Here we show that effects of this kind can also be triggered by mentally simulating physical temperature, but only under certain theoretically important imagery conditions.
Specifically, impressions of a target were impacted by imagined warmth or coldness (i.e., thinking about holding a cup of hot/iced coffee) only when an event was simulated from an egocentric (i.e., first-person) perspective. No such effect emerged when an allocentric (i.e., third-person) orientation was adopted. This finding underscores the functional nature of mental simulation
and identifies spatial visual perspective as a critical boundary condition of embodied cognition.