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Conceptual knowledge of emotions includes somatosensory component: Evidence from modality-switch cost effect
According to embodied framework, conceptual knowledge of emotions is based on the same mechanisms of simulation that are used by any other concepts. Despite some evidence concerning the somatosensory component of such knowledge, most of the data deal with the motor component. In two experiments (original and replication), we examined the involvement of somatosensory modality in the simulation of emotional concepts using the paradigm of conceptual modality-switch cost effect. No switching costs occurred when participants shifted from the emotional to the somatosensory modality. But they took place when participants shifted from the somatosensory to the emotional modality. These results support hypotheses that emotional knowledge includes the somatosensory modality but is not limited to it (other modalities are also included; e.g., interoceptive and motor). We also obtained unexpected results: Switching between the auditory and somatosensory modalities and from the auditory to the emotional modality did not slow verification times. Thus, the modality-switch cost effect is not as universal as has been proposed earlier.