Reading sky and seeing a cloud: On the relevance of events for perceptual simulation.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that processing words with an up/down association (e.g., bird, foot) can influence the subsequent identification of visual targets in congruent location (at the top/bottom of the screen). However, as facilitation and interference were found under similar conditions, the nature of the underlying mechanisms remained unclear. We propose that word comprehension relies on the perceptual simulation of a prototypical event involving the entity denoted by a word in order to provide a general account of the different findings. In 3 experiments, participants had to discriminate between 2 target pictures appearing at the top or the bottom of the screen by pressing the left versus right button. Immediately before the targets appeared, they saw an up/down word belonging to the target’s event, an up/down word unrelated to the target, or a spatially neutral control word. Prime words belonging to target event facilitated identification of targets at a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 250 ms (Experiment 1), but only when presented in the vertical location where they are typically seen, indicating that targets were integrated in the simulations activated by the prime words. Moreover, at the same SOA, there was a robust facilitation effect for targets appearing in their typical location regardless of the prime type. However, when words were presented for 100 ms (Experiment 2) or 800 ms (Experiment 3), only a location nonspecific priming effect was found, suggesting that the visual system was not activated. Implications for theories of semantic processing are discussed.

A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Spatial Interference From Linguistic Cues: Beyond Petrova et al. (2018)

“…Single-category cues allow participants to establish a spatial reference frame that remains constant across the experiment, creating a more consistent stimulus-response mapping across trials. This consistent mapping renders responding more efficient, thereby eliminating the interference effect and sometimes producing facilitation instead (Gozli et al, 2013;Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017).…”

“…Following Petrova et al (in-press), we included only studies in which the visual target was abstract and unrelated to the linguistic cue (e.g., X or O, ■ or •). This excludes studies in which the visual target was a familiar object (Estes et al, 2015, Experiments 1 and 2;Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017), because familiar objects have their own spatial and semantic associations that affect responding to targets at different locations (Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017).…”

Grounding language in the neglected senses of touch, taste, and smell

“…The evidence for the automatic mental simulation of touch is perhaps stronger, with texture regions of the brain activated when reading and understanding texture-related sentences (Lacey et al, 2012). In order to critically assess the automaticity of mental simulations, future studies could focus on the time-course of activations (e.g., Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017), or use tasks less likely to elicit strategic mental imagery and more akin to everyday language use, such as narrative comprehension (Kurby & Zacks, 2013;Willems & van Gerven, 2018).…”

“…The relevance of space has been investigated for concepts that are typically experienced high or low in space. Studies show that speed of responses to words are affected by whether they are presented in a spatially congruent (e.g., hat in high position) or incongruent (e.g., hat in low position) positions (e.g., Estes, Verges, & Barsalou, 2008;Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017). Instead of vertical space, Speed and Majid (2017a) examined mental simulation of proximal and distal space.…”

Cross-decoding reveals shared brain activity patterns between saccadic eye-movements and semantic processing of implicitly spatial words

“…Numerous studies have shown that processing up/down words can influence performance at visual tasks involving compatible vs. incompatible location (Estes, Verges, & Adelman, 2015;Estes, Verges, & Barsalou, 2008;Gozli, Chasteen, & Pratt, 2013;Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017). Behavioral work has established that processing up/down words enhances spatial attention to the compatible location which often leads to facilitated detection and identification of visual targets in the primed location (Dudschig, Lachmair, de la Vega, De Filippis, & Kaup, 2012;Gozli et al, 2013;Ostarek & Vigliocco, 2017).…”