Abstract
What role does grammatical aspect play in the time course of understanding spatial language, in particular motion events? Although processing differences between past progressive (was walking) and simple past (walked) aspect suggest differences in prominence of certain semantic properties, details about the temporal dynamics of aspect processing have been largely ignored. The current work uses mouse-tracking [1] to explore spatial differences in motor output response to contextual descriptions and aspectual forms. Participants heard descriptions of terrain (difficult or easy) and motion events described with either the past progressive or simple past aspectual form while placing a character into a scene to match this description. Overall, terrain descriptions modulated responses to past progressive more than to simple past in the region of the screen corresponding to the path. These results, which suggest that perceptual simulation plays a role in the interpretation of grammatical form, provide new insights into the understanding of spatial descriptions that include motion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Spivey, M.J., Grosjean, M., Knoblich, G.: Continuous Attraction Toward Phonological Competitors. PNAS 102, 10393–10398 (2005)
Comrie, B.: Aspect. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1976)
Frawley, W.: Linguistic Semantics. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale (1992)
Croft, W.: Aspectual and Causal Structure in Event Representations. In: Gathercole, V. (ed.) Routes to Language Development: In Honor of Melissa Bowerman, pp. 139–166. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2009)
Matlock, T., Fausey, C., Cargill, S., Spivey, M.: On the Path Toward Understanding the Dynamics of Aspect Descriptions in Motion Events. Paper presented at 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, California (November 2007)
Madden, C.J., Zwann, R.A.: How Does Verb Aspect Constrain Event Representations? Memory & Cognition 31, 663–672 (2003)
Ferretti, T.R., Kutas, M., McRae, K.: Verb Aspect and the Activation of Event Knowledge in Semantic Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 33, 182–196 (2007)
Magliano, J.P., Schleich, M.C.: Verb Aspect and Situation Models. Discourse Processes 29, 83–112 (2000)
Morrow, D.G.: Prominent Characters and Events Organize Narrative Understanding. Journal of Memory and Language 24, 304–319 (1985)
Abrams, R.A., Balota, D.A.: Mental Chronometry: Beyond Reaction Time. Psychological Science 2, 153–157 (1991)
Barsalou, L.: Language Comprehension: Archival memory or preparation for situated action? Discourse Processes 28, 61–80 (1999)
Barsalou, L.W.: Continuing Themes in the Study of Human Knowledge: Associations, Imagery, Propositions, and Situations. In: Gluck, M.A., Anderson, J.R., Kosslyn, S.M. (eds.) Memory and Mind: A Festschrift for Gordon H. Bower, pp. 209–227. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey (2007)
Pulvermuller, F.: Words in the Brain’s Language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 253–279 (1999)
Dale, R., Kehoe, C., Spivey, M.: Graded Motor Responses in the Time Course of Categorizing Atypical Exemplars. Memory and Cognition 35, 15–28 (2007)
Anderson, S.E., Matlock, T., Fausey, C., Spivey, M.J.: On the Path to Understanding On-line Processing of Grammatical Aspect. In: Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 143–148. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2008)
Matlock, T.: Fictive Motion as Cognitive Simulation. Memory & Cognition 32, 1389–1400 (2004)
Richardson, D.C., Matlock, T.: The Integration of Figurative Language and Static Depictions: An Eye Movement Study of Fictive Motion. Cognition 102, 129–138 (2007)
Langacker, R.W.: Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford University Press, Stanford (1987)
Talmy, L.: Toward a Cognitive Semantics. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Balota, A.D., Abrams, R.A.: Mental Chronometry: Beyond Onset Latencies in the Lexical Decision Task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 21, 1289–1302 (1995)
Gold, J.I., Shadlen, M.N.: Representation of Perceptual Decision in Oculomotor Commands. Nature 404, 390–394 (2000)
Spivey, M., Geng, J.: Oculomotor Mechanisms Activated by Imagery and Memory: Eye Movements to Absent Objects. Psychological Research 65, 235–241 (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Anderson, S., Matlock, T., Spivey, M. (2010). The Role of Grammatical Aspect in the Dynamics of Spatial Descriptions . In: Hölscher, C., Shipley, T.F., Olivetti Belardinelli, M., Bateman, J.A., Newcombe, N.S. (eds) Spatial Cognition VII. Spatial Cognition 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6222. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14749-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14749-4_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14748-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14749-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)