Language and vertical space: on the automaticity of language action interconnections.

Grounded models of language processing propose a strong connection between language and sensorimotor processes (Barsalou, 1999, 2008; Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002). However, it remains unclear how functional and automatic these connections are for understanding diverse sets of words (Ansorge, Kiefer, Khalid, Grassl, & König, 2010). Here, we investigate whether words referring to entities with a typical location in the upper or lower visual field (e.

Keep your hands crossed: the valence-by-left/right interaction is related to hand, not side, in an incongruent hand-response key assignment.

The body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) associates positive emotional valence and the space surrounding the dominant hand, and negative valence and the space surrounding the non-dominant hand. This effect has not only been found for manual responses, but also for the left and right side. In the present study, we investigated whether this compatibility effect still shows when hand and side carry incongruent information, and whether it is then related to hand or to side.

From top to bottom: spatial shifts of attention caused by linguistic stimuli.

Interacting with the world around us involves dealing with constant information input. Thus, humans must selectively filter and focus attention on relevant aspects for the current situation. The current study investigates orientations of attention after words that do not convey spatial information in their meaning (e.

When up-words meet down-sentences: evidence for word- or sentence-based compatibility effects?

Participants were presented with sentences mentioning an entity with a typical location in the upper or lower vertical space (e.g., roof vs.

Do task-irrelevant direction-associated motion verbs affect action planning? Evidence from a Stroop paradigm.

Does simply seeing a word such as rise activate upward responses? The present study is concerned with bottom-up activation of motion-related experiential traces. Verbs referring to an upward or downward motion (e.g.

Emotional valence and physical space: limits of interaction.

According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people associate positive things with the side of space that corresponds to their dominant hand and negative things with the side corresponding to their nondominant hand. Our aim was to find out whether this association holds also true for a response time study using linguistic stimuli, and whether such an association is activated automatically. Four experiments explored this association using positive and negative words.

Root versus roof: automatic activation of location information during word processing.

In four experiments, participants were presented with nouns referring to entities that are associated with an up or down location (e.g., roof, root).

Event-related potential correlates of negation in a sentence-picture verification paradigm.

In a sentence-picture verification paradigm, participants were presented in a rapid-serial-visual-presentation paradigm with affirmative or negative sentences (e.g., "In the front of the tower there is a/no ghost") followed by a matching or mismatching picture.

Prognostic value of pre-discharge exercise testing and serum C-reactive protein in patients with unstable angina.

Background: Both exercise testing and C-reactive protein (CRP) serum levels have been shown to predict clinical events in patients with unstable angina. However, no previous study carefully compared their relative prognostic value in this clinical setting.

Methods: We reviewed data of 96 consecutive patients with unstable angina (77 males, 19 females, mean age 63.