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The present study demonstrates that, even in the absence of any visual stimulus at all, such" perceptual simulations"(Barsalou, 1999) often trigger corresponding oculomotor responses. In a sense, one might say that thinking of something often involves pretending to look at it. This finding contributes to the developing" embodied" view of the mind (eg, Ballard, Hayhoe, Pook, & Rao, 1997; Brooks, 1995; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991), in which an adequate characterization of cognition requires special attention to the repertoire of actions available to the organism or agent.

A recent eyetracking experiment has indicated that, while staring at a blank white display, participants engaged in imagery tend to make eye movements that mimic the directionality of spatial expressions in the speech stream (Spivey & Geng, 2000). This result is consistent with a spatial mental models account of language comprehension (eg, Johnson-Laird, 1983), adds a motor component to evidence for activation of perceptual mechanisms during visual imagery (eg, Kosslyn, Thompson, Kim, & Alpert, 1995), and fits with claims regarding the embodiment of cognition (eg, Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991). However, some methodological concerns remain. We report some preliminary observations, and a controlled experiment, in which these methodological concerns are resolved. We demonstrate that, even when the speech includes no instructions to imagine anything, and even when participants’ eyes are closed, participants tend to make eye movements in the same direction (and especially along the same axis) as the described scene when listening to a spatially …