VR in the embodied language framework: Leveraging embodiment and virtual actions

This chapter explores how Virtual Reality (VR) contributes to the embodied language framework, which posits that linguistic meaning is grounded in the body's sensorimotor systems. Understanding words and sentences involves partial re-enactments of perception and action, supported by neural mechanisms shared with motor control and sensory processing. Traditional paradigms often struggle to elicit such embodied activations within controlled laboratory conditions. VR provides a powerful methodological solution by allowing the controlled simulation of perception–action coupling and bodily interaction within immersive, ecologically valid environments. The chapter first outlines the theoretical foundations of embodied language, focusing on how sensorimotor contingencies, agency, self-location, and body ownership jointly determine the degree of embodiment in linguistic processing. It then reviews empirical research demonstrating how virtual actions—performed, observed, or imagined—modulate comprehension, learning, and memory for linguistic material. Across its applications, VR emerges as more than a visualization tool: it becomes an experimental instrument for operationalizing embodiment in language research. By aligning bodily experience with linguistic meaning, VR bridges the gap between controlled experimentation and ecological realism. It allows researchers to examine how meaning emerges through action, perception, and situated interaction, offering new insights into how the human body grounds the mind's linguistic capacities.