Conceptual semantics as grounded in personal experience

Abstract

Semantic memory for an object encompasses multi-modal knowledge gained through personal experience over the lifetime, and coded in grounded sensory-motor brain systems, independently of the level of subjective awareness. Linguistic access to semantic memories in verbal format relies on the functional coupling between perisylvian language regions and the grounded brain systems implied by our lifetime experience with the concept’s referents. Linguistic structure exerts modulatory influences on this functional coupling, as in the case of sentential negation, which reduces the interactions between perisylvian language regions and the grounded brain systems.