Engagement of the Primary Sensorimotor Cortex in the Processing of Literal and Metaphorical Meanings of Motion Verbs by Russian Speakers

The grounded cognition hypothesis is based on the notion that our mental representations are influenced by our experience in the physical world. Within this theory, it has been proved that sensorimotor cortex plays a specific role in the processing of the verbs of movement related to different body parts. Namely, this area is active in a somatotopic manner in addition to other regions involved in speech production and comprehension when processing verbs of movement of hands and feet. In the current study, we conclude an fMRI experiment in order to investigate how sensorimotor cortex is involved in the processing of motion verbs in their literal and metaphorical meaning among Russian speakers. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the processing of the motion verbs is represented in the sensorimotor cortex and to compare activation from the processing of the verbs in their literal and metaphorical meaning. The results of this work provide an interesting topic of discussion in terms of the theory of grounded cognition as well as several linguistic theories, including the theory of cognitive metaphors.