Psychological Distance Shapes Bodily Sensation Patterns

Abstract What role do bodily experiences play in abstract thought? Although sensorimotor experiences support conceptual processing, their role remains debated, with evidence suggesting that greater abstraction may reduce reliance on bodily cues. The present study addresses this question using bodily sensation maps to examine whether bodily sensations differ between abstract and concrete mindsets. In line with construal level theory, we operationalized mindset through psychological distance, with greater distance indirectly activating an abstract mindset and shorter distance corresponding to a more concrete mindset. Participants indicated regions of bodily activation and deactivation while imagining events that were temporally close versus distant and spatially close versus distant. Imagined scenarios varied in emotional context with participants imagining neutral, sad, or happy scenarios. Imagining temporally and spatially distant events—compared to close events—was associated with increased chest activation and decreased limb activation, and imagining emotional scenarios—compared to neutral ones—produced similar effects. Moreover, emotional context attenuated the additional impact of distance, and greater distance reduced the bodily effects of emotional context. These findings indicate that abstract and concrete modes of processing are associated with distinct bodily sensation profiles, supporting the somatic grounding of abstraction and challenging the notion that abstract mindsets diminish the role of bodily cues.