Previous research suggests that action language is comprehended by activating the motor system. We report a study, investigating a critical question in this research field: do negative sentences activate the motor system? Participants were exposed to sentences in the affirmation and negation forms while the zygomatic muscle activity on the left side of the face was continuously measured (Electromyography technique: EMG). Sentences were descriptions of emotional expressions that mapped either directly upon the zygomatic muscle (e.g., "I am smiling") or did not (e.g., "I am frowning"). Reading sentences involving the negation of the activity of a specific muscle (zygomatic major-"I am not smiling") is shown to lead to the inhibition of this muscle. Reading sentences involving the affirmative form instead ("I am smiling") leads to the activation of zygomatic mucle. In contrast, sentences describing an activity that is irrelevant to the zygomatic muscle (e.g., "I am frowning" or "I am not frowning") produce no muscle activity. These results extend the range of simulation models to negation and by implication to an abstract domain. We discuss how this research contributes to the grounding of abstract and concrete concepts.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 September 2013.
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#6,491,474
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#345
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Altmetric has tracked 25,182,110 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,638 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 860 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 60% of its contemporaries.
