Pupillary Responses to Words That Convey a Sense of Brightness or Darkness
研究发现，当人们阅读或听到传达明亮（如“白天”）或黑暗（如“夜晚”）含义的词语时，瞳孔大小会相应变化，支持语言理解自动激活感官模拟的理论。
Theories about embodiment of language hold that when you process a word's meaning, you automatically simulate associated sensory input (e.g., perception of brightness when you process lamp) and prepare associated actions (e.g., finger movements when you process typing). To test this latter prediction, we measured pupillary responses to single words that conveyed a sense of brightness (e.g., day) or darkness (e.g., night) or were neutral (e.g., house). We found that pupils were largest for words conveying darkness, of intermediate size for neutral words, and smallest for words conveying brightness. This pattern was found for both visually presented and spoken words, which suggests that it was due to the words' meanings, rather than to visual or auditory properties of the stimuli. Our findings suggest that word meaning is sufficient to trigger a pupillary response, even when this response is not imposed by the experimental task, and even when this response is beyond voluntary control.