Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T18:10:00.830Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Episodic affordances contribute to language comprehension

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Arthur M. Glenberg ,
Raymond Becker ,
Susann Klötzer ,
Lidia Kolanko ,
Silvana Müller  and
Mike Rinck
Arthur M. Glenberg*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
Raymond Becker
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
Susann Klötzer
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
Lidia Kolanko
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
Silvana Müller
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
Mike Rinck
Affiliation:
Arizona State University Wilfrid Laurier University Dresden University of Technology Radboud University Nijmegen
*
Correspondence addresses: Arthur Glenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, 950 S. McAllister, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. E-mail: glenberg@asu.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We demonstrate how a particular type of knowledge about objects, their spatial locations and thus how to direct actions toward them, contributes to the comprehension of language about those objects. In four experiments, participants judged if sentences were about normal objects (e.g., “The apple has a stem”) or odd objects (e.g., “The apple has an antenna”). The Normal response key was either on the left of a response box or on the right. The named objects were themselves either on the left or the right of the response box. We demonstrate a compatibility effect in which responding Normal to the side where the object was located was faster than responding Normal to the opposite side. Furthermore, this effect was equally strong for sentences describing states of the objects (as above) and sentences describing actions (e.g., “Touch the apple at the stem”); the compatibility effect was found when the objects were removed; the effect required compatibility between actions, not just spatial locations; and the effect was found in both English and German. The results are discussed in relation to how action systems are used in language comprehension.

Keywords

language comprehensionreadingaffordancesembodimentACE
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 113 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barsalou, L. W. 1999. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22. 577–660.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M., Glenberg, A. M. & Kaschak, M. P.. 2004. Putting words in perspective. Memory & Cognition 32. 863–873.Google Scholar
Buccino, G., Binkofski, F., Gallese, V., Melli, G., Riggio, L. & Rizzolatti, G.. 2005. Listening to action-related sentences modulates the activity of the motor system: A combined TMS and behavioral study. Cognitive Brain Research 24. 355–363.Google Scholar
Buccino, G., Benuzzi, F., Lagravinese, G., Lui, F., Pateri, I., Porro, C. A. & Rizzolatti, G.. 2004. Neural circuits involved in the recognition of actions performed by nonconspecifics: An fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16. 114–126.Google Scholar
Burgess, C. & Lund, K.. 1997. Modelling parsing constraints with high-dimensional context space. Language & Cognitive Processes 12. 177–210.Google Scholar
Chambers, C. G., Carlson, G. N., Eberhard, K. M., Filip, H. & Tanenhaus, M. K.. 2002. Circumscribing referential domains during real-time language comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 47. 30–49.Google Scholar
Chambers, C. G., Magnuson, J. S. & Tanenhaus, M. K. 2004. Actions and affordances in syntactic ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language 30. 687–696.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. 1996. Using language. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, A. M. & Loftus, E. F.. 1975. Spreading activation theory of semantic memory. Psychological Review 82. 407–428.Google Scholar
Coventry, K. & Garrod, S. C. 2003. Saying, seeing, and acting: The psychological semantics of spatial prepositions. New York: The Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Cumming, G. 2008. Replication and p intervals: p values predict the future only vaguely, but confidence intervals do much better. Perspectives on Psychological Science 3. 286–300.Google Scholar
De Vega, M., Glenberg, A. M., Kaschak, M. P., Rinck, M. & Robertson, D. A.. 2004. On doing two things at once: Temporal constraints on Actions in language comprehension. Memory and Cognition 32. 1033–1043.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. 1979. The ecological approach to visual perception. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. 1997. What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20. 1–19.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M., Buccino, G., Cattaneo, L., Palumbo, D., Riggio, L. & Sato, M.. 2008. Processing abstract language modulates motor system activity. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61. 905–919.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. & Kaschak, M. P.. 2002. Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 9. 558–565.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. & Robertson, D. A.. 1999. Indexical understanding of instructions. Discourse Processes 28. 1–26.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. & Robertson, D. A.. 2000. Symbol grounding and meaning: A comparison of high-dimensional and embodied theories of meaning. Journal of Memory and Language 43. 379–401.Google Scholar
Grubb, J. D. & Reed, C. L.. 2002. Trunk orientation induces neglect-like lateral biases in covert attention. Psychological Science 13. 553–556.Google Scholar
Harnad, S. 1990. The symbol grounding problem. Physica D 42. 335–346.Google Scholar
Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I. & Pulvermüller, F.. 2004. Somatotopic representation of action words in human motor and premotor cortex. Neuron 41. 301–307.Google Scholar
Kaschak, M. P. & Glenberg, A. M.. 2000. Constructing meaning: The role of affordances and grammatical constructions in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 43. 508–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., Altmann, G. T. M. & Haywood, S. L.. 2003. The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language 49. 133–156.Google Scholar
Kelly, S. D., Barr, D. J., Church, R. B. & Lynch, K.. 1999. Offering a hand to pragmatic understanding: The role of speech and gesture in comprehension and memory. Journal of Memory and Language 40. 577–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kintsch, W. 1988. The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A constructionintegration model. Psychological Review 95. 163–182.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Landauer, T. K. & Dumais, S. T.. 1997. A solution to Plato's problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis theory of acquisition, induction and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review 104. 211–240.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. J. & Garrod, S.. 2004. Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22. 169–225.Google Scholar
Pulvermüller, F. 2008. Grounding language in the brain. In de Vega, M., Glenberg, A. M., & Graesser, A. C. (eds.), Symbols, embodiment, and meaning, 85–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Raaijmakers, J. G., Gremmen, F. & Schrijnemakers, J. M. C.. 1999. How to deal with ‘The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy’: Common misconceptions and alternative solutions. Journal of Memory and Language 41. 416–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, D. C. & Spivey, M. J.. 2000. Representation, space and Hollywood Squares: Looking at things that aren't there anymore. Cognition 76. 269–295.Google Scholar
Rizzolatti, G. & Arbib, M. A.. 1998. Language within our grasp. Trends in Neuroscience 21. 188–194.Google Scholar
Rizzolatti, G., Dascola, I., Riggio, L. & Umiltà, C.. 1987. Reorienting attention across the horizontal and vertical meridians: Evidence in favor of a premotor theory of attention. Neuropsychologia 25. 31–40.Google Scholar
Rizzolatti, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L. & Gallese, V.. 1997. The space around us. Science 277. 190–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searle, J. R. 1980. Minds, brains and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3. 417–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, J. R. 1990. The effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing. In Proctor, R. W. and Reeve, T. G. (eds.), Stimulus-response compatibility: An integrated perspective, 31–86. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Tucker, M. & Ellis, R.. 1998. On the relations between seen objects and components of potential actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 24. 930–846.Google Scholar
Vigliocco, G., Garrett, M. F., Lewis, W. & Vinson, D. P.. 2004. Representing the meanings of object and action words: The featural and unitary semantic space hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology 48. 422–488.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 2002. Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 9. 625–636.Google Scholar