Cognitive semantic networks: emotional verbs throw a tantrum but don't bite

Neuroimaging studies have over the past decades established that language is grounded in sensorimotor areas of the brain. The same neuronal circuits seem involved whether we literally pick up a ball or in a phrase refer to grasping an idea. However recent findings have demonstrated that not only leg, hand and face related but also emotional action verbs activate premotor systems in the brain.

Hypothesizing that the force and spatial parameters which define action based language might also be reflected in the latent semantics of words, we select motor and emotion related verbs and apply latent semantic analysis, multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering and network graph analysis to quantify their interaction and identify parameters of force and spatial differentiation which we propose cognitively relate emotions to sensorimotor action schemas.