Does Grammatical Aspect Affect Motion Event Cognition? A Cross‐Linguistic Comparison of English and Swedish Speakers

Abstract

In this article, we explore whether cross-linguistic differences in grammatical aspect encoding may give rise to differences in memory and cognition. We compared native speakers of two languages that encode aspect differently (English and Swedish) in four tasks that examined verbal descriptions of stimuli, online triads matching, and memory-based triads matching with and without verbal interference. Results showed between-group differences in verbal descriptions and in memory-based triads matching. However, no differences were found in online triads matching and in memory-based triads matching with verbal interference. These findings need to be interpreted in the context of the overall pattern of performance, which indicated that both groups based their similarity judgments on common perceptual characteristics of motion events. These results show for the first time a cross-linguistic difference in memory as a function of differences in grammatical aspect encoding, but they also contribute to the emerging view that language fine tunes rather than shapes perceptual processes that are likely to be universal and unchanging.

Two Languages, Two Minds

“…Similarity judgement data were elicited using the sequential triads matching task used previously in Athanasopoulos and Bylund (2013), using clips from the stimulus pool of the research group of von Stutterheim and associates (e.g., von Stutterheim et al, 2012). The stimuli consisted of 19 triads of video clips, consisting of a target clip and two alternate clips.…”

Second language influence on first language motion event encoding and categorization in Spanish-speaking children learning L2 English

“…A basic tenet in this line of inquiry is the operationalization of 'thought' as non-verbal behaviour, instantiated typically as a range of different cognitive processes, such as reasoning, classification, and categorical perception (Lucy, 1997). The consensus that arises from recent empirical studies is that language transitorily fine-tunes, rather than permanently shapes, essential elements of human cognition, such as categorization and perception (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013;Regier & Kay, 2009). …”

Eye movements during listening reveal spontaneous grammatical processing

“…These properties are also reflected in co-speech gestures, which are more extended or iterative in the context of progressive language (Duncan, 2002; Matlock et al, 2012; Parrill et al, 2013). Non-progressive forms, on the other hand, have been found to direct attention to the completion of an event and the static endpoint of a movement (Magliano and Schleich, 2000; Madden and Zwaan, 2003; Athanasopoulos and Bylund, 2013). The distinction between these two forms has important real-world consequences for how people interpret actions and ultimately how it affects attitudes and perceptions, including voting preferences (Fausey and Matlock, 2011; Matlock, 2012) and eyewitness testimony (Matlock et al, 2012).…”

“…This prediction is motivated in the following way: If a series of past progressive sentences such as “He was going” induces focus on the dynamics of movement (Anderson et al, 2008, 2010; Matlock et al, 2012), more movement iterations (Duncan, 2002; Parrill et al, 2013), more vivid mental simulation (Bergen and Wheeler, 2010), more action in a given time period (Matlock, 2010, 2011) and the middle of a path or action (Morrow, 1985, 1990; Magliano and Schleich, 2000; Madden and Zwaan, 2003; Athanasopoulos and Bylund, 2013), this should lead to more thoughts of motion and action, and conceptualizations of motion in language processing have been shown to elicit more eye movements (Richardson and Matlock, 2007). Further, there is evidence that the perception of motion is tightly linked to eye movement areas, where motion strength and duration was directly proportional to the amplitude of an elicited saccade in primate oculomotor cortex (Gold and Shadlen, 2000).…”