Do LLMs Capture Embodied Cognition and Cultural Variation? Cross-Linguistic Evidence from Demonstratives

arXiv:2604.25423v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Do large language models (LLMs) truly acquire embodied cognition and cultural conventions from text? We introduce demonstratives, fundamental spatial expressions like "this/that" in English and "zh\`e/n\`a" in Chinese, as a novel probe for grounded knowledge. Using 6,400 responses from 320 native speakers, we establish a human baseline: English speakers reliably distinguish proximal-distal referents but struggle with perspective-taking, while Chi