Abstract Language and literature can stimulate the embodied resources of perception. I argue that there is a puzzle about why we experience sequences of these embodied responses as integrated and coherent, even though they are not anchored in space and time by a perceiving body. Some successions of embodied representations would even be impossible in real world experience, yet they can still be experienced as coherent and flowing in response to verbal texts. One possibility is that embodied responses to language are fleeting; they need not be integrated because they do not depend on, or relate to, one another as they would in perception. Yet it is the potential for embodied representations to linger and connect with one another which underlies new and persuasive embodied literary theories of vividness, narrative coherence and metaphor comprehension. Another possibility is that readers anchor their embodied representations in a notional human body, one endowed with superhuman powers, such as omniscience. But this account relies on implausible, post hoc explanations. A third possibility is that integrating embodied representations produced by language need be no more problematic than integrating the deceptively patchy information harvested from the environment by perception, information which gives rise to an experience of the world in rich and continuous detail. Real world perceptual cues, however, sparse though they might be, are still integrated through grounding in specific points in time and space. To explain the integration of embodied effects, I draw on sensorimotor theories of perception, and on Clark’s suggestion (1997, Being There. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) that language can be understood as an additional modality. In this light, the embodied simulations generated by literary texts can be integrated through patterning in a high dimensional, vector space neural architecture, a patterning which recalls real world experience but is specialised to the sustained experience of language itself. This account can help us understand what makes literary experience distinctive and unique.

中文翻译：

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在那里还不在那里：为什么不体现对文学文本的回应？

摘要语言和文学可以激发感知的具体资源。我认为对于为什么我们将这些具体反应的序列体验为一体且连贯的问题感到困惑，即使它们没有被感知机构锚定在空间和时间上。在现实世界的经验中，一些连续的体现形式甚至是不可能的，但是它们仍然可以连贯而流畅地响应口头文字。一种可能性是对语言的具体反应很快。它们之所以不需要整合，是因为它们不像彼此所认为的那样相互依赖或联系。然而，有可能使体现的表现形式徘徊并相互联系，这构成了新颖而有说服力的生动形象文学理论的基础，叙事连贯和隐喻理解。另一种可能性是，读者将其体现的形象锚定在一种具有全能之类的超人力量的概念人体中。但是，这种说法依赖于难以置信的事后解释。第三种可能性是，整合由语言产生的体现形式所需要的问题，与整合从感知中从环境中收集到的虚假信息相比，没有更多的问题，这些信息带来了丰富而连续的世界体验。然而，尽管现实世界中的感知线索可能很少，但仍通过在特定的时间和空间点进行接地而整合在一起。为了解释具体效果的整合，我借鉴了知觉的感觉运动理论和Clark的建议（1997年，存在）。马萨诸塞州剑桥市：麻省理工学院出版社）可以将语言理解为一种附加形式。有鉴于此，可以通过在高维向量空间神经体系结构中进行模式化，将由文学文本生成的具体模拟进行集成，这种模式可以回顾现实世界的经验，但专门针对语言本身的持续经验。此帐户可以帮助我们了解是什么使文学经历与众不同。