Seeing an object that affords grasping potentiates the motor pathways responsible for the bodily act of grasping. Are there any examples in which a stimulus potentiates the brain area responsible for certain mental acts? e.g. Does seeing a bunch of numbers potentiate the brain area responsible for arithmetic? Does seeing a person facing in a different direction to you potentiate the brain area responsible for mental self-rotation?
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure mental actions can be neatly separated from bodily actions without invoking some sort of Cartesian dualism, although I think I see what you're getting at. For example, when viewing paintings with bold brushstrokes, the activation of the motor cortex (without necessarily executing the corresponding movements) seems to play a role in the aesthetic appreciation of the paintings. Here's an interesting article where this is explored:
Taylor, J. Eric T.; Witt, Jessica K.; Grimaldi, Phillip J.
2012 “Uncovering the connection between artist and audience: viewing painted brushstrokes evokes corresponding action representations in the observer,” in Cognition (Elsevier), vol. 125, no. 1, pp. 26-36 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00100277/125/1, access: 7 November 2016).
Brilliant. Thank you David. It's tempting to describe this as a case in which seeing the brushstrokes leads us to imagine performing those brushstrokes ourselves, and that kind of imagining is a mental action. I agree that it's best to avoid a sharp distinction between mental and bodily actions. Even if acts like counting in one's head and mental rotating an object are 'embodied' in some sense, I hope there's still a distinction to be made between those kinds of actions and straightforwardly bodily actions like grasping a teapot.
Yes, while there is overlap there are also areas where these experiences may be separated, I think. It will be interesting to see where this discussion goes as others contribute.
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