
that mimicry and embodiment processes are involved in perceiving another’s
emotional state. Beyond imitation and perception, interacting individuals can
also synchronize their physiological states in a manner that supports affective
synchrony—a state in which two partners achieve a mutual sort of oneness.
Affective synchrony can support more efficient information processing, mutual
emotion regulation, and it can build or reinforce relationship closeness. Mothers
and their infants have been shown to achieve states of affective synchrony, which
can be assessed in terms of coupled cardiac rhythms and other forms of physiolog-
ical responding and affect. Affective synchrony also occurs in romantic couples,
though synchrony with respect to positive emotional states is far more useful to
the relationship than synchrony with respect to negative emotional states. Accord-
ingly, it has been shown that dyads synchronize themselves to a greater extent
when positive emotional feelings are involved. Although affective synchrony is
not always adaptive (e.g., in the case of an argument), it is nonetheless a key
mechanism that supports pair bonding.
• Chapter 18: Joint Action Enhances Subsequent Social Learning by Strengthening
a Mirror Mechanism. Tamer Soliman, A. K. Munion, Brenna Goodwin, Benjamin
Gelbart, Chris Blais, and Arthur M. Glenberg study the effects of joint action,
which occur when two individuals perform a task in a coordinated manner. Joint
action episodes have been shown to increase affiliation and bonding between
members of the dyad. However, the effects of engaging in joint action could also
extend beyond the initial episode to influence one’s capacity to imitate a second
person in a different joint action task. The chapter reports evidence consistent
with this account. Compared to participants who engaged in a solo action, those
engaged in joint action were better able to synchronize their left-hand movements
to approximate those of the experimenter. An analysis of brain activity suggested
that joint action recruits the mirror neuron system, though findings were not
fully consistent with this account. Nonetheless, behavioral and affective variables
consistently pointed to the benefits of engaging in joint action. Such benefits can
be used in applied and educational realms and it does appear that good preschool
teachers create joint action activities as a way of promoting better learning in the
classroom setting.
• Chapter 19: Take a Walk on the Cultural Side: A Journey into Embodied Social
Cognition. Maria Laura Bettinsoli, Caterina Suitner, and Anne Maass examine
manners in which culture can shape embodied influences on cognition and social
cognition. Individuals from diverse cultures have similar bodies, but cultures can
encourage or discourage particular bodily gestures as a way of reinforcing cultural
prescriptions. Physical features of the environment can also be influential in how
individuals live their lives. For example, individuals living in densely populated
regions tend to delay reproduction until later in life. Cultures can also encourage
or discourage certain bodily expressions and there are some societies in which
smiling is seen to mark lower levels of social intelligence. Language scripts can
also shape social cognition, a phenomenon known as the Spatial Agency Bias
(i.e., agency is attributed to leftward elements in left-to-right languages and right-
ward elements in right-to-left languages). Although many conceptual metaphors
appear to be universal, cultural differences are also observed. In total, the chapter
considers ways in which cultural conventions can reinforce, create, or discourage
actions that the culture values, which will, in turn, shape social cognition patterns
in ways that accord with cultural ideals.
• Chapter 20: Comparing Metaphor Theory and Embodiment in Research on Social
Cognition. Mark J. Landau compares two prominent theories in embodiment
research and finds that, in many cases, the relevant mechanisms are not likely to
be equivalent to each other. Conceptual metaphor theory suggests that individuals
use bodily states to conceptualize more abstract concepts, but many metaphors are
not embodied. We can liken an argument to war, for example, with no direct bodily
experience with wars or battles. Other metaphors liken theories and relationships
to buildings and metaphors of this type involve using one conceptual scheme to
represent another, somewhat independent of bodily experiences. There are also
many embodiment effects that do not involve metaphor. Included among these
would be influences of bodily arousal on processing or stereotype use and the use
of perceptual simulations to represent concrete objects or actions. There are also
cases, however, that are ambiguous with respect to embodiment and metaphoricity.
Clarity concerning different forms of embodiment and/or metaphor will allow us
to make distinctions in our research, which will support a better understanding of
mechanism and process.
• Chapter 21: Embodied Perspectives on Personality. Michael D. Robinson, Adam

K. Fetterman, Brian P. Meier, Michelle R. Persich, and Micheal R. Waters suggest
that individual differences in embodiment could be the rule rather than the excep-
tion. Individuals have different types of bodies (large, small, tall, short) and such
differences appear to matter for personality. Especially small infants, for example,
are treated in ways that encourage lifelong dependence and vulnerability. Within
adolescence, individuals (especially males) who have larger body sizes tend to
be more prone to antisocial behavior even when controlling for other influences.
Among adults, perceivers often use height as a cue to status and taller individuals
in fact achieve larger salaries and more leadership positions. In another portion
of the chapter, it is suggested that embodiment itself may be an individual differ-
ence. Individuals differ profoundly with respect to their sensitivity to bodily states,
for example, and such individual differences in sensitivity contribute to different
emotional and social lives. Theories of embodiment can, therefore, be leveraged
to understand differences between people as well as similarities among them.
Personality-based models can also be used to demonstrate that embodiment effects
possess external validity.
• Chapter 22: Embodiment in Clinical Disorders and Treatment. John H. Riskind,
Shannon W. Schrader, and Jennifer M. Loya note that standard theories in clinical
psychology emphasize disordered cognitions rather than bodily states. However,
bodily factors have been implicated in several disorders. Schizophrenia appears
to involve disembodiment (alienation from the body) and depression has been
linked to hyper-embodiment. In the latter connection, depressed individuals typi-
cally present with slumped bodily postures and slower gaits. Clinicians have
started to attend to the body in their treatment approaches and theories, but more
research is necessary. Regardless, body-based techniques have proven to be effec-
tive for anxiety disorders and body awareness has been emphasized in empirically
supported treatments for depression. Changing bodily patterns and postures can
be effective in altering perceptions and emotions and such techniques should be
considered when attempting to treat psychopathological symptoms and experi-
ences. Interventions of this type will be more effective when they align themselves
with both the non-clinical and clinical empirical literature.
Current Issues and Future Directions
The field of embodiment is one in which we seek to know which effects are reliable
and which are not (Meier et al., 2015). In addition, we should work toward integrating
the different theories of embodiment that exist (Glenberg et al., 2013), but in the
context of recognizing important distinctions (Landau et al., 2010). Insights would
also occur to the extent that we attend to developmental processes and evolutionary
considerations while promoting interdisciplinary work. The final chapters of the book
tackle some of these issues and questions, thereby providing a broader context for
the earlier material.
• Chapter 23: Mechanisms of Embodied Learning through Gestures and Actions:

Lessons from Development. Eliza L. Congdon and Susan Goldin-Meadow
examine the role of gesture and other demonstration actions in child develop-
ment. Gestures appear to play a unique role in learning and can be observed
prior to the articulation of the child’s first words. Motor experiences, such as in
the sticky mittens paradigm, can also facilitate the child’s ability to understand
goal-directed actions. Gestures seem particularly valuable in learning abstract
concepts and gestures appear to have multiple functions related to directing atten-
tion, reducing working memory load, and supporting concept flexibility. Gestural
influences on learning have been demonstrated in a variety of types of studies, but
appear to be particularly useful when the child is cognitively ready for the new
conceptual achievement. This work generally supports action-oriented approaches
to learning, such as those advocated by John Dewey and Maria Montessori.
• Chapter 24: An Evolutionary Perspective on Embodiment. Paul Cisek presents
an evolutionary perspective on embodiment and cognition. Evolutionary forces
shaped actions, not cognitions, and embodiment is key to action control. The
vast majority of actions, if not all of them, can be conceptualized in terms of
control loops that involve the brain, the body, and changes to the environment.
From this perspective, cognition should not be separated from perception and
action, but rather is a subcomponent of the larger system concerned with the
organism’s control of the environment. Cognitions must typically be embodied,
though certain developments (e.g., the use of mental maps) did permit cognitions
that were divorced from concurrent sensorimotor input. Regardless, and gener-
ally speaking, cognition is an aspect of embodiment rather than vice versa. This
model extends to social communications as these, too, typically support action
control. An evolutionary perspective on animate life reinforces the centrality of
embodiment to the manner in which we think, feel, and act.
• Chapter 25: Experiencing Embodied Cognition from the Outside. Robert W.
Proctor and Isis Chong question the idea that cognitive psychologists have
neglected perception and action. Within studies of human performance, percep-
tion, action, and cognition have long been studied in combination with each other
and influences from perception to cognition or action to cognition have been
demonstrated. Thus, there needs to be a better integration of the human perfor-
mance literature with embodied cognition theory and hypotheses. There are certain
lines of embodied theory and research, it is true, that are radical in their neglect of
mental processes, but such lines of research are not part of the mainstream, either
in cognitive psychology or in embodied cognition research. Among those who
endorse simpler and less radical views of embodied cognition, more integration
with standard cognitive theory is warranted.
• Chapter 26: The Future of Embodiment Research: Conceptual Themes, Theo-
retical Tools, and Remaining Challenges. Bernhard Hommel suggests that the
embodied cognition movement is a loose collective that is more defined in terms of
its rejection of certain conceptual frameworks (e.g., those following from artificial
intelligence) than a unified area of enquiry. Different theorists or investigators have
reacted to different assumptions and this has resulted in a fragmented literature.
Characterizations of the existing literature outside of embodiment may also not

be entirely correct. Investigations of embodied cognition would do well to adopt
some common theories or paradigms and one relevant theory is the theory of event
coding (TEC). This theory allows for interactions among perception and action in
stimulus–response compatibility effects, response-stimulus compatibility effects,
and in relations between planning and intention as well as action imitation. Actors
consistently link their actions to their effects and to the sensorimotor states that
result from them. Adopting a theory such as TEC could permit researchers to
make more specific predictions concerning the mechanisms involved in embodied
cognition.
• Chapter 27: Embodiment in the Lab: Theory, Measurement, and Reproducibility.
Michael P. Kaschak and Julie Madden note that the initial studies on embodiment
in language processing were largely exploratory in nature. Because this was true,
key questions about how the effects work were left underspecified. These include
how motor-processing priming effects work, at what cognitive stage they work,
and how long such effects should (theoretically) last. It appears that answering
some of these critical questions may be necessary for understanding whether
embodied effects on cognitive processing should be observed and under what
circumstances. Greater attention to task characteristics and to subject experiences
of them will likely suggest alterations in task procedures that matter. For example,
comprehension questions can motivate participants to devote more than superficial
efforts to what they are being asked to do. At this point in the field’s development,
more specificity concerning theory and mechanism should give rise to higher
levels of scientific reproducibility.
References
Adams, F. (2010). Embodied cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 619–628.
Anderson, M. L. (2008). On the grounds of x-grounded cognition. In P. Calvo & T. Gomila (Eds.),
The Elsevier handbook of cognitive science: An embodied approach (pp. 423–435). Elsevier.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 577–660.
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617–645.
Casasanto, D. (2011). Different bodies, different minds: The body specificity of language and
thought. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 378–383.
Cohen, D., & Leung, A.K.-Y. (2009). The hard embodiment of culture. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 39, 1278–1289.
Coles, N. A., Larsen, J. T., & Lench, H. C. (2019). A meta-analysis of the facial feedback literature:
Effects of facial feedback on emotional experience are small and variable. Psychological Bulletin,
145, 610–651.
Craig, A. D. (2003). Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body. Current
Opinion in Neurobiology, 13, 500–505.
Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current Opinion in
Psychology, 17, 7–14.
Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., & Giraux, P. (1993). The mental representation of parity and number
estimation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 371–396.
Dove, G. (2016). Three symbol ungrounding problems: Abstract concepts and the future of
embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 1109–1121.
Fetterman, A. K., Bair, J. L., Werth, M., Landkammer, F., & Robinson, M. D. (2016). The scope
and consequences of metaphoric thinking: Using individual differences in metaphor usage to
understand how metaphor functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110, 458–476.
Fodor, J. (1983). The modularity of mind. MIT Press.
Foglia, L., & Wilson, R. A. (2013). Embodied cognition. WIREs. Cognitive Science, 4, 319–325.
Garza, J. P., Strom, M. J., Wright, C. E., Roberts, R. J., & Reed, C. L. (2013). Top-down influences
mediate hand bias in spatial attention. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 819–823.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. (2011). Evaluating conceptual metaphor theory. Discourse Processes, 48, 529–562.
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Gilead, M., Gal, O., Polak, M., & Cholow, Y. (2015). The role of nature and nurture in conceptual
metaphors: The case of gustatory priming. Social Psychology, 46, 167–173.
Glenberg, A. M. (2010). Embodiment as a unifying perspective for psychology. Wires Cognitive
Science, 1, 586–596.
Glenberg, A. M., & Kaschak, M. P. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin
& Review, 9, 558–565.
Glenberg, A. M., Witt, J. K., & Metcalfe, J. (2013). From the revolution to embodiment: 25 years
of cognitive psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 573–585.
Glenberg, A. M., & Gallese, V. (2012). Action-based language: A theory of language acquisition,
comprehension, and production. Cortex: A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System
and Behavior, 48, 905–922.
Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I., & Pulvermüller, F. (2004). Somatotopic representation of action words in
human motor and premotor cortex. Neuron, 41, 301–307.
Herbert, B. M., & Pollatos, O. (2012). The body in the mind: On the relationship between
interoception and embodiment. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 692–704.
Ishikawa, S. S., Raine, A., Lencz, T., Bihrle, S., & LaCasse, L. (2001). Increased height and bulk
in antisocial personality disorder and its subtypes. Psychiatry Research, 105, 211–219.
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9, 188–205.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co.
Jamrozik, A., McQuire, M., Cardillo, E. R., & Chatterjee, A. (2016). Metaphor: Bridging
embodiment to abstraction. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 1080–1089.
Judge, T. A., & Cable, D. M. (2004). The effect of physical height on workplace success and income:
Preliminary test of a theoretical model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 428–441.
Keehner, M., & Fischer, M. H. (2012). Unusual bodies, uncommon behaviors: Individual and group
differences in embodied cognition in spatial tasks. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 12, 71–82.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. Basic Books.
Landau, M. J., Meier, B. P., & Keefer, L. A. (2010). A metaphor-enriched social cognition.
Psychological Bulletin, 136, 1045–1067.
Landau, M., Robinson, M. D., & Meier, B. P. (2014). The power of metaphor: Examining its
influence on social life. American Psychological Association.
Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A. (2008). A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis and
a new proposal for grounding conceptual content. Journal of Physiology-Paris, 102, 59–70.
Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and
vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.
Meier, B. P., Moeller, S. K., Riemer-Peltz, M., & Robinson, M. D. (2012). Sweet taste preferences
and experiences predict prosocial inferences, personalities, and behaviors. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 102, 163–174.
Meier, B. P., Fetterman, A. K., & Robinson, M. D. (2015). Black and white as valence cues:
A large-scale replication effort of Meier, Robinson, and Clore (2004). Social Psychology, 46,
174–178.
Morgan, D. L. (2018). Skinner, Gibson, and embodied robots: Challenging the orthodoxy of the
impoverished stimulus. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 38, 140–153.
Murphy, J., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2018). Alexithymia is associated with a multidomain,
multidimensional failure of interoception: Evidence from novel tests. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 147, 398–408.
Niedenthal, P. M., Barsalou, L. W., Winkielman, P., Krauth-Gruber, S., & Ric, F. (2005). Embodi-
ment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9,
184–211.
Ohira, H. (2010). The somatic marker revisited: Brain and body in emotional decision making.
Emotion Review, 2, 245–249.
Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2019). Six challenges for embodiment research. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 28, 593–599.
Pecher, D., Zeelenberg, R., & Barsalou, L. W. (2003). Verifying different-modality properties for
concepts produces switching costs. Psychological Science, 14, 119–124.
Pecher, D., Boot, I., & Van Dantzig, S. (2011). Abstract concepts: Sensory-motor grounding,
metaphors, and beyond. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances
in research and theory (Vol. 54, pp. 217–248). Elsevier.
Pinhas, M., Shaki, S., & Fischer, M. H. (2014). Heed the signs: Operation signs have spatial
associations. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67, 1527–1540.
Pollatos, O., Gramann, K., & Schandry, R. (2007). Neural systems connecting interoceptive
awareness and feelings. Human Brain Mapping, 28, 9–18.
Price, T. F., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2015). Embodied emotion: The influence of manipulated facial
and bodily states on emotive responses. Wires Cognitive Science, 6, 461–473.
Proffitt, D. R. (2006). Embodied perception and the economy of action. Perspectives on Psycho-
logical Science, 1, 110–122.
Reed, C. L., Betz, R., Garza, J. P., & Roberts, R. J. (2010). Grab it! Biased attention in functional
hand and tool space. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 236–245.
Schnall, S., Harber, K. D., Stefanucci, J. K., & Proffitt, D. R. (2008). Social support and the
perception of geographical slant. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1246–1255.
Schnall, S., Zadra, J. R., & Proffitt, D. R. (2010). Direct evidence for the economy of action: Glucose
and the perception of geographical slant. Perception, 39, 464–482.
Schneider, I. K., Rutjens, B. T., Jostmann, N. B., & Lakens, D. (2011). Weighty matters: Importance
literally feels heavy. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 474–478.
Schubert, T. W., & Semin, G. R. (2009). Embodiment as a unifying perspective for psychology.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 1135–1141.
Shapiro, L. (2007). The embodied cognition research programme. Philosophical Compass, 2, 338–
346.
Stefanucci, J. K., Gagnon, K. T., & Lessard, D. A. (2011). Follow your heart: Emotion adaptively
influences perception. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 296–308.
Terasawa, Y., Moriguchi, Y., Tochizawa, S., & Umeda, S. (2014). Interoceptive sensitivity predicts
sensitivity to the emotions of others. Cognition and Emotion, 28, 1435–1448.
Thomas, L. E. (2015). Grasp posture alters visual processing biases near the hands. Psychological
Science, 26, 625–632.
Thomas, L. E. (2017). Action experience drives visual-processing biases near the hands. Psycho-
logical Science, 28, 124–131.
Tirado, C., Khatin-Zadeh, O., Gastelum, M., Jones, N. L., & Marmolejo-Ramos, F. (2018). The
strength of weak embodiment. International Journal of Psychological Research, 11, 77–85.
Topolinsky, S., & Boecker, L. (2016). Mouth-watering words: Articulatory inductions of eating-like
mouth movements increase perceived food palatability. Appetite, 99, 112–120.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 625–636.
Witt, J. K. (2011). Action’s effect on perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20,
201–206.
Part I
Theoretical Foundations
Chapter 2
Dynamic Grounding of Concepts:
Implications for Emotion and Social
Cognition
Joshua D. Davis, Seana Coulson, Andrew J. Arnold, and Piotr Winkielman
Abstract Concepts shape experience and create understanding. Accordingly, a key

question is how concepts are created, represented, and used. According to embodied
cognition theories, concepts are grounded in neural systems that produce experi-
ential and motor states. Concepts are also contextually situated and thus engage
sensorimotor resources in a dynamic, flexible way. Finally, on that framework,
conceptual understanding unfolds in time, reflecting embodied as well as linguistic
and social influences. In this chapter, we focus on concepts from the domain of
affect and emotion. We highlight the context-sensitive nature of embodied concep-
tual processing by discussing when and how such concepts link to sensorimotor
and interoceptive systems. We argue that embodied representations are flexible and
context dependent. The degree to which embodied resources are engaged during
conceptual processing depends upon multiple factors, including an individual’s task,
goals, resources, and situational constraints.
Keywords Concepts · Emotion · Representation · Embodiment · Grounded

cognition
Concepts structure our knowledge and our knowledge influences how we perceive,
interpret, and experience the world. This makes understanding how concepts are
created, represented, and used a central issue in psychology and cognitive science.
According to theories of embodied cognition, our concepts are grounded in neural
systems that produce perceptual and motor states (Barsalou, 1999, 2008). For
instance, understanding the concept of APPLE involves accessing modality-specific
information about our experiences with apples—what they look like, what they feel
like in our hands, the sound they make when we bite into them, their taste, how they
influence feelings of hunger, and so on. Similarly, understanding emotion concepts
J. D. Davis (B) · S. Coulson

Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive,
Mailcode 0109, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
A. J. Arnold · P. Winkielman
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 23

M. D. Robinson and L. E. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of Embodied Psychology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3_2
24 J. D. Davis et al.
also involves accessing modality-specific information. For example, the concept of

HAPPINESS includes information about how we experience our own internal and
external bodily states when we feel happy, as well as how happy people look, sound,
and act.
Embodied theories are typically contrasted with the more traditional amodal theo-
ries of semantic memory and conceptual processing that developed out of the mind
as computer metaphor that dominated early cognitive science (e.g., Collins & Loftus,
1975). According to the traditional perspective, modal experiences are transformed
into abstract, symbolic representations. On this view, information about what an apple
looks or tastes like remains available to conceptual knowledge. Critically, however,
that knowledge is not represented in a modal format. Instead, it is represented in
an abstract, amodal manner, and the abstractness of the representation is important.
Indeed, on the traditional view, the amodal nature of concepts is precisely what makes
them powerful (Fodor, 1975). After all, what allows us to understand the idea of an
“apple”, “knife”, “anger”, “happiness”, “justice”, or “revenge” is moving beyond our
individual experiences of these things to extract their abstract conceptual “cores”.
On this amodal view, understanding the essence of “happiness” involves the appre-
hension of its abstract features, just as understanding the essence of “even number”
disregards whether the number is 2, 18, or 586, is displayed in Roman numerals, or
is written in pink.
Conceptual meaning is often indexed by our vocabulary—e.g., the concept of
HAPPINESS is indexed by the word ‘happiness.’ One of the challenges for theories
of conceptual processing and representation is how arbitrary symbols, such as the
word form “anger” or “happiness”, obtain their meaning. For the conceptual system to
support meaning, the symbols in the mind need to be connected to their content—that
is, they need to be grounded in some way (Harnad, 1990). By the traditional approach
in cognitive science, amodal symbols are meaningful by virtue of their role in a
larger compositional system governed by truth-preserving operations (Fodor, 1975).
One argument that has been raised against these traditional approaches, however,
is that it is not clear how meaning enters the system, as in Searle’s (1980) thought
experiment about the Chinese Room. Because, according to traditional accounts,
the meaning of abstract symbols derives from their relationship to other abstract
symbols, such accounts have been likened to the attempt to learn a foreign language
from a dictionary that defines new words in terms of other words from the unknown
language.
We can type “What color are apples?” into a sophisticated chatbot and it can
provide us with a sensible response, such as “Red, but not all apples are red…”
However, that knowledge does not seem on par with the understanding of someone
who has experience seeing apples in that conceptual meaning is not grounded. Mary,
the color-blind neuroscientist, appears to lack something essential in her under-
standing of color, even if she knows that firetrucks and stop signs are typically red.
Does someone who has never experienced happiness (pain, love, or sexual desire)
truly know its core meaning?
This challenge of grounding is less problematic from an embodied perspective by
which symbols are grounded because they are linked to sensorimotor information
2 Dynamic Grounding of Concepts: Implications for Emotion … 25
(Barsalou, 2008). The relationship to the referent is part of the symbol’s form. The
concept of HAPPINESS, for example, recruits neural resources involved in the bodily
experience of happiness. When people think about the meaning of happiness, they
simulate a relevant experience of happiness—either from memory or constructively
using currently relevant resources. This does not mean that when we think and talk
about apples that we activate the entirety of our apple-related sensorimotor informa-
tion. Nor does it imply we access a context-invariant set of features that constitute a
semantic core.
Rather, the activation of embodied content varies as a function of contextual factors
(Winkielman et al., 2018). Throwing an apple involves different bodily experiences
than eating one—and, consequently, so does thinking about throwing an apple versus
thinking about eating one. In many (but not all) situations, the goal of conceptual-
ization is simply to perform a task with as little effort as possible. In such cases,
we suggest that a situated sensorimotor satisficing approach is typically taken. The
emphasis on the context-dependent nature of embodied information is why we call
our model the CODES model. It stands for context-dependent embodied simulation
(Winkielman et al., 2018).
At the core of the chapter, we will primarily focus on emotion concepts, their
grounding, and the context-dependent nature of sensorimotor activations during
conceptual processing. Emotion concepts are interesting because they include
concrete sensorimotor features as well as abstract relational ones. Emotions have
perceptual features associated with external bodily changes, such as action tenden-
cies and facial expressions. Emotions also have features associated with internal
bodily changes, such as changes in heart rate or breathing. They certainly have
a phenomenal component—privately experienced feelings. Finally, emotions have
abstract relational features. For example, a particular feeling of anger has a cause and
a result. Likewise, anger has at least one experiencer and often one or more targets
or recipients (emotions are about someone or something). We begin below with the
grounding problem and a discussion of how emotion concepts can be grounded in
bodily experience. Next, we discuss the context-dependent nature of the activation of
sensorimotor information in the processing of emotion concepts. Finally, we return
to the difficult question of abstraction and non-perceptual aspects of emotion and
other concepts (Borghi et al., 2017).
Grounding Emotion Concepts in the Neural States

Associated with Action and Perception
Emotion concepts vary in complexity, ranging from the deceptively simple such
as GOOD and BAD, to the cognitively sophisticated SCHADENFREUDE, and to
highly abstract concepts such as BEAUTY. During development, children’s concepts
are closely aligned with their rudimentary affective reactions to stimuli, their “yeah”
and “yuck” experiences, and their concepts are limited to basic emotions, such
as HAPPINESS, ANGER, SADNESS, and DISGUST (Harris, 2008). While these

emotion concepts may lack sophistication, they are nonetheless abstract. Children
understand both that emotions are mental states, and that the same emotion can arise
from perceptually dissimilar causes (Harris, 2008). So, whereas concrete concepts
such as APPLE can be grounded in relatively similar sensorimotor experiences,
abstract emotional concepts such as HAPPINESS cannot.
Note, however, that even though an emotion can be elicited by vastly different
stimuli, the same emotion tends to feel similar across its occurrences. There is a
family resemblance to the feeling associated with different instances of happiness,
for instance. These feelings can be traced to neural substrates that are involved in the
representation of bodily states (Craig, 2008). There is a debate as to what extent self-
reported emotional states can be predicted by distinct patterns of autonomic activity
(Barrett, 2019; Kragel & LaBar, 2013). Although there is a reasonable agreement
that consciously experiencing one’s emotional state involves perceiving one’s body,
the internal state cannot be the entire story. For one thing, similar physiological
states can be construed as different emotions depending on the perceived events
linked to them (Schacter & Singer, 1962). For instance, the arousal of fear can be
misattributed to sexual arousal (Dutton & Aron, 1974). Accordingly, recent accounts
of emotions highlight the role of situated conceptualization in the construction of
emotional experience (Wilson-Mendenhall et al., 2013). That is, while HAPPINESS
may always be grounded in some embodied experience, the specific composition of
modalities that create the experience vary situationally (e.g., happiness after scoring
an exciting goal differs from happiness on a calm, quiet evening).
Additionally, while the perception of internal states can be an embodied resource
for grounding emotion concepts, one needs more than interoceptive information to
learn the meaning of emotion words (Pulvermüller, 2018). Although a mother can tell
her child that she feels happy, the child cannot directly experience the mother’s happi-
ness. However, because the child can observe the mother’s actions and vocalizations,
these observable features may help bridge the gap between consciously perceived
internal states, concepts, and language (Pulvermüller, 2018). In fact, because action
is a fundamental aspect of emotion, it can be a source for the experiential grounding
of emotion concepts.
Different action tendencies are associated with different emotions (Frijda, 1986).
For instance, happiness and anger both motivate approach behaviors, while disgust
and fear motivate avoidance and withdrawal. The neural organization of motivation is
also influenced by hand dominance, a characteristic that determines how we perform
many actions. This makes sense if motivation is associated with approach (domi-
nant hand) and withdrawal/defensive (non-dominant hand) actions. Accordingly, in
right-handed individuals, approach-related emotions are associated with activity in
the left frontotemporal cortex, while withdrawal-related emotions are associated with
activity in right frontotemporal cortex (Harmon-Jones et al., 2010). For left-handers,
the motivational lateralization is reversed (Brookshire & Cassasanto, 2012). More-
over, hand dominance also predicts the extent to which stimulation of the left or
right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex via transcranial magnetic stimulation increases
or decreases feelings of approach-related emotions (Brookshire & Cassasanto, 2018).
Another important type of motor activity related to emotions is facial expres-

sions. Different facial expressions are associated with different emotions (Ekman
& Friesen, 1971) and their motor profiles afford fitness-enhancing behaviors. For
example, facial expressions of disgust such as nose wrinkling reduce sensory acqui-
sition, while expressions of fear such as eyes widening enhance it (Susskind et al.,
2008). Moreover, the tight relationship between action and emotion means that we can
predict people’s emotions by observing their actions. Body postures (Aviezer et al.,
2012), facial expressions (Ekman & Friesen, 1971), and even more subtle motor
activity around the eyes (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) provide information that can
help an observer identify what another individual is likely feeling. The systematic
relationship between external emotional expressions and internal emotional states
provides a means of connecting the two, and thus can serve as the basis for the
development of emotional concepts.
This connection is made easier because of the correspondence between percep-
tion and action. Observing others displaying emotions can lead to emotional conta-
gion (Hatfield et al., 1993), and spontaneous facial mimicry (Dimberg, 1982). There
are also neurons in the parietal cortex that fire when observing an action or when
performing it (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Empathizing with another person’s
pain activates neural circuits that are involved in the first-person experience of pain
(Cheng et al., 2010). Note that for the grounding problem, it is not essential whether
these connections exploit predispositions or are entirely learned (Heyes, 2011). The
point is that these mechanisms provide a means for bridging external and internal
experiences.
But to have meaningfully reliable concepts to organize our thinking, it helps to
have language. As we have discussed, emotion concepts include concrete sensori-
motor features associated with internal and external bodily states, and abstract rela-
tional features that connect these states to the source of the emotional response. No
two experiences of a particular emotion are identical. The broad range of experiences
that are associated with an emotion share a family resemblance, and the binding of
these shared semantic features can be strengthened by their association to words and
language (Pulvermüller, 2018).
It should be noted that word forms are typically arbitrarily related to their refer-
ents—they are abstract in this regard. Yet they still have embodied features—they
are spoken, heard, written, and read. Words and linguistic symbols play an important
role in conceptualization. Manipulating access to emotion words through priming
or semantic association can facilitate or impair recognition of so-called “basic”
emotional–facial expressions (Lindquist et al., 2006). They can also be used to
help develop more sophisticated concepts such as beauty and immorality, through
language use. However, even sophisticated, affect-laden abstract concepts can be
grounded in embodied experiences. IMMORALITY is associated with and can be
manipulated by feelings of anger and disgust; BEAUTY involves interoceptive feel-
ings associated with contemplation, and wonderment is linked to the motivation to
approach the object we find beautiful (Fingerhut & Prinz, 2018; Freedberg & Gallese,
2007).
In sum, we have suggested that emotions are closely associated with action and
perception, most notably in the context of action tendencies involving approach and
avoidance, emotional expressions, and interoception. Although the stimuli that elicit
any given emotion are highly variable, the internal and external responses they elicit
are less so. For a given emotion, different experiences share a family resemblance and
their co-occurrence with particular word forms provides a basis for aggregating across
their shared semantic features (see Pulvermüller, 2018). Together, these elements
provide a means for grounding emotion concepts in embodied experiences. Tethered
to language, emotion concepts can not only get off the ground, but can be used to
construct even more sophisticated concepts. Below, we describe empirical research
that has been used to support the hypothesis that emotion concepts are grounded in
embodied states, as well as alternative interpretations of these data.
Empirical Support for Embodied Emotion Concepts
As we have discussed, embodied theories suggest that neural resources involved in

action, perception, and experience provide semantic information and can be recruited
during conceptual processing (Barsalou, 2008; Niedenthal, 2007; Niedenthal et al.,
2005; Winkielman et al., 2018). During conceptual processing, these somatosensory
and motor resources can be used to construct partial simulations or ‘as if’ loops
(Adolphs, 2002, 2006). While peripheral activity (e.g., facial expressions) can also
be recruited and influence conceptual processing, it is often not necessary. Instead,
it is the somatosensory and motor systems in the brain that are critical (Damasio,
1999). Also, the sensorimotor neural resources that are recruited during conceptual
processing do not need to exactly match those of actual emotional experiences—they
can be partial and need not be consciously engaged (Winkielman et al., 2018).
The simplest way to test whether emotion concepts are embodied is to present
single words and to measure the physiological responses they elicit. A commonly
used physiological measure of emotional response is facial electromyography
(EMG). By placing electrodes on different muscle sites of the face, one can evaluate
the expressions participants make, even when those expressions are quite subtle.
EMG studies that present words and pictures have found that participants smile to
positive stimuli and frown to negative ones, though the effect is weaker for words
than pictures (Larsen et al., 2003). In proper task conditions, concrete verbs associ-
ated with emotional expressions (e.g., “smile”) elicit robust EMG responses (smiles
and frowns, respectively), while abstract adjectives (e.g., “funny”) elicit weaker,
affect congruent responses (Foroni & Semin, 2009). Taboo words and reprimands
presented in first and second languages elicit affective facial responses (Baumeister
et al., 2017; Foroni, 2015), and increased skin conductance relative to control words
(Harris et al., 2003). These effects are greater in the native language, where the
affective element of the concepts is arguably more strongly represented. Addition-
ally, multiple neuroimaging studies have found that affectively charged words can
activate brain regions that are associated with the experience of affect and emotion
(Citron, 2012; Kensinger & Schacter, 2006).
These studies show a connection between emotion concepts and their associ-
ated embodied responses. However, there are multiple reasons that such responses
could occur. Consistent with the embodied perspective, it is possible that embodied
responses are partially constitutive of emotion concepts, viz. that they play some
representational role. From a strong embodiment perspective, this would be because
the conceptual and sensorimotor systems are one and the same (Binder & Desai,
2011). From a weak embodiment position, conceptual representations are embodied
at different levels of abstraction and the extent to which a concept activates senso-
rimotor systems at any given time depends upon conceptual familiarity, contextual
support, and the current demand for sensorimotor information (Binder & Desai,
2011). Alternatively, embodied activity might be functionally relevant for conceptual
processing, but distinct from conceptual representations. For instance, the physio-
logical activity might be the result of elaboration after the concept has been retrieved.
Finally, the physiological responses might be completely epiphenomenal, reliably
accompanying conceptual activity but playing no functional role. Amodally repre-
sented concepts might, as a side effect, trigger affective reactions or spread activation
to physiological circuits (Mahon & Caramazza, 2008). It is also possible that some
of the embodied activity is representational, some is elaborative, and some is epiphe-
nomenal. Correlational studies cannot adjudicate between these different possibilities
(Winkielman et al., 2018).
More compelling evidence in favor of the hypothesis that emotion concepts draw
on neural resources involved in action and perception comes from research on
subjects who have impaired motor function. Individuals with Motor Neuron Disease
and Parkinson’s have motor deficits and these deficits are associated with impaired
action-word processing (Bak & Chandran, 2012; García & Ibáñez, 2014). Individuals
on the autistic spectrum whose motor deficits impair their emotional expression also
have abnormal processing of emotion-related words, and the extent of their language
processing deficit is predicted by the extent of their motor problems (Moseley &
Pülvermuller, 2018).
Complementing the correlational research above are studies that involve experi-
mental manipulation of motor activity in neurotypical subjects in order to measure
its impact on conceptual processing. Different emotional–facial expressions involve
different patterns of facial activity (Ekman & Friesen, 1971). The Zygomaticus major
is involved in pulling the corners of the lips back into a smile. Having participants
bite on a pen that is held horizontally between their teeth without moving their lips
generates tonic Zygomaticus activity (as measured by facial EMG) and prevents
smiling (Davis et al., 2015, 2017; Oberman et al., 2007). Generating tonic muscle
activity injects noise into the system while preventing movement mimicry at the
periphery. Impairing smiling mimicry slows the detection and recognition of expres-
sions changing between happiness and sadness (Niedenthal et al., 2001). Disrupting
the motor system this way also impairs the recognition and categorization of subtle
expressions of happiness but not subtle expressions that rely heavily on the motor
activity at the brow, such as anger and sadness (Oberman et al., 2007).
These sorts of interference studies reveal a systematic relationship between the

targeted muscles and the emotional expressions those muscles mediate: interfering
with smiling muscles impairs the recognition of smiles but not frowns. For example,
in a study that manipulated tonic motor activity either at the brow or at the mouth,
interfering with activity at the brow impaired recognition of expressions that rely
heavily on activity on the upper half of the face, such as anger, while interfering with
activity at the mouth impaired recognition of expressions such as happiness that rely
more on the lower half of the face (Ponari et al., 2012). The claim that different
halves of the face provide more diagnostic information about emotional expressions
has been validated both by facial EMG (Oberman et al., 2007) and a recognition
task that involved composite images that were half emotionally expressive and half
neutral (Ponari et al., 2012).
Interfering with the production of facial expressions also can also impair language
processing in an affectively consistent manner. In an emotion classification task in
which participants quickly sorted words into piles associated with different emotions,
interfering with motor activity on the lower half of the face slowed the categorization
of words associated with HAPPINESS and DISGUST relative to a control condi-
tion, but not those associated with ANGER or NEUTRAL (Niedenthal et al., 2009).
Expressions of happiness and disgust both rely heavily on lower face muscles, for
smiling and wrinkling the nose, respectively, while anger does not. Another way
in which motor activity has been manipulated is through subcutaneous injections
of Botox (a neurotoxin that induces temporary muscular denervation). Botox injec-
tions at the Corrugator supercilli muscle site, a brow muscle active during frowning
and expressions of anger, slowed comprehension of sentences about sad and angry
situations but not happy ones (Havas et al., 2010).
These data are compelling both because they use experimental methods and
because the observed impairments are selective to specific emotions. The selec-
tivity of the findings rules out the possibility that the manipulations are simply
awkward and impair conceptual processing in general. They also cannot be explained
by epiphenomenal accounts that propose that the embodied activity is a downstream
consequence of conceptual processing because disrupting downstream consequences
should not impair antecedent processes. However, it remains possible that these
effects impaired cognitive processes that were not semantic in nature but were instead
involved in decision-making or elaboration.
These alternative explanations are difficult to rule out with studies that utilize
behavioral measures because categorical behavioral responses involve semantic
processes as well as processes related to decision-making. To distinguish these
two sets of processes requires a measure with high temporal resolution in conjunc-
tion with a paradigm that can distinguish between different stages of processing,
such as event-related brain potentials (ERP). Different ERP components are asso-
ciated with different cognitive processes. The N400 ERP component is a negative-
going deflection that peaks around 400 ms and is associated with semantic retrieval.
Although different stimulus modalities (e.g., language and pictures) influence the
scalp topography of the component, a larger (more negative) N400 occurs in response
to stimuli that induce greater semantic retrieval demands. Additionally, the N400
dissociates from other cognitive processes such as those involved in elaboration and
decision-making (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011).
To evaluate whether interfering with embodied resources influenced semantic
retrieval, we conducted an N400 ERP study in which we interfered with the smiling
muscle using the aforementioned “pen” manipulation (in fact, we used a wooden
chopstick) as participants categorized emotional–facial expressions along a dimen-
sion of valence (i.e., expressing a very good to very bad feeling). In the control
condition, participants loosely held the chopstick horizontally between their lips
(see Fig. 2.1 for a depiction of both the interference and the control conditions in
these studies). EMG was measured at the cheek and brow as a manipulation check.
In the control condition, participants mimicked the expressions. In the interference
condition, there were no signs of happiness mimicry, just tonic noise at the cheek (and
not the brow). Relative to the control condition, interfering with smiling increased
the N400 when participants categorized expressions of low-intensity happiness, but
not for expressions of anger (Davis et al., 2017). This suggests that embodied motor
resources play a causal role in semantic processes involved in emotion recogni-
tion. Moreover, although the interference manipulation affected a neural indicator of
semantic retrieval, it did not influence participants’ ratings of emotional valence. So,
while these data indicate embodied responses to emotional stimuli facilitate associ-
ated semantic retrieval processes, they also suggest that these effects are extremely
subtle.
Fig. 2.1 Facial action manipulation used in Davis et al. (2015, 2017). In the interference condition,
the chopstick is placed between the teeth and the lips with the mouth closed. In the control condition,
it is placed at the front of the lips, not between the teeth. The interference condition involves biting
lightly on the chopstick to hold it between one’s teeth and lips and this generates tonic noise on the
lower half of the face (measured at the Zygomaticus major) relative to the control, as observed in
the baseline EMG activity (left. The figure is based on data from the manipulation check in Davis
et al. (2015). Whiskers represent 95% CI). In addition, the manipulation interferes with smiling
mimicry since the chopstick is held toward the back corners of the lips. This makes it difficult to
lift the corners of the lips into a smile. The control condition induces significantly less baseline
Zygomaticus noise (left), and the location of the chopstick makes it relatively easy to pull the
corners of the lips up into a smile (right)
We conducted another experiment similar to the one just mentioned in which we

presented subjects with sentences about positive and negative events rather than facial
expressions. The sentences in this study were constructed in positive and negative
pairs, such that their valence depended on an affectively charged word, and that word
was the third to last in the sentence (e.g., “She reached into the pocket of her coat
from last winter and found some (cash/bugs) inside it”). This allowed us to evaluate
whether any embodiment effects occurred during lexical retrieval (e.g., cash or bugs)
and/or at a higher level of conceptual processing, during the construction of a situation
model at the end of the sentence (Zwaan, 2009). We found an N400 difference as a
function of the smiling interference condition for positive but not negative sentences.
The N400 difference did not occur at the lexical level (e.g., cash) but instead at the
sentence final word, suggesting the embodied interference manipulation affected
higher order semantic processes involved in sentence processing. We found no effect
of the interference manipulation on participants’ overt ratings of the sentences. Given
that the embodiment manipulation influenced neural markers of comprehension at
the level of the situation model but not the lexical level and not at a behavioral
level, these data are most consistent with a weak embodiment. If the conceptual
and sensorimotor systems were one and the same—strong embodiment—one would
expect N400 effects at the lexical level at the very least, and plausibly at the behavioral
level. Instead, the effects were subtler.
Another indication that embodiment effects can be nuanced and subtle comes from
a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) emotion detection experiment
in which rTMS was applied over right primary motor cortex (M1), right primary
somatosensory cortex (S1), or the vertex in the control condition (Korb et al., 2015).
Participants viewed videos of facial expressions changing either from neutral to
happy or from angry to happy. Their task was to identify when the expression changed.
Although the rTMS manipulation had no effects in the males tested, among females,
rTMS over M1 and S1 delayed both mimicry and the detection of smiles. These
findings suggest a causal connection between activity in the motor and somatosensory
cortex and the recognition of happiness, but only among a subset of the participants.
Taken as a whole, these studies support the hypothesis that neural resources
involved in action and perception play a functional role in semantic processing of
emotion concepts. Processing emotional words and faces can provoke embodied
responses in an emotion-specific manner. Persons with motor processing abnor-
malities show deficits in understanding language about action and emotion. More-
over, interfering with people’s embodied responses to emotional stimuli impacts
semantic retrieval in an emotion-specific manner. However, these studies also show
that embodiment effects are often subtle and idiosyncratic. We suggest that this is
because embodied physiological responses have a diverse array of causes, including
accessing conceptual representations, elaborative inferences, and emotional reac-
tions, whose relevance for cognition varies greatly across tasks. In the next section,
we focus on the context-dependent nature of embodiment in conceptual processing.
The Context-Dependent Nature of Embodied Emotion

Concepts
In our CODES model, we suggest that embodied resources are used to ground the
construction of simulations. Importantly, the embodied resources involved in any
given simulation are dependent on the context-specific cognitive needs of the indi-
vidual. Embodied information is most useful in situations that require relatively deep
semantic processing and inferential elaboration. For emotion concepts, this is most
common in situations that involve attempting to understand or predict the behaviors of
others or oneself. This is similar to hypotheses that embodied simulations can be used
to create as-needed predictions of interoceptive states (Barrett & Simmons, 2015)
and anticipation of emotional consequences (Baumeister et al., 2007). What sets our
model apart is its emphasis on the flexible nature of the recruitment of embodied
resources during these simulations. For example, when the goal is to cultivate a deep
empathic understanding of a loved one’s feelings, sensorimotor recruitment may be
quite extensive. In other situations, the recruitment might be quite minimal, akin to
sensorimotor satisficing.
One example of how task demands influence embodied recruitment comes from
research on the processing of emotion words in a shallow or deep manner (Nieden-
thal et al., 2009). In these studies, participants viewed words that referred to
emotional states (e.g., ‘foul’ or ‘joyful’), concepts associated with emotional states
(e.g., “slug” or “sun”), and neutral control words (e.g., “table” or “cube”). In the
shallow processing task, participants were asked to judge a superficial feature of
the words, namely whether the word appeared in upper or lower case. In the deeper
processing task, participants had to judge whether or not the words were associated
with emotions. In each of these tasks, facial EMG was recorded from muscle sites
associated with the expression of positive or negative emotions. Consistent with the
cognitive demand aspect of the CODES model, participants displayed affectively
congruent emotional expressions when processing the words for meaning, but not
when deciding whether they were printed in upper or lower case. Interestingly, these
results argue against the suggestion that embodied responses to words reflect auto-
matic affective reactions to stimuli. Indeed, if embodied responses were reflexive,
they should have been evident in the shallow processing task as well as the deep one.
However, it could be argued that the shallow task was so shallow that partic-
ipants did not even read the words. To address this concern, Niedenthal et al.
(2009) conducted an additional experiment in which participants were presented
with emotion words (e.g., “frustration”) and told to list properties of those words
while facial EMG was recorded. Critically, participants were asked to either produce
properties for an audience interested in “hot” features of the concepts (such as a good
friend that could be told anything) or for one interested in “cold” features (such as
a supervisor with which they have a formal relationship). Both conditions involved
deep conceptual processing, and both led to the production of normatively appropriate
emotion features. However, the “hot” emotion condition led to greater activation of
valence-consistent motor responses. As simulating an emotional experience is more
relevant for processing “hot” emotional features than for experientially detached
“cold” ones, these data support the context-dependent aspect of the CODES model
and suggest there are multiple routes of representation during conceptual processing.
Another example of emotion cognition without “hot” embodied content is emotion
recognition in patients with Möbius Syndrome, a congenital form of facial paralysis.
Although these patients cannot produce (and mimic) emotional–facial expressions,
they can still recognize them on par with neurotypical controls (Rives Bogart &
Matsumoto, 2010). Such findings undermine strong embodiment views that suggest
emotion concepts lacking relevant sensorimotor experiences and production capac-
ities would be deficient. As advocates of the CODES model, we suggest that while
these patients lack experience with mimicry, they do have extensive experience
decoding emotional expressions via visual resources. As such, their concepts of
emotions may be quite different from individuals who have a lifetime of facial
mimicry. Moreover, data suggests that when asked to draw fine-grained distinctions
among emotional expressions, some patients with Möbius Syndrome do perform
worse than controls (Calder et al., 2000).
More generally, recent research has revealed a potential role for individual differ-
ences in the representation and operation of emotion concepts. Above, we reviewed
evidence suggesting that brain regions underlying action and perception help to
ground emotion concepts, and that peripheral motor activity, in turn, strengthens their
activation. As such, mimicry—especially spontaneous mimicry—can reflect weaker
or stronger accessibility of emotion concepts. There is now research that reveals
individual differences in mimicry elicitation and in its perceived social efficacy (for
a review, see Arnold, Winkielman, & Dobkins, 2019).
An example of this is work on mimicry and loneliness—perceived social
isolation—which is associated with negative affect and physiological degradation
(Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). If physiological and motor (i.e., action) activity is
more weakly coupled with emotion concepts in some people than others, those indi-
viduals may suffer, particularly in the social world. Accordingly, we have found that
loneliness is associated with impaired spontaneous smile mimicry during the viewing
of video clips of emotional expressions (Arnold & Winkielman, 2020). By contrast,
loneliness was unrelated to overt positivity ratings of the smile videos. This reveals
a dissociation between perceptual (external) and physiological/behavioral (internal)
aspects of the smile, a point to which we return later.
Critically, the influence of loneliness was specific to spontaneous (not deliberate)
mimicry for positive (not negative) emotions; depression and extraversion were not
associated with any mimicry differences (Arnold & Winkielman, 2020). Further,
spontaneous smiling to positively valanced images (e.g., cute puppies) was not
affected by loneliness, suggesting the representation of positive emotion/joy remains
intact in lonely individuals—but that perhaps it is not recruited as readily in social
contexts.
Smile mimicry is intrinsically rewarding and facilitates social rapport (Hess &
Fischer, 2013), so lonely individuals may be hindered in achieving social connec-
tion, the very resource they require for health. Do lonely individuals ground positive
emotion concepts such as joy differently in social vs. nonsocial domains, and might
this representational shift underlie other aspects of loneliness? Social psychologists

have suggested loneliness results in part from an early attentional shift—implicit
hypervigilance for social threat—whereby socially negative stimuli are processed
more readily than socially positive ones (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Thus, it is
possible that implicit potentiation of negative versus positive emotion concepts (inter-
nally) within one’s perceived (social) world is a component of loneliness maintenance
and suffering.
Another domain of important individual difference research comes from work on
interoception—the sense of the physiological condition of the body (Craig, 2008).
Interoception is the process of sensing, representing, and regulating internal phys-
iological states in the service of homeostasis. Seminal theories of emotion suggest
that bodily responses to ongoing events both contribute to emotional experience
and influence behavior (Damasio, 1999; James, 1884), as interoception mediates
this translation (for a review, see Critchley & Garfinkel, 2017). Thus, interoception
is important for numerous subjective feelings, including hunger, fatigue, tempera-
ture, pain, arousal, and sensual touch. Measures of interoceptive processing reflect
distinct dimensions, including objective interoceptive accuracy, subjective interocep-
tive sensibility, and metacognitive interoceptive awareness (Garfinkel et al., 2015).
Operationalization of distinct dimensions of interoception and growing research on
their influence in perception and behavior in neuro- and a-typical individuals reveals
interoception’s pervasive (if subtle) influence on experience.
Higher interoceptive accuracy is associated with feeling emotions more strongly
(Barrett et al., 2004). By contrast, lower interoceptive accuracy has been linked
to difficulty in understanding one’s own emotions (i.e., alexithymia, Brewer et al.,
2016) and deficits in emotion regulation (Kever et al., 2015). Since variations in
dimensions of interoception are associated with a myriad of psychological disorders
(Khalsa et al., 2018), it is possible that fluctuations in interoceptive processing may
drive (mal)adaptive behavior stemming from a (mis)match between expected and
actual feeling states. Recent accounts of interoceptive predictive coding elaborate
this idea and highlight its consequences for mental health (Barrett et al., 2016; Seth,
Suzuki & Critchley, 2012).
Dysregulated interoception was recently implicated in suboptimal social inter-
action and loneliness (Arnold et al., 2019; Quadt et al., 2020). One component of
these accounts is that interoception confers higher emotional fidelity in a way that
has consequences for social interaction. If one can accurately sense and describe
their own feelings, they may be able to better represent another’s feelings by using
common neural resources in better-defined “as-if” loops (Damasio, 1999), allowing
for greater empathy and social connection. Likewise, dysregulated interoception
might affect the representation and accessibility of emotion concepts in loneliness
as well as more generally.
A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that in addition to the traditional five senses,
interoception uniquely contributes to conceptual grounding (Connell et al., 2018).
These authors found that participants associated “sensations in the body” with
concepts to a similar degree compared to the five traditional sensory modalities
and interoception was found to be a relatively distinct modality for the concep-
tual association. Interoceptive grounding drove perceptual strength more strongly
for abstract concepts than concrete ones and was particularly relevant for emotion
concepts. Interoceptive strength was also found to enhance semantic facilitation in a
word recognition task over and above the other five sensory modalities. Although the
link between interoception and conceptual grounding requires more research, extant
evidence suggests that interoception may confer a critical “feeling” component to
concepts that are important for well-being and social interaction.
In this section, we have reviewed experimental data that reveals a considerable
degree of variability in the extent of sensorimotor recruitment for emotion concepts.
Bodily responses, such as facial mimicry, must not be reflexively elicited, but rather
occur more readily for semantic processing of emotional language, especially when
people consider “hot” features of these concepts. Because emotion concepts have
many dimensions, sensorimotor recruitment is not strictly necessary to understand
them. However, individual differences in facial mimicry of smiles are associated with
the capacity for positive social engagement. Individual differences in interoceptive
ability are associated with emotional experience and the ability to reason about one’s
own emotions as well as those of others. Finally, we have pointed to a possible link
between interoceptive sensations and the grounding of emotion concepts.
The Role of Context
Contemporary accounts of semantic memory provide for some degree of contex-

tual variability for concepts. This assumption is based on a wide range of find-
ings from cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, computa-
tional linguistics, and semantics (Barsalou, 2008; Barsalou & Medin, 1986; Coulson,
2006; Lebois et al., 2015; Pecher & Zwaan, 2017; Tabossi & Johnson-Laird,
1980; Yee & Thompson-Schill, 2016). Accordingly, embodied simulations highlight
different aspects of experience in a context-dependent manner. In a feature-listing
task, participants list features such as green and striped for WATERMELON, but red
and with seeds for HALF-WATERMELON (Wu & Barsalou, 2009). Presumably,
“watermelon” invites a perceptual simulation of the external features of a watermelon,
while “half-watermelon” invites a perceptual simulation of its internal features.
Emotional states, too, are multifaceted and, like watermelons, their relevant
features are subject to contextual variability. Emotions have internal features, such
as the motivational urges they elicit and the way they feel in the moment, as well as
external features, such as the actions they elicit and the way they are expressed in the
face and the body. When the goal is to take the perspective of an angry person and
understand how they are feeling, the internal features may be at the forefront of a
simulation. However, if the goal is to anticipate the behaviors of that angry individual,
external features might be highlighted. In this section, we describe behavioral and
neuroimaging data that reveal how internal and external focus can influence embodied
simulations.
In a behavioral study that used a switch cost paradigm, participants read a series
of sentences that described emotional and non-emotional mental states (Oosterwijk
et al., 2012). Sentences varied in whether each was focused on internal characteristics,
(e.g., “She was sick with disgust.”) or external ones (e.g., “Her nose wrinkled with
disgust.”) and, critically, whether they were preceded by a sentence with a similar
internal versus external focus. We found that sentences were read faster when they
followed a sentence with a similar focus than when they followed one with a different
focus (Oosterwijk et al., 2012). These data suggest that switching from an “‘internal”
to an “external” focus induces a processing cost just as switching between visual and
auditory features does (Collins et al., 2011).
A follow-up fMRI study revealed that even when controlling for particular
emotions, reading sentences about internally focused emotional states activated
different brain regions than sentences with an external focus (Oosterwijk et al.,
2015). More specifically, sentences with an “internal” focus activated the ventro-
medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with the generation of experi-
ential states, while those with an “external” focus activated a region of the inferior
frontal gyrus related to action representation. Consistent with the CODES model,
emotion concepts recruit different embodied resources in contexts that highlight
internal versus external features.
Further evidence that context influences embodied representations of emotion
concepts comes from an fMRI study that manipulated emotion perspective and
whether or not a given emotion pertained to the self or someone else (Oosterwijk
et al., 2017). In this study, participants were asked to read sentences that described
different aspects of emotion. The sentences described either actions (e.g., pushing
someone away), situations (e.g., being alone in a park), or internal sensations (e.g.,
increased heart rate). In one task, the participants were asked to imagine themselves
experiencing these different aspects of emotions. In keeping with previous research,
processing these sentences activated networks of brain regions related to action plan-
ning, mentalizing, and somatosensory processing, respectively (Oosterwijk et al.,
2017).
In a second task, participants were presented with emotion pictures and asked
to focus on the person’s actions (i.e., “HOW” the target person in the picture was
expressing their emotion), the situation (‘WHY’ the target was feeling the emotion
they were expressing), or internal sensations (i.e., “WHAT” the target person was
feeling in their body). Interestingly, multi-voxel pattern analysis was able to accu-
rately classify the participants’ task (HOW, WHY, or WHAT) in the picture study
based on the patterns of brain activity in the sentence-reading task (Oosterwijk et al.,
2017). Conceptualizing emotion as it relates to actions, situations, and internal sensa-
tions each involves different neural circuits. However, for any given aspect of an
emotion concept (e.g., what the target person was feeling in their body), the neural
resources recruited were quite similar. This was the case regardless of whether the
prompt was a sentence or a picture, and regardless of whether the task involved
drawing inferences about oneself or others.
Conclusion
In sum, research to date suggests that sensorimotor resources are involved in the
processing of emotion concepts. However, these findings also underline the context-
specific nature of embodied simulations. Individual differences in embodied experi-
ences, differences in task demands, and varying cognitive goals can all influence the
extent to which embodied representations either are or are not recruited in a partic-
ular situation for a particular individual. This conclusion argues against simplistic
models of conceptual embodiment in which the representations are inflexible pack-
ages of somatic and motor reactions. It also argues against strong models of embodied
emotion that claim that peripheral motor simulation is a necessary component of
emotion concepts. Instead, the data suggest that there are multiple ways in which
different embodied resources are recruited for conceptual processing.
Importantly, our embrace of the embodiment perspective is compatible with an
important role for abstraction in any satisfactory account of emotion concepts. After
all, the emergence of concepts like SCHADENFREUDE, APPRECIATION, or even
LOVE requires fairly advanced cognitive capacities that may require semantic asso-
ciations built from linguistic experience. Returning to Mary the color-blind scientist,
research comparing color concepts in sighted and congenitally blind participants
suggests semantic associates of color terms lead to highly similar color concepts in
these two groups (Saysani, Corballis, M. C. & Corballis, C. M., 2018). These inves-
tigators asked participants to rate the similarity of different pairs of color terms and
used multidimensional scaling to produce perceptual maps. Remarkably, only minor
differences were found in the color maps of sighted and blind participants (Saysani
et al., 2018). Clearly, the concept of RED differs somewhat in sighted and congeni-
tally blind participants. But what exactly is missing, and how important the missing
part is, again depends on context, and the facets of meaning. In some contexts, under-
standing LOVE or PAIN seems impossible without the ability to experience it, but
not in other contexts.
This is what makes emotion concepts fascinating—they require a hybrid approach,
which integrates sensorimotor, linguistic, and social inputs (Borghi, 2020). As such,
there is much to be learned about this topic. But, for now, it is clear that the embod-
iment perspective provides a valuable window into the intricate mechanisms of the
human mind.
References
Adolphs, R. (2002). Neural systems for recognizing emotion. Current Opinion in Neurobiology,
12, 169–177.
Adolphs, R. (2006). How do we know the minds of others? Domain-specificity, simulation, and
enactive social cognition. Brain Research, 1079(1), 25–35.
Arnold, A. J., & Winkielman, P. (2020). Smile (but only deliberately) though your heart is aching:
Loneliness is associated with impaired spontaneous smile mimicry. Social Neuroscience, 10,
1–13.
Arnold, A. J., Winkielman, P., & Dobkins, K. (2019). Interoception and social connection. Frontiers
in Psychology, 10, 2589. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02589
Aviezer, H., Trope, Y., & Todorov, A. (2012). Body cues, not facial expressions, discriminate
between intense positive and negative emotions. Science, 338, 1225–1229.
Bak, T. H., & Chandran, S. (2012). What wires together dies together: Verbs, actions and
neurodegeneration in motor neuron disease. Cortex, 48, 936–944.
Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The “Reading the Mind in
the Eyes” Test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or
high-functioning autism. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines,
42, 241–251.
Barrett, L. F. (2019). Search of emotions. Current Biology, 29, R140–R142.
Barrett, L. F., Quigley, K. S., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Aronson, K. R. (2004). Interoceptive sensitivity
and self-reports of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87,
684–697.
Barrett, L. F., Quigley, K. S., & Hamilton, P. (2016). An active inference theory of allostasis
and interoception in depression. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences, 371, 20160011. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0011
Barrett, L. F., & Simmons, W. K. (2015). Interoceptive predictions in the brain. Nature Reviews
Neuroscience, 16, 419–429.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 577–660.
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617–645.
Barsalou, L. W., & Medin, D. L. (1986). Concepts: Static definitions or context-dependent
representations? Cahiers De Psychologie, 6, 187–202.
Baumeister, J. C., Foroni, F., Conrad, M., Rumiati, R. I., & Winkielman, P. (2017). Embodiment
and emotional memory in first vs. second language. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 394.
Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., Nathan DeWall, C., & Zhang, L. (2007). How emotion shapes
behavior: Feedback, anticipation, and reflection, rather than direct causation. Personality and
Social Psychology Review, 11, 167–203.
Binder, J. R., & Desai, R. H. (2011). The neurobiology of semantic memory. Trends in Cognitive
Science, 15, 527–536.
Borghi, A. M. (2020). A future of words: Language and the challenge of abstract concepts. Journal
of Cognition, 3, 42.
Borghi, A. M., Binkofski, F., Castelfranchi, C., Cimatti, F., Scorolli, C., & Tummolini, L. (2017).
The challenge of abstract concepts. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 263–292.
Brewer, R., Cook, R., & Bird, G. (2016). Alexithymia: A general deficit of interoception. Royal
Society Open Science, 3, 150664. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150664
Brookshire, G., & Casasanto, D. (2012). Motivation and motor control: Hemispheric specialization
for approach motivation reverses with handedness. PLoS One, 7, e36036.
Brookshire, G., & Casasanto, D. (2018). Approach motivation in human cerebral cortex. Philo-
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373, 20170141.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Hawkley, L. C. (2009). Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends in
Cognitive Science, 13, 447–454.
Calder, A. J., Keane, J., Cole, J., Campbell, R., & Young, A. W. (2000). Facial expression recognition
by people with Möbius syndrome. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 17, 73–87.
Cheng, Y., Chen, C., Lin, C. P., Chou, K. H., & Decety, J. (2010). Love hurts: An fMRI study.
Neuroimage, 51, 923–929.
Citron, F. M. M. (2012). Neural correlates of written emotion word processing: A review of recent
electrophysiological and hemodynamic neuroimaging studies. Brain & Language, 122, 211–226.
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychol
Rev, 82(6), 407–428. http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407
Collins, J., Pecher, D., Zeelenberg, R., & Coulson, S. (2011). Modality switching in a property
verification task: An ERP study of what happens when candles flicker after high heels click.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00010
Connell, L., Lynott, D., & Banks, B. (2018). Interoception: The forgotten modality in perceptual
grounding of abstract and concrete concepts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, 373, 20170143. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0143
Coulson, S. (2006). Constructing meaning. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 245–266.
Craig, A. D. (2008). Interoception and emotion: A neuroanatomical perspective. Handbook of
Emotions, 3, 272–288.
Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current Opinion in
Damasio, A. R. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of
consciousness. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Davis, J. D., Winkielman, P., & Coulson, S. (2015). Facial action and emotional language: ERP
evidence that blocking facial feedback selectively impairs sentence comprehension. Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 2269–2280.
Davis, J. D., Winkielman, P., & Coulson, S. (2017). Sensorimotor simulation and emotion
processing: Impairing facial action increases semantic retrieval demands. Cognitive, Affective, &
Behavioral Neuroscience, 17, 652–664.
Dimberg, U. (1982). Facial reactions to facial expressions. Psychophysiology, 19, 643–647.
Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions
of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 510–517.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 124–129.
Fingerhut, J., & Prinz, J. J. (2018). Wonder, appreciation, and the value of art. Progress in Brain
Research, 237, 107–128.
Fodor, J. A. (1975). The language of thought (Vol. 5). Harvard University Press.
Foroni, F. (2015). Do we embody second language? Evidence for ‘partial’ simulation during
processing of a second language. Brain and Cognition, 99, 8–16.
Foroni, F., & Semin, G. R. (2009). Language that puts you in touch with your bodily feelings.
Freedberg, D., & Gallese, V. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends
in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 197–203.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge University Press.
García, A. M., & Ibáñez, A. (2014). Words in motion: Motor-language coupling in Parkinson’s
disease. Translational Neuroscience, 5, 152–159.
Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing
your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological
Harmon-Jones, E., Gable, P. A., & Peterson, C. K. (2010). The role of asymmetric frontal cortical
activity in emotion-related phenomena: A review and update. Biological Psychology, 84, 451–462.
Harnad, S. (1990). The symbol grounding problem. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 42, 335–346.
Harris, C. L., Aycicegi, A., & Gleason, J. B. (2003). Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater
autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24,
561–579.
Harris, P. L. (2008). Children’s understanding of emotion. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, &
L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 320–331). The Guilford Press.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional contagion. Current Directions in
Havas, D. A., Glenberg, A. M., Gutowski, K. A., Lucarelli, M. J., & Davidson, R. J. (2010). Cosmetic
use of botulinum toxin—A affects processing of emotional language. Psychological Science, 21,
895–900.
Other documents randomly have
different content
CHAPTER III.
THE LITTLE LORD.
Even when the first strangeness had worn off, Danaë remained an
incongruous element in the Lady’s secluded household. As a Striote,
speaking the island patois, she was a predestined adherent of the
Prince in the eyes of the two old women, and therefore an enemy of
their mistress, and to make things worse, she was ignorant of the
standard of “European” culture to which they had painfully attained.
Life within the bounds of the garden, mitigated only by a saint’s-day
visit to the nearest church, was miserably confined after the active
existence to which Danaë had been accustomed, and she
scandalised her custodians by her exploits in climbing trees and
scrambling up walls. Old Despina went out every day to do the
household shopping, in the course of which she managed to pick up
and bring home to her mistress an extraordinary variety of gossip
reflecting on the Prince, but she would never take the girl with her.
Danaë’s longings to make closer acquaintance with the crowded
streets and the enticing shops were in no way satisfied by the short
walks to church in the company of Mariora, both of them so closely
swathed in their shawls that nothing of their faces could be seen.
But Despina assured her mistress that the girl was such a savage
that if she was allowed into the town she was sure to make a scene
of some kind, or at least to attract attention by her staring and her
uncouth remarks, and as the Lady was above all things desirous to
escape notice until the moment of her vindication arrived, Danaë
was sentenced to remain within the grounds.
Even the thought of the punishment in store for the Lady would
not have enabled the girl to endure the confinement but for the
society of the baby. He was a notably joyous child, the brooding
sorrow of his unhappy mother leaving him untouched. Danaë and he
took to one another at first sight, and she became his devoted slave.
With sublime inconsistency, she saw in him the heir of the
Christodoridi. He was named Joannes, after the patriot Emperor who
had fallen on the walls of Czarigrad in the vain attempt to repel the
final onslaught of the conquering Roumis, and from whom the
Christodoridi were descended in the female line, and Danaë told
herself proudly that he should yet sit upon his ancestor’s throne. His
preparation for this exalted future should be her task, and hers
alone. Released from the baleful influence of the Lady, Prince
Romanos might be trusted to make his Imperial marriage and
safeguard his own career, but Danaë would carry off Janni to Strio,
and bring him up a fearless climber and a daring seaman, as became
a son of the sea. Whether the Prince allowed her quietly to take
possession of his son, or whether she was obliged to act without
consulting him, she hugged herself daily in the thought that the
Lady would have no voice in the matter. Nay, from her prison the
unfortunate mother should be permitted to see her child in the
distance, growing up without knowledge of her and happy in his
ignorance.
It was impossible for the Lady to be unaware of the feelings
with which Danaë regarded her, though she found the girl’s island
Greek almost unintelligible. Sullen looks, deepening into positive
hostility when Janni was taken to his mother, could not be mistaken,
but the Lady set them down to an excessive loyalty to the house of
Christodoridi, and jealousy of the foreigner who had married into it.
Eurynomé suffered from home-sickness, no doubt, and that was why
she was always so cross. Kindness was wasted on her, since one
could not import her native rock bodily into Therma harbour, and
after one or two careless attempts to break down the nurse-girl’s
enmity, her mistress shrugged her shoulders and left her to herself,
secure in her devotion to Janni. Danaë breathed more freely when
the Lady ceased her efforts, for was she not a witch? and kindness
from her could only be looked upon with suspicion. But it was
possible that her indifference was merely a ruse, and therefore
Danaë exhausted all her store of charms to protect herself and the
baby. Mariora caught her one day stealing into the kitchen to rub her
finger on the sooty side of a saucepan, for did not everyone—save
foreigners and atheists—know that a dab of soot behind a child’s ear
was the surest means of averting the evil eye? But Despina and
Mariora laid aside their differences to drag the culprit into their
mistress’s presence, and accuse her with one voice of laying spells
on the illustrious little lord—a charge which Danaë found particularly
galling from those who ought to have shared her Orthodox beliefs
had they not been corrupted by European incredulity. The Lady
would have been merely amused, had not the remedy been such a
dirty one, but as it was, Danaë received so severe a scolding that
Despina ventured hopefully to ask leave to give her a good beating.
The Lady looked annoyed.
“No,” she said; “if Eurynomé cannot do what she is told, she
must go back to her island. I am not going to take the responsibility
of teaching her common sense. Her uncle is the person to do that.
You may go, Eurynomé.”
“Alas, Lady mine!” lamented Despina, “you have lost a chance.
There is great evil in this wicked girl’s heart towards you, and I
would have beaten it out before it grows into deeds.”
“My good Despina, what harm can a wretched nurse-girl, who
could not even make herself understood outside, do to me? It is the
Prince’s fancy that she should attend on the little lord, and I should
be sorry if he thought I had a prejudice against her. If he sees for
himself that she is troublesome, he will tell Petros to take her away.”
Danaë, lingering shamelessly to listen at the door, stamped her
foot as she hurried away, boiling over with rage.
“So be it, Lady! so be it!” she muttered. “I can do you no harm,
can I? And I can’t talk your mincing foreign Greek? You will find
before very long that I can! I make my bow to you, my Lady. You
will know me better when I bring my Jannaki to the window of your
dungeon, and teach him to spit upon you!”
Danaë could not have explained why her mistress’s indifference
wounded her more than active dislike would have done, but so it
was. The company of the two old women, with their taunts and nods
of triumph, was equally intolerable, and she never rested until she
had found a hiding-place for herself and Janni where they could be
by themselves. It was close to the house, so that she could hear at
once if she was called, in the grove of ilex-trees which masked the
approach to the kitchen premises. The branches of one of the trees
grew close to the ground, and to Danaë it was child’s play to
clamber into them with Janni girt closely to her with a shawl. Once
well above the ground, she climbed higher and higher until they
were quite concealed by the foliage from anyone below, reaching a
convenient forked branch where she could sit in comfort, and where
she broke away the twigs cautiously to give herself a view over the
garden. In spite of all her care, it was not long before her two
enemies divined that she had some hidden refuge, and began to
hunt for it. Shaking with laughter, and holding up a warning finger in
front of Janni’s rosy face, she would hear them shuffling among the
stiff dead leaves below her, peering round the tree-trunks and
scanning the lower branches keenly. They knew that she must be in
the wood, unfortunately, for the first time that she took Janni up the
tree the climb made him fractious, and she was obliged to sing to
quiet him, so that it was no use denying the fact when Mariora
demanded where she had been, making that noise so close to the
house, but when they required further particulars, she assumed an
expression of idiocy that was absolutely impenetrable. The old
women were equal to her, however, and one unfortunate day,
descending her tree hastily in answer to Mariora’s loud summons
from the kitchen door, Danaë almost fell into the arms of Despina,
crouching among the dead leaves. Then indeed there was a moment
of triumph for the Lady’s two faithful attendants. Gleefully they haled
Danaë by main force before their mistress, and charged her with
endangering the little lord’s life and limbs by taking him to the top of
the tallest tree in the gardens. She was voluble in her denials, but
the tell-tale leaves and pieces of bark, traces of her hurried descent,
which decorated her hair and clothes and the shawl in which Janni
was wrapped, belied her words, and her mistress was the more
disturbed because of her former confidence.
“I knew you were disobedient to the servants and disrespectful
to me, Eurynomé, but I thought I could trust you to take care of the
little lord,” she said. “This is too much. Your uncle must deal with
you. I can stand no more.”
With huge delight Despina and Mariora dragged their prisoner
away and shut her up in the wood-shed until Petros should arrive
with the Prince. Janni’s piteous wailings for “Nono,” which could only
be calmed by undivided attention from his mother, troubled them not
a whit, but they added fuel to the fire which burned in the rebellious
heart of the girl who crouched exhausted on the ground after a wild
and futile attack on the door. If Danaë had felt before that she did
well to be angry with the Lady and her household, she would now
gladly have seen them all lying dead before her. Her wrath was still
hot when the two old women reappeared, and with various kicks
and pinches, which were returned with interest, pulled and pushed
her into the presence of her judges. Her cap, with its rows of silver
coins, was half torn off, the many little plaits of her hair ragged and
dishevelled, as she stood with sullen face and heaving breast before
the Prince; but Janni, seated on his father’s knee, held out his arms
to her with a delighted “Ah, Nono!” The girl’s face changed as if by
magic as she started forward to take him, but Despina and Mariora
held her forcibly back, and the Lady took instant possession of her
son—a precaution which he resented by a violent howl.
“Give him your watch to play with,” she said hastily to her
husband, “or we shall not be able to hear ourselves speak.
Eurynomé is the only person who can manage him when he gets
into these passions.”
Obediently Prince Romanos dangled his watch by the chain
before his son’s face, held it close to his ear that he might hear it
tick, and finally relinquished it to him to suck—as is the wont of
inexperienced fathers confronted with a crisis of the kind, until the
howls subsided sufficiently to allow his wife to make herself heard.
“You understand,” she said to Petros, who stood deprecatingly
by, “that this is not the first time your niece has behaved badly. I
have borne with her as long as I could, but we have had no peace
since she entered the household. She is a most extraordinary girl.
Why can’t she do what she is told? Is it your island independence?”
“If it please the Lady, I think some demon must have taken up
his dwelling in her,” said Petros helplessly, and Despina and Mariora
exchanged triumphant glances.
“She had better go home at once. The little lord’s life is not safe
while she is here,” said the Lady decisively.
“Will it be safe when she is gone?” asked the Prince, with a
desperate effort to rescue the watch, which Janni, now growing
black in the face, was attempting to swallow.
“All-Holy Mother! you will kill the child, lord!” shrieked Danaë,
tearing herself from her warders and rushing forward. A moment’s
struggle and the watch was once more in its owner’s possession,
and Janni in his nurse’s arms, crowing with delight as he grabbed at
the coins in her cap.
“See how fond the child is of her!” said the Prince to his wife.
“Is it true, Eurynomé, that thou wouldst have killed the little lord?”
“Lord, I would die for him,” replied Danaë fervently.
“You see, Olimpia. There must be some mistake.”
“I can never have her about him again.”
“My most beloved, you don’t understand our island-people. The
women make the most devoted nurses in the world, and have died
for their charges, as she says. She is a wild creature who does not
understand civilised ways, but I would trust her with the child
through anything. Let Petros speak to her seriously, and I’ll be
bound you will see a great change in her.”
“If Petros can make her understand that she is to do what she is
told, and that Janni is to be brought up in my way, not hers, I might
think of it.”
“Surely, my Lady, there is a way of making women understand,
and I have never known it fail,” said Petros unctuously, with a glance
at his master’s riding-whip. The Prince laughed uncomfortably.
“No, no, friend Petraki, we are not in the islands now. Give the
girl a good talking-to, that’s enough.”
Petros looked at the Lady, whose delicate brows were drawn
into a slight frown. “Leave it to me, lord. Does not the girl come
from my place? Is she to bring disgrace on me by angering the
mistress I brought her to serve? In five minutes she shall kiss the
Lady’s foot and ask pardon—yes, and promise amendment. Follow
me, wretched one.”
“Well, don’t be too hard upon her. Follow thine uncle, little one,
and fear not. The Lady and I will come to thy help if he beats thee.”
“He will not, lord.” The words were uttered with such
concentrated fury that Prince Romanos turned rather uneasily to his
wife as Danaë, with head held high, followed the retreating form of
Petros.
“That is really a very remarkable girl, Olimpia. Our women are
usually kept in better order.”
“Then I wish Petros had not chosen the exception to bring here.
If you knew the trouble Eurynomé has made in the house, you
would not be so horrified by the thought of her getting a beating.
She thoroughly deserves it, and no doubt, as her uncle says, it is the
only argument that people of that type understand. I have stood
endless unpleasantness, but when it comes to risking Janni’s life
——”
“My beautiful one, you are agitating yourself needlessly. Rather
than bring a tear into the eyes of my Princess—” he stole a glance at
her to see how the word was received—“the girl shall go back to her
place to-morrow. But if she is really penitent, and promises to do
better, is it not well to have one about the child who is truly devoted
to him?”
“And who recalls to you, lord, those happy days of your youth in
Strio?” said the Lady, imitating sarcastically Danaë’s island-speech.
“Well, as it seems quite certain that Petros is not beating her, do you
think we might venture to have tea?”
Behind the screen of trees, Danaë was facing Petros with
blazing eyes. “If you dare to lay a finger upon me, I will tell
everything to the Lord Romanos,” she said hoarsely.
“I am not such a fool, my lady. I will leave my lord your father
to do the beating when you are packed back to Strio with the work
undone that you came for.”
“And why is the work undone?” Danaë recovered herself after a
momentary pause of consternation. “Because you were not ready! I
have been waiting eagerly to do my part, but you have never called
upon me. You may be sure, insolent one, that the Despot shall hear
the truth, whatever he may be pleased to do to me.”
The hereditary tendency to obedience in Petros responded
immediately to the hectoring tone. “Indeed, my lady, I am to blame,
but it has not been my fault. This is the first time that I have seen
you alone, to make the final arrangements.”
“Is everything arranged on your side?” demanded Danaë,
unappeased.
“Everything, lady mine. The helpers are secured—and indeed it
was not difficult to find them. There are those in Therma as well as
in Strio who hate the Lady. And it will be well to do it soon—this
week—while the English lords are here. The Lord Romanos will have
less time for coming here, nor will he so easily remark my absence.
Moreover, he will have less opportunity for inquiring into the matter
afterwards.”
“That does not concern me,” said Danaë loftily. “It is your part
to leave no traces. You have a boat ready at a suitable place, able to
sail at any moment?”
“A boat, my lady?” Petros was taken aback. “Why a boat?”
Danaë stamped her foot. “Fool! to carry off the Lady to Strio to
her prison, of course. And how are the little lord and I to return
thither, pray? Did you think the Lord Romanos would willingly part
with his son?”
“My lady”—Petros looked at her with cunning eyes—“you are
wiser than I. I have indeed been remiss, but the boat shall be ready.
How could my lord your father be other than delighted to receive the
beloved wife and child of his illustrious son?”
“She is not his wife!” cried Danaë. “His wife must be Orthodox
and of royal blood. She is neither.”
“Yet the little lord will be welcomed and honoured as the heir of
the Christodoridi?” insinuated Petros humbly.
Danaë felt as though a pitfall had opened before her feet, but
she faced him undauntedly. “That does not concern you, friend
Petros. The Despot will do as he pleases. I have not felt obliged to
share with you the secret instructions he gave me.”
“And I did not expect it, my lady. Only—there are some who
would willingly make everything secure by killing the Lady instead of
merely carrying her off.”
The chronicles of the Christodoridi included a not inconsiderable
variety of cold-blooded murders, but Danaë blenched. Nevertheless,
she endeavoured vigorously to justify herself, realising that Petros
was gloating over her horror.
“What is that to us? You have the Despot’s orders to bring her
to Strio, not to kill her. To remove her evil influence from the Lord
Romanos is a good deed, but to shed blood would be to bring sin
upon our souls. Moreover, I, at least, would sooner have the witch in
captivity, where I knew her to be secure, than set her malicious
ghost free to haunt me.”
“Great is the wisdom of Kyria Danaë!” said Petros, with extreme
respect, “and her words shall be obeyed. Take this, my lady,” he
handed her a minute wedge of iron, “and hide it safely. The time we
choose must be when Despina has gone to do her shopping, for the
fewer witnesses the better, and therefore you must find means to let
me know if she has not been out yet any day when I attend the Lord
Romanos hither. Then I will keep her in talk while she lets us out,
and you must slip the wedge into the hole of the lock, so that the
bolt cannot shoot home. The rest you can leave to me.”
Danaë considered her instructions. “It will be difficult to get
near the gate, but I will manage it somehow. You have made
arrangements for getting the Lady unperceived to the boat?”
“Is it for me to share with you the secret instructions I have
received from my lord your father, lady?” asked Petros sulkily—then,
with a spasm of geniality, “But all the Despot’s thoughts are yours,
as we know. Does the idea of a mock funeral procession, with
yourself and the little lord among the mourners, please you, my
lady?”
“Excellent!” cried Danaë. “Nothing could be better.”
“Then all is well, and all is ready. Therefore return now,
Eurynomé, and kiss the Lady’s hand, and promise her to behave
better in future.”
“I will not do it!” cried Danaë, her anger reviving.
“Then you return at once to Strio, my lady, and the plan falls
through. No vengeance on the Lady!”
“Even for that I would not do it,” she said wrathfully. “But to
save my brother and Janni from her evil arts—” she pushed past
Petros, and marched doggedly to the tea-table. “Grant me pardon,
Lady mine. I will not risk the little lord’s life again,” she forced herself
to say.
“On your knees, Eurynomé!” said Prince Romanos sharply,
conscious of his wife’s raised eyebrows, and the girl obeyed sullenly.
The Lady held out a delicate hand with obvious lack of eagerness,
and Danaë kissed it and dropped it as if it had been a hot coal,
retiring awkwardly enough at an imperative sign from her brother.
“I can’t congratulate you on your protégée’s manners,” said the
Lady lightly.
“No one is better fitted to improve them than yourself, my
beloved Olimpia. And at least she is staunch, and would give her
heart’s blood for Janni.”
“What is the danger at which you are always hinting? Is there
something new?”
“There is always a certain amount of unpleasantness,” he
replied evasively. “And this visit of Theophanis and his brother-in-law
will stir up their supporters. My beautiful one, it is my particular wish
that you have a proper guard for the present—inside the garden.”
“To guard the Princess—or the Lady?” she asked coldly.
He uttered a furious exclamation. “Olimpia, you are enough to
drive a man mad! Do you think I have invited Theophanis here to
hand over the crown to him? It will task all my powers to hoodwink
him and Glafko as to the promising negociation which is to end by
seating you beside me on the throne, and would you have me ruin
everything by making him aware of your existence now?”
“Perhaps you are also hoodwinking me on the same subject?
No, I will have no guards within these walls. Here, at any rate, I
need not see the pointing finger, or hear the things your people say
of me. Any danger that may threaten Janni or me is entirely due to
your refusing, in defiance of all your promises, to acknowledge us,
and I will not accept further protection at your hands while the
concealment lasts.”
“Olimpia!” Prince Romanos had thrown himself on his knees, in
an attitude that would have been impossibly theatrical in any other
man. “You wrong me deeply; I call all the saints to witness to it.
Believe me, you should not remain in concealment another hour, if
the necessity were not urgent. It is your throne and mine—Janni’s
throne, our son’s throne—that is in danger. Trust your husband,” he
leaned forward and enfolded her hands in his—“or if not your
husband, trust the poet to whom you plighted your troth on the
marble terrace among the orange-trees.”
“I do trust you,” she said wearily, allowing her hands to rest in
his—“because I must. I remain here because I have nowhere else to
go. I have wounded my father grievously for your sake by begging
him not to come. You may send your guards here if you will tell
them the truth about me. But within these walls everyone must
know that I am the Princess and your wife.”
“It is impossible,” he murmured gloomily.
“So I thought. So it will always be when I urge you to make the
truth known. You have no intention whatever of acknowledging it.”
“My most beautiful and best beloved, you are cruelly wrong,
and I will prove it to you. If I place in your keeping the most sacred
treasure of our house, handed down for hundreds of years before
the birth of John Theophanis himself, will you believe me then? If
anything should happen to me, you have only to produce that jewel
to show that I acknowledged you as my honoured wife, and as
rightful Empress of the East. Ah, my beloved, you are yielding! I will
not ask you to see me again until I can put the treasure into your
hands, and you will own how much you have misjudged your Apolis.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE GIRDLE OF ISIDORA.
It was about ten o’clock in the morning, and Despina was clattering
things furiously in the kitchen as she collected baskets and other
aids to shopping, for she was late in starting. The Lady sat in the
morning-room opening on the verandah, writing a letter which
seemed, from her frequent pauses, to be difficult to frame, and
Danaë was playing bo-peep with Janni in and out of the window.
Above the child’s shouts of laughter came the imperative sound of
the door-bell, and Danaë caught him up in her arms, and followed at
a discreet distance in Despina’s wake as she went to open the door.
“Aha, old mother, you won’t be able to start just yet!” she cried
mockingly, as the Prince rode in, followed by Petros, for Despina
would never delegate even to Mariora the duty of keeping the door
in her absence.
“May he that is without and afar [i.e., the devil] fly away with
that girl! If I catch her, I’ll teach her saucy tongue a lesson!”
muttered the old woman furiously.
“I should recommend a red-hot skewer,” was the soothing
suggestion of Petros, as he flashed a glance towards Danaë to show
that he had understood her intimation. “A monk at the Holy
Mountain told me that the worst of scolds could be cured by marking
a cross on her tongue with it, if the proper prayers were said at the
same time.”
Despina requited his sympathy with another curse, and Danaë
laughed as she followed the Prince, who had taken Janni in his arms.
He gave the child back to her as they reached the house, and she
sat down again on the verandah while he greeted his wife. Reading
in her eyes the question she was too proud to ask, he unbuttoned
his tunic, and took out something wrapped in linen which had been
concealed there. Danaë, her curiosity aroused, watched him with
eager eyes while he unrolled it, but she sang mechanically to Janni
the while, lest her interest should be observed. One by one he
released from the protecting folds a series of circular plaques of
gold, gleaming with jewels and translucent enamel, while the Lady
looked on, puzzled and a little disappointed, and Danaë’s breath
came quick and fast.
“Byzantine, I suppose?” said the Lady, fingering one of the
plaques; “and not intentionally comic?”
“Wait!” said Prince Romanos sharply. He was fitting the plaques
together by means of the little gold hooks and chains attached to
each, until they formed a small portrait-gallery of severe-featured
saints, with jewelled halos and dresses. He held it up. “If the people
in the streets as I passed had known that I was bringing this to you,
Olimpia, they would have torn me limb from limb. It is the girdle of
the Empress Isidora.”
Danaë gasped, in spite of herself, at the sound of the name,
which was the only word she understood, but she had already
guessed what the jewel was. Handed down in the Christodoridi
family was a metrical version of the exploits of the famous, and
infamous, Empress, in which the girdle figured largely, and Danaë
could have named each ill-favoured saint from memory. And this
treasure, the badge of Orthodox sovereignty, her infatuated brother
was now handing over to the schismatic woman who had bewitched
him! Even the Lady, who knew nothing of its legendary fame, was
impressed as she took it into her hands.
“It is a magnificent thing!” she said. “Why have you never
shown it to me before?”
“Because I have never had it in my possession, or even set eyes
upon it, till now. In fact, I did not know that it was still in existence.
For your possession of it, my most beautiful, you may thank Prince
Theophanis, or rather Lady Eirene, his wife.”
“You will hardly ask me to believe that Princess Theophanis has
acknowledged the justice of your claims so far as to send you this by
her husband?”
“Very far from it, my dearest. She has no knowledge of its
present whereabouts, and if you are to keep it, she had better not
know.”
“But to whom does it really belong?”
“To the head of the descendants of John Theophanis. That, my
Olimpia, is your husband, as the inhabitants of Emathia testified by
their free vote. But the girdle has been preserved since the fall of
Czarigrad in the family of the Princess Eirene, and I have reason to
believe that she regards it as her own property.”
“And you have contrived to rob her jewel-case during her
husband’s absence here?” asked the Lady lightly.
“Your poet does not go to work quite so crudely, Olimpia. No, it
seems that it is ten years or more since anyone saw the girdle.
Before her marriage the Princess was detained in a sort of
honourable captivity at the old Scythian Consulate here, from which
she escaped to join Theophanis. Unfortunately for her, knowing that
the Scythian Imperial family were most anxious to possess the jewel,
in order to support their claims to the heritage of the Cæsars, she
contrived a hiding-place for it, from which she had not time to
rescue it when the opportunity of escape came. There it must have
remained ever since, for even when the Consulate was burnt by the
Roumi mob before the bombardment, the walls in great part
remained standing. But just lately she saw in the papers that we
were clearing away the ruins to make the new boulevard, and
immediately hurried her husband off to make inquiries. Knowing
Maurice Theophanis, you won’t be surprised to hear that he chose
me, in strictest secrecy, as the recipient of his inquiries—for which I
should imagine his wife will have a word or two to say to him when
he gets home. It seems that Princess Eirene managed to pick a large
stone out of the wall with her scissors, and hide the girdle in the
rubble behind it. As she had fitted the stone in again neatly enough
to escape the observation of the spies who surrounded her, I
thought it was very likely the treasure was there still, but I said a
good deal to Theophanis about fire and plunderers. We visited the
ruins, and Glafko—who has a plaguy exact mind—located as nearly
as he could the spot where the Princess’s room had been. In their
presence I promised the workmen a large reward if they found
anything, and fearful penalties unless they gave it up, and then I
carried our friends off to a review. The walls were duly knocked
down, and nothing was found. But Daniloff, the chief of police, used
himself to be employed at the Scythian Consulate in the old days,
and he had visited the spot the night before. He found the girdle and
brought it to me, wrapped up in odds and ends of paper, and he and
I cleaned it and polished it ourselves. No one else on earth dreams
where it is.”
“That girl outside will know,” said the Lady, without looking
towards Danaë.
“Nonsense! she doesn’t understand French. All she knows is
that I have brought you a present of jewellery to-day—surely a very
natural thing to do. It is not as if she had ever heard of the girdle
and its history.”
“And the obvious thing, to her, would be that I should put it on
at once.” She passed the glittering links round her waist, confining
the folds of the loose flowing gown of rich wine-colour she was
wearing. Before she could snap the clasp into place the Prince’s
hand stopped her.
“Wait, Olimpia. I must tell you that they say the girdle brings ill-
luck with it.”
The Lady laughed, and fastened the clasp. “I will risk the ill-luck
if it makes me Empress,” she said.
Prince Romanos gazed at her in unfeigned admiration. “Olimpia,
you are magnificent! You look the Empress to the life. May I yet see
you wear the girdle at our coronation in Hagion Pneuma!” He knelt
and lifted the edge of the wine-coloured robe to his lips. “Hail to the
Orthodox Empress!” he said fervently in Greek, and Danaë thrilled
with horror at the sacrilege. Were there no bounds to her brother’s
infatuation?
The Lady blushed slightly at the fervour of her husband’s tone.
Perhaps she also saw, as she looked dreamily far beyond him, the
dim splendours of the great cathedral of Czarigrad, rescued from the
Moslem and restored to Christian uses, and crowded with rejoicing
people assembled to welcome back the descendant of John
Theophanis to the throne of his ancestors—saw herself in imperial
robes beside him, and Janni, grown a goodly youth, acclaimed as
the heir of the Eastern Empire. Then she shivered a little, and
unfastened the clasp again.
“Don’t speak Greek; it is not safe with the girl about. You have
made me almost afraid of letting even Despina know that I have the
girdle, yet she has my keys. I will put it here,” she opened a drawer
of her bureau by a spring, and laid the jewel inside it, Danaë
watching her every movement, “until I can make an excuse to get
them and hide it in the safe. And now tell me what it is you want me
to do for you in return for it.”
“Most beautiful and beloved, will you not believe that your poet
brought you a gift solely that he might feast his eyes upon your
beauty adorned with it, and enjoy your pleasure?”
“Not for a moment,” said the Lady decisively.
“Ah, hard-hearted one! will nothing move you? Well, then,
dearest, I claim your promise made the other day. You will allow me
to quarter a guard for you within these walls?”
“I made no promise!” she said quickly.
“Not in words, I own, but it was implied, in return for the gift I
hoped to bring you, and have now brought. Listen, Olimpia; I am in
a very difficult position. Theophanis and his brother-in-law have
made this week a perfect hell to me. The shifts and excuses to
which I have been driven to baulk their curiosity are really
humiliating to look back upon. I am compelled—simply for the sake
of averting the suspicions I saw beginning to spring up in their
minds—to appear to fall in with their scheme for the railway route.
Of course it is exactly opposite to the one on which your hopes—our
hopes—depend, but I must throw them off the scent for a week or
two, or until I can get things definitely settled. Theophanis and
Glafko are returning home fairly satisfied, but to make things quite
smooth I was obliged to volunteer to go part of the way with them,
to see a place where there would be difficulty in getting the line
through. It is a Moslem colony—evkaf [or wakf, land set apart for
religious uses] land, a mosque and a cemetery—and any sensible
person would have seen at once that it was an insuperable obstacle
to their pet route, but they want to negociate about it, relying on
Glafko’s influence with the Roumis, I suppose, and—in a moment of
thoughtlessness, I confess—I proposed enthusiastically to go with
them and see what could be done.”
“Which means that you will be away from Therma—how long?”
“Four days, not more; three, if I am lucky.”
“And you have never gone away before without sending Janni
and me into safety at Thamnos first!”
“My dear Olimpia, this is such a short time. And the notice was
so brief; I start with them to-day, and there was no time to arrange
anything. Then consider what is to be gained—the fulfilment of our
dearest hopes. You on the throne beside me, Janni acknowledged
heir of Emathia—safety and recognition, in short, if I can only keep
those two meddlesome Englishmen in the dark till my great coup is
made.”
“And your police are not capable of protecting this house
against the mob, even with the help of the soldiers outside?”
“It is not the mob I am afraid of, but those who are your—our—
enemies for political, dynastic reasons.”
She raised her eyebrows. “The Theophanis family?”
“Let me beg you not to consider me altogether a fool, Olimpia.
No, not the Theophanis family. But you are aware that your
existence is not entirely unknown in the city; you have often
complained to me of the fact. I have reason to believe that it has
reached the knowledge of the very people with whom I am carrying
on my secret negociations. They may not know your real position,
but they are quite capable of seeing in you and Janni a possible
obstacle to the realisation of their aims, and in that case you and
Janni would be sentenced to disappear. Now do you see what I
mean? I may have been brutal, but you have forced me to speak
plainly.”
The Lady frowned, paying little attention to his excuses. “In
plain words, then, you think that opportunity will be taken of your
absence to murder your wife and son?”
“I don’t think it will be so, or I should not go, but I think it is
possible that such an attempt might be made. Consider Janni,
Olimpia, if you will not consider yourself.”
“I am considering myself,” she said quickly; “or rather, I am
considering the dignity of your wife. The Princess of Emathia may be
pardoned a little pride, Romanos—may she not? But Janni is in
danger, you say? Well, then, I well yield as far as this. You may post
your guards round the house at night. Arrange matters with
Despina, and let me hear nothing of them. They must be gone
before I come out of doors in the morning, and they must only
arrive after dark—I will not walk in the garden late. I will not see or
be seen by any more of your subjects till you acknowledge me; that
piece of pride I keep. But we shall be protected, according to your
wish; for I suppose even you do not expect a murderous attack to
be made upon us in the daytime?”
“No, I think that ought to be enough,” he said reluctantly. “I
shall be a little happier in my mind, knowing that the garden is
thoroughly patrolled. Accept your poet’s gratitude, my Princess, and
vouchsafe him a gracious farewell. I have innumerable things to do
before I join Theophanis and Glafko this afternoon. They start this
morning, with a patriarchal paraphernalia of tents and baggage-
mules, for the fancy for exploring their proposed new route forbids
their making use of the railway, and I catch them up, travelling light.
But I dare not stay longer.”
“And poor Despina will be distracted by the delay in her
marketing,” said the Lady lightly. She took her husband’s arm, and
walked with him into the garden, Danaë following with Janni in her
arms, and the little iron wedge which Petros had given her clasped
tightly in her hand. The Lady remained out of sight of the gate, but
while his father was speaking to Despina, Janni clamoured to see the
horses, and Danaë carried him to watch the riders mount. She
hardly knew how she could contrive to slip the wedge into the lock,
for Despina, fuming with impatience, was clearly in a desperate
hurry. To add to her irritation, the horse which Petros rode began to
dance hither and thither, apparently desiring to go anywhere rather
than through the gate, and in his efforts to control it, Petros caught
his spur in the old woman’s embroidered apron, and the stuff only
yielded with a jagged tear. Then the horse went through the
gateway with a bound, and Petros was left sitting on the ground
with an expression of such intense astonishment that even Despina,
while reviling him loudly, could hardly help laughing.
“Come on, Petraki! What’s the matter?” cried his master, turning
round.
“I knew something would happen when we met that priest just
as we were starting, my Prince,” moaned Petros lugubriously, noting
with the tail of his eye that Danaë, venturing as far as the doorpost
in sympathetic curiosity, had slipped the wedge into the hole.
“If you hadn’t been so clumsy, nothing would have happened,
fellow,” snapped Despina, contemplating her ruined apron. “I didn’t
meet a priest, so why should I be unlucky?”
“And I did meet him, and nothing has happened to me,” said
Prince Romanos gaily. “Get yourself a new apron with that, old
mother, and don’t croak. Make haste, friend Petros,” as the sentry
brought up the horse, which he had captured; “or shall I send the
police for you with an ambulance?”
“O my Prince, I think I can get to the Palace,” said Petros, rising
with many groans, “but after that——”
“You will have to go on the sick-list instead of coming into the
country with me. That’s where my ill-luck comes in,” said the Prince,
as his retainer hoisted himself with tremendous difficulty into the
saddle.
“Take the little lord in, Eurynomé,” cried Despina wrathfully.
“How often have I not told you that no modest girl goes peeping out
of gates, and there you are, absolutely outside! You’re a bad one,
and I always said so.”
Danaë obeyed, too much excited even to give Despina as good
as she gave, so near and clear to her mind was the culmination of
the plot. Her brother was going away somewhere, and Petros had
contrived to avoid going with him, and the door could be opened by
anyone who knew the secret of the obstructed lock. Moreover, the
saints—so she gratefully phrased it—had put in her way the means
of escape from the fears of Janni’s future in Strio which had been
suggested by the words of Petros when last they met. With the
Girdle of Isidora in her possession, she could bargain for his safety
with her father. Prince Christodoridi was an unsatisfactory person to
bargain with—she recognised it quite dispassionately and not
without admiration—since he never kept any promises that were not
strictly in accordance with his own interests, but with the treasure of
the family in her hands, it would be hard if Danaë could not manage
to bind him down to tolerance of Janni’s presence, if not to actual
recognition of his rights. To leave the girdle where it was, for her
brother to bestow on some other schismatic woman, was a thought
which only suggested itself to be scouted.
The morning passed quietly. Despina went out with her baskets,
shutting the gate with a tremendous bang, since the lock was
difficult to manipulate. The Lady compassionated her on having to
start so late on such a hot day, and called Mariora to carry her chair
and table out of doors. The favourite spot on the lawn in front of the
house was not sufficiently shady to-day, and only the thick foliage of
the ilexes afforded tolerable shelter. The Lady sat down to finish her
letter, with Danaë and Janni playing on the ground beside her, and
Mariora returned to her work. As the day grew hotter and the air
and the hum of insects more drowsy, the child became sleepy and
fretful.
“Carry him indoors, Eurynomé,” said the Lady, looking up from
her writing. “It is early for his sleep, but the excitement this morning
must have tired him. I will come and sit beside him while you have
your dinner.”
“It is done as you command, my Lady,” responded Danaë, with
unusual meekness, and she lifted the child to carry him into the
house. On the verandah she paused. There were sounds at the gate.
The Lady had heard them too, and risen from her chair, just as
Mariora rushed through the hall from the kitchen.
“Fly, my Lady, hide yourself! Murderers!” shrieked the old
woman. “I will keep them back!” and she pushed her mistress
violently inside the house and ran towards the gate, brandishing a
chopper. The Lady turned to snatch Janni out of Danaë’s arms, but
drew back suddenly.
“Hide him, my Eurynomé, save him! You love him, I know.”
“They will do you no harm, Lady,” responded Danaë confidently,
“nor the little lord either.”
“What do you know about it, girl? Listen!” as the clash of
weapons and a terrible sobbing shriek reached their ears. “Ah, my
poor Mariora! Take him, hide him—you have some place. I will go
and meet them and give you time.” She pressed a passionate kiss on
Janni’s sleepy eyes. “Save him, I charge you, Eurynomé. Go, go
quickly!”
Overmastered by sheer force of will, Danaë fled through the hall
and kitchen and out into the ilex-grove, seeing nothing but the tall
red figure stepping out with uncovered head into the blinding
sunshine. A clamour of words followed her, menaces and evil names,
then the Lady’s voice, very clear and distinct in her foreign Greek.
“I am the wife of the Lord Romanos. If you kill me, you kill your
Princess.”
Again that clash of steel, and Danaë’s stubborn heart misgave
her. Pausing only to wind her shawl firmly round Janni and herself,
she began to climb, hurriedly and furiously, and never ceased until
she had reached her eyrie, where no one could see her from below.
She found a cradle among the branches for Janni, and tied him there
safely before she ventured to look out of the window she had made
for herself. On the lawn lay a prostrate figure in a red gown,
dreadfully still, with a deeper red spreading from it to the grass, and
men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were searching eagerly
among the trees. Others came rushing out of the house as she
watched.
“Not a soul there! Where are they?” was the cry. “What is the
use of killing the she-wolf if the cub is left alive?”
Then Petros was false! More than that, it came upon Danaë like
a blow that her father had planned this murder all along, and
deliberately made use of her to further his plot. In the sudden
revulsion of feeling she forgot her own hatred of the Lady, and the
ignoble part it had led her to play. Janni was alive, left to her charge
by his murdered mother, and she would save him if she died for it.
Sick and shaking, she crawled back to where she had left him, and
found him peacefully asleep. Seating herself in a fork of the
branches beside him, she loosened her dagger in its sheath. If they
were tracked to the tree, no one should touch him while she
remained alive.
CHAPTER V.
THE BRAND OF CAIN.
Danaë woke from the sleep or stupor that had overcome her to find
Janni patting her face.
“Wake up, Nono, wake up!” he was saying, as he was wont to
do in the early morning. “Breakfast!”
With a horrible spasm of fear, she covered his mouth quickly
with the shawl, fearing his voice might have been heard, then
listened apprehensively. But no sound came from below, and Janni
was struggling to get rid of the shawl, and insisting, in his own
language, which only Danaë understood, that he was very hungry,
and would shortly roar if breakfast was not forthcoming. Judging by
her own sensations that some hours must have passed since she
had climbed the tree, she ventured to crawl back to her point of
vantage and peer cautiously forth. The dreadful red form still lay
where it had fallen, marring the peaceful beauty of the garden with
its rigid lines and clenched hands, but of the murderers there was no
sign. Could they have guessed that she and Janni were hidden in the
grounds, and be lying in wait in the house, ready to pounce upon
them when hunger should drive them forth? Danaë shook from head
to foot as the thought occurred to her, but a howl from Janni
brought her back to him in a panic, and made action inevitable.
Quieting him with promises and entreaties, she let herself down
from the tree, and starting at every sound, crept through the bushes
and reconnoitred the kitchen door. There was no one to be seen,
and she ventured inside. Everything was thrown about and broken,
but no one was there. Kicking off her slippers, she crept through the
hall to the front of the house. Curtains had been roughly pulled
down, pieces of furniture dragged from their places, evidently to
make sure that no one was hiding behind them, and all receptacles
ransacked. The sight of the bureau standing open gave her a shock,
but she saw at once that the secret drawer had not been discovered.
Approaching noiselessly, she touched the spring, and the Girdle of
Isidora, in all its antique and sacred beauty, lay before her
worshipping eyes. With a sudden impulse she snatched it up, and
fastened it with trembling fingers round her waist, hidden by her
long coat and apron, leaving the drawer open.
A distant wail reminded her of her charge, and she returned
hastily into the kitchen to look for food. Some milk she was able to
rescue from a broken crock, but there was none of the white bread
which was always bought for Janni. Surely Despina ought to have
returned with her purchases by this time? Danaë ran out towards
the gate, avoiding with a shudder the tumbled heap which showed
where Mariora had made her gallant and ineffectual stand on behalf
of her mistress, but recoiled hastily. Almost at her very feet lay
Despina, dead among her baskets. She had been attacked from
behind and cut down as soon as she was inside the gate. With iron
resolution the girl crushed down the desire that seized her to run
away screaming—anywhere, anywhere, away from those three
corpses. Janni remained alive and dependent on her, and she must
take care of him. Setting her teeth, she stepped forward gingerly
until she was able to seize one of the baskets. Happily, it was the
one containing the bread, and she hurried back to Janni, and
brought him down from the tree and fed him. She found a hiding-
place in the bushes, close to the spot where the Lady had sat writing
that morning, and tried to get the child to sleep again while she
thought things out. How she was to place him in safety she could
not tell. She did not even know the way to the Palace, and besides,
her brother might even now have started on his expedition.
Moreover, there was the disquieting fact that the murderers had all
worn the uniform of the guard, which seemed to ring her round with
fresh perils. The guard were then in the plot to destroy the Lady and
her son, and to go to the Palace would be to walk straight into their
clutches. Worse still, they were to provide a detachment to garrison
the garden that night, so the Prince had told Despina when he
announced his approaching journey before he rode out, and they
would no doubt use the opportunity to place the three dead bodies
inside the house, and remove all traces of the tragedy from the
outside. They were not to come near the house itself, nor to see
anything of the inmates, so their orders ran, and therefore the
horrible business would in the most natural way remain
undiscovered until Prince Romanos returned to Therma and came to
see his wife.
And in the meantime? Danaë’s heart sank. Her brother would be
away three or four days, as he had told Despina, and it would fall to
her to keep Janni safely concealed and fed for that time. The
slightest sign of their presence, the faintest wail from the child, and
the murderous crew who had killed his mother would be upon them.
There would be no more milk, even if she could make the bread last
which she had found in the basket, and Janni was not accustomed
to bear privation silently. Nor was a tree an ideal sleeping-place for
three or four nights, especially when any movement in the branches
might betray your presence to bloodthirsty enemies below. Slowly a
plan grew up in Danaë’s mind. She and Janni would escape from the
garden while there was time, before the guard arrived that evening.
The gate was out of the question owing to the presence of the
sentry, but the wall was easy to climb, especially where trees grew
close to it. Danaë had no mind to trust herself in Therma, but she
knew, by longing observation from her treetops, which way lay the
open country, and there it must be possible to find villages where
she and Janni might be sheltered until she could manage to
communicate with her brother. Crawling out of her concealment, she
picked up the letter which the Lady had been writing, and which had
fallen to the ground, folded it and hid it in her dress. It would be a
credential should she be forced to approach Prince Romanos through
a third person, less likely by far to arouse suspicion or to provoke
danger than the famous girdle. Then she ventured back into the
house to collect a few clothes for herself and Janni, which she made
into a bundle with the rest of the bread, and hid among the trees at
the point she thought best for crossing the wall. Returning to fetch
the child, she was horrified to hear violent blows upon the gate. The
guard had arrived early—the mob of the city were attacking the
house—the conjectures, both equally alarming, chased one another
through her brain as she caught up Janni, and rushed with him once
more to the tree of refuge. But before she could mount it she heard
her brother’s voice.
“Open the door, Despina! it is I. The lock will not work. Unfasten
the bolt. Are you all asleep?”
Saved as by a miracle! Danaë left Janni on the ground, and ran
joyfully to the gate, where she struggled vainly with the lock, while
the Prince demanded impatiently why the door was not opened.
“It is I, lord—Eurynomé; and the bolts are not fastened, but the
key will not turn.”
“The key? What are you doing with the key? Where is Despina?
She knows how to open it.”
“Alas, lord! I found it in the door. An evil fate has overtaken
Despina.”
“Holy Basil! what do you mean, girl? Call Mariora, then. What
has happened? Will you fumble to all eternity?”
“Lord, there is no one to call.” In spite of herself, tears were
very near Danaë’s voice. “There came men——”
“Men? what men? What did they do? Open the door, girl! What
of my wife—of the Lady?”
“The little lord is safe, lord.”
The words were spoken very low, and they were downed by the
noise of a vigorous assault on the door. Evidently Prince Romanos
had called the sentry to his help, for the stout planks gave way with
a crash, and he burst in. “Where is your mistress?” he cried fiercely,
seizing Danaë by the shoulder.
“She lies there, lord. She has not moved,” she faltered.
“A doctor! fetch a doctor!” cried Prince Romanos to the sentry,
“and, Christos,” to the guard who was holding his horse, “the police
—no, the chief of police. He is to come alone. Show me where your
mistress is, Eurynomé. You say she has fainted?”
He passed the bodies of the two old women without heeding
them, dragging Danaë with him at a pace which almost whirled her
off her feet, until he released her with a suddenness that sent her
staggering among the bushes. He had seen the rigid red figure on
the grass. For the moment Danaë thought he would have fled,
unable to face it, but he pulled himself together and went on,
treading with fearful, uncertain steps. He was kneeling beside his
dead wife, laying a hand on heart and brow, assuring himself of the
awful truth, and then he broke into a wild lamentation which thrilled
Danaë to the core, for its rough island Greek showed her the
primitive Striote under the mask of the denationalised European.
“Alas, Olimpia, my fairest! Dear love of my heart, whom I wooed
under the orange-trees in the twilight, who shouldst have sat beside
me on the throne! Beloved, thou hast left me too soon; thou, who
didst lay a healing hand upon my tortured brow, shouldst have worn
with me the diadem of New Rome. Like a shy proud fawn wast thou
when I first beheld thee, fearing to hear of the love to which thine
own heart leaped out in response; like the stricken deer wounded by
the huntsman do I see thee now. In thy glory did I behold thee last,
beautiful exceedingly, worthily apparelled—not Helen’s self could
have excelled thee. But now thou liest low; cruel Charon has
snatched thee from me, who wast my eyes, my soul, my life, my all
——”
Danaë could bear no more. Her brother was unconscious of her
presence, and she burst through the bushes and ran across the lawn
to the spot where she had left Janni. Catching him up, she hastened
back and tried to put him into his father’s arms.
“See, lord, you are not left wholly desolate. There is yet one to
love and that loves you.”
“Take the child away!” said Prince Romanos angrily.
“But, lord, your little son!”
“Take him away. What do I care for him? It is his mother I want
—not a baby that cannot speak.” He turned again to the Lady’s body.
“Sweet, hast thou no word for thy lover? How has he sinned that
those lips are closed and silent which have so often overflowed with
words of love? But no, it is neither his sin nor thine, but the iniquity
of those who sought to strike him through thee——”
A howl from Janni, whom the indignant and perplexed Danaë
had been vainly endeavouring to console for his father’s repulse,
broke into the lament.
“Will you take that child away, girl? Is this a scene for his young
eyes? Take him to the nursery, and keep him there until I send for
you.”
“You bid me go, lord, and take with me the little lord?”
demanded Danaë, thrilling with outraged pride and affection on
behalf of her little charge.
“Yes, go, in the name of the All-Holy Mother of God, and leave
me alone with my dead!”
“I go, lord!” said Danaë impressively, but she doubted whether
he even heard her. He was bending over his wife again.
“Most beloved, open those lips but for an instant, and tell me to
whose cursed treachery I owe this blow. Let thy spirit visit me at
night, my beautiful one, and keep vengeance ever in my mind. If
there be one left alive of those who slew thee——”
The familiar voice, raised in a half chant, grew faint in Danaë’s
ears. She was stalking majestically across the grass, hushing the
protesting Janni in her arms, and listening greedily for some word of
recall. No one should say she had stolen away secretly, but if she
was driven out she would go. His son, his heir, was nothing to Prince
Romanos in comparison with the dead body of the schismatic
woman! He would leave him without protection in the house, till the
conspirators returned and finished their deadly work! Very well,
then; he should see no more of Janni until he had learnt to value
him properly. Danaë would at once save the child and punish the
father. Mingled with her lofty resolves was perhaps a vague idea of
averting retribution. The death of the Lady was without doubt in
some measure due to her; she would blot out her guilt by saving the
Lady’s son.
Prince Romanos did not call her back, and when she looked
round from the edge of the wood he was still kneeling over his wife’s
body. Her heart hardened against him, and she picked up the bundle
she had left under the trees and went on as far as the wall. She
climbed up easily enough, and dropped the bundle over, then
returned for Janni, and wound him closely in her shawl. The ground
outside was happily soft, for on this side the garden adjoined a large
piece of land belonging to the Prince which he had planted with
trees, with the intention of making it into a park in future, and she
was able to let herself down safely by her hands. She had often
longed to explore this piece of woodland, and when it was once
crossed she would be well away from the city. She started very
happily, beguiling the way by conversation with Janni, though after a
time it occurred to her that there was nothing very interesting in the
rows of young trees and the growing shrubs. Janni was heavy to
carry, too, when it was not a question of merely rambling about the
garden, but she held on stoutly, sustained by her very mingled
motives.
Sitting down at last to rest at the top of a hill up which she had
laboured with considerable difficulty, she looked back over the way
she had come. The sea in the distance gave her a moment’s wild
longing for Strio, but there would be no safety there for Janni, she
saw that now. Rather must she look nearer, to the new Therma, with
its streets of tall white houses crossing and recrossing with
mathematical regularity, and the Emathian flag flying over the
Palace, the position of which she could easily distinguish now,
dominating the broad road leading from the great square called the
Place de l’Europe Unie. But between the Palace and herself was the
villa among its woods, with her brother mourning over the tragedy
she had helped to bring upon him, and she wondered hopelessly
how the tangle was ever to be unravelled, how she could keep Janni
in her own charge, and yet see him restored to his proper position.
But her desultory musings were suddenly focussed into a keen and
pressing anxiety. Among the young trees between her and the wall
of the garden something was moving. At first it looked like a bright
bird flying low, but as she watched it she realised that it was the gay
fez and golden tassel of a man of the Prince’s guard. There was no
need to ask herself who it could be. Petros had guessed that she
had fled with the child, had tracked her path, and was following hard
on her heels, that he might finish his evil work, and make sure of
the victim who had been snatched from him in the morning.
Terror lent wings to Danaë’s tired feet, and catching up Janni,
she hurried on down the hill. There was no time to look for villages,
and what village would shelter her against the demand of a servant
of the Prince? She stumbled along wildly, looking hopelessly round
for some hiding-place that might enable her to evade the pursuer.
But he had reached the top of the hill while she was still full in view,
and his shouts of “Eurynomé! stop, girl!” his adjurations and threats
of vengeance, came to her faintly on the wind, though she strove to
shut her ears to them. Tired as she was, and burdened with the
child, she had no hope of outdistancing him, but she struggled on,
though it seemed to her that he was now so close that she could
hear his heavy footsteps. Then, as she reached the foot of the hill,
and an artfully contrived glade opened before her, she saw one
single chance of safety, for there were the figures of men and horses
under the trees. Two men wearing “European” clothes, and evidently
not Emathians, were walking up and down impatiently, as though
waiting for somebody, and behind them were four horses under the
charge of two armed guards. There was no doubt in Danaë’s mind
as to the identity of the strangers. They must be the Englishmen
whom Prince Romanos had told Despina he was to meet and
accompany on their journey—and therefore they were an additional
danger. The single subject on which Danaë and the two old women
were in agreement was that of the preposterous baselessness of the
claims of the schismatic Englishman who dared to put himself
forward as heir of the Eastern Empire by right of direct descent from
the Emperor John Theophanis. When the Orthodox position was
triumphantly vindicated by the election of Prince Romanos, who
could trace his lineage only in the female line, to the throne of
Emathia, he had relegated the rival claimant, so Danaë firmly
believed, to a species of honourable imprisonment in a remote part
of the principality. Here he could amuse himself by playing the ruler
under strict supervision, and was even allowed to visit Therma on
asking permission. Judging him by herself, however, Danaë had no
faith in his gratitude for this considerate treatment, and saw in him
merely another menace to Janni’s safety if he discovered who he
was. But the danger of Petros hot on her heels was more pressing,
since she had always understood that Englishmen were easily to be
deceived. Yet how, in any case, was Petros to be kept from
publishing the perilous truth? Her quick scheming brain worked at
tremendous pressure during the last agitated minutes of her
stumbling run.

Full Download Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and Acting PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full Download Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and Acting PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full Download Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and Acting PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full download ebooks at ebookmeta.

Handbook of Embodied Psychology: Thinking,

Download more ebook from https://ebookmeta.com

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth

The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition 1st

The Actor and the Character Explorations in the

Primary Mathematics 3A Hoerst

The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology

The Renaissance of Feeling Erasmus and Emotion Kirk

The Psychology of Thinking: Reasoning, Decision-Making

Essential acting a practical handbook for actors

ISBN 978-3-030-78470-6 ISBN 978-3-030-78471-3 (eBook)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

1 Introduction to Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling,

Part I Theoretical Foundations

Part II Cognitive and Neuroscience Perspectives

9 Abstract Concepts and Metacognition: Searching for Meaning

Part III Social and Personality Perspectives

21 Embodied Perspectives on Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Part IV Current Issues and Future Directions

Michael D. Robinson and Laura E. Thomas

Abstract Psychological phenomena are embodied to the extent that bodily

Keywords Embodiment · Psychology · Cognition · Emotion · Behavior

Introduction to Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling,

M. D. Robinson (B) · L. E. Thomas

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

The present volume, titled “Embodied Psychology: Thinking, Feeling, and

Major Theoretical Perspectives

on perceptual judgments, in particular (Witt, 2011). In the present volume, Clore,

Table 1.1 Major theoretical perspectives and domains of application

by manipulating perceptual experiences consistent with a given class of metaphors

Key Questions and Directions in Embodiment Research

Although all definitions of embodiment emphasize the relevance of body-based (e.g.,

Cognitive and Neuroscience Perspectives

Many of the key developments in embodiment have occurred within cognitive

retrieval, a manipulation of motor interference did not differentially affect recall

Social and Personality Perspectives

• Chapter 21: Embodied Perspectives on Personality. Michael D. Robinson, Adam

Current Issues and Future Directions

• Chapter 23: Mechanisms of Embodied Learning through Gestures and Actions:

Characterizations of the existing literature outside of embodiment may also not

Joshua D. Davis, Seana Coulson, Andrew J. Arnold, and Piotr Winkielman

Abstract Concepts shape experience and create understanding. Accordingly, a key

Keywords Concepts · Emotion · Representation · Embodiment · Grounded

J. D. Davis (B) · S. Coulson

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 23

also involves accessing modality-specific information. For example, the concept of

Grounding Emotion Concepts in the Neural States

as HAPPINESS, ANGER, SADNESS, and DISGUST (Harris, 2008). While these

Another important type of motor activity related to emotions is facial expres-

Empirical Support for Embodied Emotion Concepts

As we have discussed, embodied theories suggest that neural resources involved in

These sorts of interference studies reveal a systematic relationship between the

We conducted another experiment similar to the one just mentioned in which we

The Context-Dependent Nature of Embodied Emotion

this representational shift underlie other aspects of loneliness? Social psychologists

The Role of Context

Contemporary accounts of semantic memory provide for some degree of contex-

You might also like