Perception and presupposition in real-time language comprehension: Insights from anticipatory processing

Chambers, Craig G.; Juan, Valerie San

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.12.009

Cited by 73 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The findings of Experiment 2 show that word induced motor activation involves an early evaluation of the context against which the relevance of the action features of the potential verbs are determined (for studies on the anticipatory referential interpretation see, e.g., Kako and Trueswell, 2000; Kamide et al, 2003; Chambers and Juan, 2008; Bicknell et al, 2010). Our sentences were designed so that a fronted adverbial phrase and the subject of the sentence set up a situation in which a hand action was anticipated (i.e., the action context).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors analyzed the N400 ERP-component, whose magnitude is positively correlated to interpretative problems, and found a smaller N400 for the same target words in the strongly compared to the weakly constraining contexts. The brain thus seems to use context information to generate likely upcoming stimuli and to prepare ahead of time for their processing (see also Kako and Trueswell, 2000; Kamide et al, 2003; Chambers and Juan, 2008; Bicknell et al, 2010). Note that this “lexical anticipation” phenomenon involves evaluating the contextual properties of a word and not merely its characteristics as an entity of the mental lexicon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that this “lexical anticipation” phenomenon involves evaluating the contextual properties of a word and not merely its characteristics as an entity of the mental lexicon. The whole event evoked when processing a sentence within a given context restricts the set of potential word referents (Kako and Trueswell, 2000; Kamide et al, 2003; Chambers and Juan, 2008; Bicknell et al, 2010; Kukona et al, 2011). In other terms, lexical meaning access profits from a representational state of the situation described by the context (e.g., Nieuwland and Van Berkum, 2006; Hagoort and van Berkum, 2007; Metusalem et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Action relevance in linguistic context drives word-induced motor activity

Aravena

Courson

Frak

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Many neurocognitive studies on the role of motor structures in action-language processing have implicitly adopted a “dictionary-like” framework within which lexical meaning is constructed on the basis of an invariant set of semantic features. The debate has thus been centered on the question of whether motor activation is an integral part of the lexical semantics (embodied theories) or the result of a post-lexical construction of a situation model (disembodied theories). However, research in psycholinguistics show that lexical semantic processing and context-dependent meaning construction are narrowly integrated. An understanding of the role of motor structures in action-language processing might thus be better achieved by focusing on the linguistic contexts under which such structures are recruited. Here, we therefore analyzed online modulations of grip force while subjects listened to target words embedded in different linguistic contexts. When the target word was a hand action verb and when the sentence focused on that action (John signs the contract) an early increase of grip force was observed. No comparable increase was detected when the same word occurred in a context that shifted the focus toward the agent's mental state (John wants to sign the contract). There mere presence of an action word is thus not sufficient to trigger motor activation. Moreover, when the linguistic context set up a strong expectation for a hand action, a grip force increase was observed even when the tested word was a pseudo-verb. The presence of a known action word is thus not required to trigger motor activation. Importantly, however, the same linguistic contexts that sufficed to trigger motor activation with pseudo-verbs failed to trigger motor activation when the target words were verbs with no motor action reference. Context is thus not by itself sufficient to supersede an “incompatible” word meaning. We argue that motor structure activation is part of a dynamic process that integrates the lexical meaning potential of a term and the context in the online construction of a situation model, which is a crucial process for fluent and efficient online language comprehension.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Action relevance in linguistic context drives word-induced motor activity

Aravena

Courson

Frak

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…Numerous studies have reported early context effects in lexical and sentential processing (e.g., Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Barr, 2008; Chambers & San Juan, 2008; Dahan & Tanenhaus, 2004; Magnuson, Tanenhaus, & Aslin, 2008; Tanenhaus, Spivey-Knowlton, Eberhard, & Sedivy, 1995). For example, the classic “cohort competitor” effect in the visual world paradigm (i.e., looks toward a buckle when hearing “bucket”) can be eliminated in a constraining context (“Empty the…”) as compared to an unconstraining one (“Click on the…”) (Barr, 2008, Experiment 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The interplay of local attraction, context and domain-general cognitive control in activation and suppression of semantic distractors during sentence comprehension

2016

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During sentence comprehension, real-time identification of a referent is driven both by local, context-independent lexical information and by more global sentential information related to the meaning of the utterance as a whole. This paper investigates the cognitive factors that limit the consideration of referents that are supported by local lexical information but not supported by more global sentential information. In an eye-tracking paradigm, participants heard sentences like “She will eat the red pear” while viewing four black-and-white (colorless) line-drawings. In the experimental condition, the display contained a “local attractor” (e.g., a heart), that was locally compatible with the adjective but incompatible with the context (“eat”). In the control condition, the local attractor was replaced by a picture that was incompatible with the adjective (e.g., “igloo”). A second factor manipulated contextual constraint, by using either a constraining verb (e.g., “eat”), or a non-constraining one (e.g., “see”). Results showed consideration of the local attractor, the magnitude of which was modulated by verb constraint, but also by each subject’s cognitive control abilities, as measured in a separate Flanker task run on the same subjects. The findings are compatible with a processing model in which the interplay between local attraction, context, and domain-general control mechanisms determines the consideration of possible referents.

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“…We refer to these representations as to grounding representations. According to such perspectives, the question about the nature of GREPs can be answered variously, considering them as mental images, perceptual anticipations (Chambers and San 2008), structural coupling (Riegler 2002), internal emulations (Grush 2004), pre-linguistic conceptual features (Howell et al 2005). In the connectionist view, sub-symbolic features have been posited (Smolensky 1988) and forms of nonconcatenative compositionality have been suggested (Van Gelder 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grounding compositional symbols: no composition without discrimination

Greco

Carrea

2011

Cogn Process

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The classical computational conception of meaning has been challenged by the idea that symbols must be grounded on sensorimotor processes. A difficult question arises from the fact that grounding representations cannot be symbolic themselves but, in order to support compositionality, should work as primitives. This implies that they should be precisely identifiable and strictly connected with discriminable perceptual features. Ideally, each representation should correspond to a single discriminable feature. The present study was aimed at exploring whether feature discrimination is a fundamental requisite for grounding compositional symbols. We studied this problem by using Integral stimuli, composed of two interacting and not separable features. Such stimuli were selected in Experiment 1 as pictures whose component features are easily or barely discriminable (Separable or Integral) on the basis of psychological distance metrics (City-block or Euclidean) computed from similarity judgments. In Experiment 2, either each feature was associated with one word of a two-word expression, or the whole stimulus with a single word. In Experiment 3, the procedure was reversed and words or expressions were associated with whole pictures or separate features. Results support the hypothesis that single words are best grounded by Integral stimuli and composite expressions by Separable stimuli, where a strict association of single words with discriminated features is possible.

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Perception and presupposition in real-time language comprehension: Insights from anticipatory processing

Cited by 73 publications

References 33 publications

Action relevance in linguistic context drives word-induced motor activity

Action relevance in linguistic context drives word-induced motor activity

The interplay of local attraction, context and domain-general cognitive control in activation and suppression of semantic distractors during sentence comprehension

Grounding compositional symbols: no composition without discrimination

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