ABSTRACT
“Embodied” or “distributed” theories of language comprehension hypothesise that processing spoken, or written language invokes not only the traditional language network but also a larger distributed network including systems used for perception and action. Testing these ideas is tricky because it requires tapping into these other systems at their intersection with language processing. This chapter reviews the creative methodologies that have been used to demonstrate how language interacts with sensorimotor processes in the domain of action language, as well as more recent lines of research that attempt to uncover the underpinnings and role of this interaction. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations of the methodologies used to study distributed language comprehension, as well as possible avenues that may be useful for future research in this domain.
