Action channel switching costs in the comprehension of concrete and abstract mandarin verbs

The grounding of language in perceptual–motor systems remain a central issue in embodied cognition research, particularly regarding whether abstract concepts engage sensorimotor representations in a manner similar to concrete concepts. The present study employed a modality-switch paradigm to investigate, across three experiments, whether readers engage in embodied mental simulation when comprehending concrete and abstract verbs related to eye-, mouth-, and hand-action channels. The results showed that action channel switching costs emerged for verb phrases consisting of concrete verbs paired with concrete nouns, concrete verbs paired with abstract nouns, and abstract verbs paired with abstract nouns, although the effects were manifested in different action channels. Taken together, the findings indicate that the comprehension of both concrete and abstract verbs relies on perceptual–motor simulation in the corresponding action channels. The results are consistent with the Perceptual Symbol Systems theory, which accounts for the channel-specific switch costs.