The interplay of sensory and motoric information on processing emotions in narrative texts

Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos; Nemanja Vaci; Florencia Reali; Petar Milin

doi:10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z

The interplay of sensory and motoric information on processing emotions in narrative texts

Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, Nemanja Vaci, Florencia Reali, Petar Milin

Producción científica: Contribución a una publicación especializada › Artículo

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Idioma original	Inglés
Páginas	243-254
Número de páginas	12
Volumen	9
N.º	2
Publicación especializada	Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z
Estado	Publicada - ago. 2025

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10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z

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@misc{b5b0672f8441469299a326eeb305169d,

title = "The interplay of sensory and motoric information on processing emotions in narrative texts",

abstract = "This study examines the comprehension of characters{\textquoteright} emotional states in written narrative texts. Recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that emotions are grounded in somatosensory information involving {\textquoteleft}reexperiencing{\textquoteright} of actions and perceptions. In addition, views of graded embodied cognition suggest that there are levels of the embodiment of language, focusing on how perceptual and motor information interact during text comprehension. In the present experiment, one-paragraph stories were written to express six basic emotions: fear, sadness, anger, disgust, happiness, and surprise. Four stories were written for each emotion and for each story four critical sentences were composed. The critical sentences comprised a combination of emotion- and action-based components that matched or mismatched the story. Participants read the stories and the critical sentences. Their task was to respond to a question about the emotional state of the story{\textquoteright}s main character, while we measured response latencies and errors. The results of the error rate analyses suggest that, while reading texts, sensory knowledge about characters{\textquoteright} emotional states is activated, but this knowledge is significantly moderated by action-based knowledge. A computational model was used to further confirm these results. The model was trained to predict emotion and action words from critical sentences using linguistic context from stories. Both, the action and emotional words activations showed a distinct effect on participants{\textquoteright} comprehension accuracy.",

keywords = "Character{\textquoteright}s emotion, Graded embodied cognition, Narrative text, Situation model, Text comprehension",

author = "Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos and Nemanja Vaci and Florencia Reali and Petar Milin",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2025.",

year = "2025",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z",

language = "Ingl{\'e}s",

volume = "9",

pages = "243--254",

journal = "Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science",

issn = "2520-1018",

publisher = "Springer International Publishing",

}

TY - GEN

T1 - The interplay of sensory and motoric information on processing emotions in narrative texts

AU - Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando

AU - Vaci, Nemanja

AU - Reali, Florencia

AU - Milin, Petar

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/8

Y1 - 2025/8

N2 - This study examines the comprehension of characters’ emotional states in written narrative texts. Recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that emotions are grounded in somatosensory information involving ‘reexperiencing’ of actions and perceptions. In addition, views of graded embodied cognition suggest that there are levels of the embodiment of language, focusing on how perceptual and motor information interact during text comprehension. In the present experiment, one-paragraph stories were written to express six basic emotions: fear, sadness, anger, disgust, happiness, and surprise. Four stories were written for each emotion and for each story four critical sentences were composed. The critical sentences comprised a combination of emotion- and action-based components that matched or mismatched the story. Participants read the stories and the critical sentences. Their task was to respond to a question about the emotional state of the story’s main character, while we measured response latencies and errors. The results of the error rate analyses suggest that, while reading texts, sensory knowledge about characters’ emotional states is activated, but this knowledge is significantly moderated by action-based knowledge. A computational model was used to further confirm these results. The model was trained to predict emotion and action words from critical sentences using linguistic context from stories. Both, the action and emotional words activations showed a distinct effect on participants’ comprehension accuracy.

AB - This study examines the comprehension of characters’ emotional states in written narrative texts. Recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that emotions are grounded in somatosensory information involving ‘reexperiencing’ of actions and perceptions. In addition, views of graded embodied cognition suggest that there are levels of the embodiment of language, focusing on how perceptual and motor information interact during text comprehension. In the present experiment, one-paragraph stories were written to express six basic emotions: fear, sadness, anger, disgust, happiness, and surprise. Four stories were written for each emotion and for each story four critical sentences were composed. The critical sentences comprised a combination of emotion- and action-based components that matched or mismatched the story. Participants read the stories and the critical sentences. Their task was to respond to a question about the emotional state of the story’s main character, while we measured response latencies and errors. The results of the error rate analyses suggest that, while reading texts, sensory knowledge about characters’ emotional states is activated, but this knowledge is significantly moderated by action-based knowledge. A computational model was used to further confirm these results. The model was trained to predict emotion and action words from critical sentences using linguistic context from stories. Both, the action and emotional words activations showed a distinct effect on participants’ comprehension accuracy.

KW - Character’s emotion

KW - Graded embodied cognition

KW - Narrative text

KW - Situation model

KW - Text comprehension

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105007466433

U2 - 10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z

DO - 10.1007/s41809-025-00171-z

M3 - Artículo

SN - 2520-1018

VL - 9

SP - 243

EP - 254

JO - Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science

JF - Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science

ER -