Perceptual aspects of language comprehension

描述(由申请人提供)：建议研究的主要目的 是为了调查语言理解涉及使用的假设 以及对知觉符号的操纵。知觉符号是表象 储存在长期记忆中，这些都是知觉经验的结果 指事件或物体。感知符号捕捉事件或事件的这些方面 被集中注意的物体。感知符号可以被激活，用于 例如，通过语言刺激，从而在一个 感知模拟。语言可以被认为是一组 提示理解者如何进行感知模拟。此视图可以 与目前流行的非正态命题观点形成对比 在认知科学方面。在此视图中，对象和事件由 由语言输入构建的抽象命题网络，它承载着 与他们的参照物没有类似的关系。到目前为止，还没有系统的机构 关于这座建筑的这些相互矛盾的假设的经验证据 认知障碍。提出了四组实验，旨在 这是填补这一空白的第一次协调努力。第一组测试的是 理解者在心理上表示对象的方向，当这是 由语言输入所暗示的。第二组考察的是理解者 在心理上表示物体或动物的形状，这是由 口头输入。第三组考察语言处理是否会导致 表象性动议。最后，第四组测试是否 表示较大物体的部分的单词的处理(例如，“盖子”、“肘部”) 激活对较大物体的知觉表征。拟议的研究 具有理论和实践意义。在理论领域，它 心理表征与心理表征之间的关系 语言理解语境中的参照物。因此，它的目的是 对认知的构成要素和关系有了新的见解 在感知和认知之间。在实际领域，拟议的 实验可能导致开发新的诊断测试来评估 不同群体中的理解能力，包括儿童、儿童和 阅读障碍，老年人，患有阿尔茨海默病的老年人，以及 脑部受损的个体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary aim of the proposed research is to investigate the hypothesis that language comprehension involves the use and manipulation of perceptual symbols. Perceptual symbols are representations stored in long-term memory, which are the result of the perceptual experience of an event or object. Perceptual symbols capture those aspects of an event or object that were in focused attention. Perceptual symbols can be activated, for instance, by verbal stimuli, thus recreating the perceptual experience in a perceptual simulation. Language can be thought of as a set of cues to the comprehender on how to run a perceptual simulation. This view can be contrasted with the amodal propositional view, which is currently prevalent in cognitive science. On this view, objects and events are represented by networks of abstract propositions constructed from the verbal input, which bear no analog relation to their referents. There is as yet no systematic body of empirical evidence regarding these competing hypotheses about the building blocks of cognition. Four sets of experiments are proposed that are intended as a first concerted attempt to fill this gap. The first set examines whether comprehenders mentally represent the orientation of objects when this is implied by the linguistic input. The second set examines whether comprehenders mentally represent the shape of objects or animals when this is implied by the verbal input. The third set examines whether language processing can result in representational motion. Finally, the fourth set examines whether the processing of words denoting parts of larger objects (e.g., "lid," "elbow") activate perceptual representations of the larger object. The proposed research has theoretical and practical significance. In the theoretical domain, it addresses in a novel way the relation between mental representations and their referents in the context of language comprehension. As such, it is intended to yield new insights into the building blocks of cognition and into the relation between perception and cognition. In the practical domain, the proposed experiments could lead to the development of novel diagnostic tests to assess comprehension skill in various groups, including children, children with reading disability, older adults, older adults with Alzheimer's disease, and individuals with brain damage.