Perceptual aspects of language comprehension

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的主要目的 是研究语言理解涉及使用 和对知觉符号的操纵。感知符号是 储存在长期记忆中，这是感性经验的结果， 一个事件或物体。感知符号捕捉事件的那些方面， 被集中注意力的物体。感知符号可以被激活，因为 例如，通过言语刺激，从而在一个 知觉模拟语言可以被认为是一组 提示理解者如何运行感知模拟。此视图可 与当前流行的非模态命题观点形成对比， 在认知科学中。在这种观点下，对象和事件由 从语言输入中构建的抽象命题网络， 与它们的参照物没有类似的关系。目前还没有系统的 关于建筑物的这些相互竞争的假设的经验证据 认知的障碍提出了四组实验，旨在作为 这是填补这一空白的第一次共同努力。第一组检查是否 当物体的方向被确定时， 这是由语言输入所暗示的。第二组调查的是， 在精神上代表物体或动物的形状，当这是由暗示， 语言输入第三组检查语言处理是否会导致 代表性运动最后，第四组检查是否 表示较大对象的部分的单词的处理（例如，“盖子”，“肘部”） 激活更大物体的感知表征。拟议研究 具有理论和实践意义。在理论上，它 以一种新颖的方式解决了心理表征与其 语言理解语境中的指称。因此，其目的是 对认知的基础和 感知和认知之间的关系在实际应用中， 实验可能会导致新的诊断测试的发展，以评估 理解能力在不同群体，包括儿童， 阅读障碍，老年人，老年痴呆症患者，以及 有脑损伤的人。

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.