The interface between spatial cognition and language

空间认知与语言之间的接口

• 批准号: 7579050
• 负责人: Anna Papafragou
• 金额: $ 26.34万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-03-05 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7579050
• 关键词: Accounting; Address; Adult; Affect; Attention; Basic Science; Behavioral; Brain; Categories; Child; Cognition; Cognitive; Communication; Development; Diagnostic; Event; Exposure to; Eye; Future; Goals; Human; Intervention; Language; Language Development; Lead; Learning; Lesion; Linguistics; Location; Maps; Memory; Methods; Mind; Motion; Patients; Pattern; Perception; Population; Process; Production; Research; Semantics; Shapes; Speech; Structure; Techniques; Testing; Time; Ursidae Family; Variant; Visual; Vocabulary; bilingualism; experience; lexical; mental representation; millisecond; novel; pressure; programs; psychologic; research study; specific language impairment; syntax; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project examines the relationship between cognitive and linguistic representations of spatial events in children. Classic theories of cognitive and linguistic development assume that spatial concepts are largely universal and that spatial language (e.g. the expression of spatial locations, paths and motions) maps directly onto preexisting, shared spatial categories. More recent theories, pointing to wide cross-linguistic differences in spatial encoding, suggest that important aspects of spatial cognition may not be universal but may be shaped by exposure to the way spatial relations are encoded within a specific language. The goal of this project is to investigate the processes underlying both the processing and the acquisition of spatial vocabulary in populations speaking different languages so as to disentangle language-specific from language- independent (potentially universal) components of spatial language. The proposed plan combines cross-linguistic behavioral experiments with eye tracking methods, allowing us to examine the moment-by-moment processes underlying the assembly of spatial descriptions, as well as the processes supporting the acquisition of novel spatial terms in controlled experimental settings. This is the first time this combination of convergent methods has been used to study how linguistic and nonlinguistic representations come together in the minds of young and more experienced speakers cross-linguistically. This integrated approach views the mapping from spatial event perception to language as a dynamic process, one that unfolds along multiple time scales ranging from milliseconds (as in planning and understanding utterances) to years (as in developing the ability to speak one's native language). This basic research program will inform theories of normal language development and processing and may ultimately contribute to accounts of linguistic and conceptual development in bilingual populations and children with specific language impairments. The eye tracking techniques developed for this project can lead to interventions for children with atypical linguistic and cognitive development, and in some form serve as a diagnostic of cognitive and linguistic difficulties in patients with different types of brain lesions or aphasias. Our toolbox could also be used to inform studies of bilingualism (e.g., by investigating connections between language and mental representation).

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目研究儿童空间事件的认知和语言表征之间的关系。认知和语言发展的经典理论假设空间概念在很大程度上是普遍的，空间语言（例如空间位置，路径和运动的表达）直接映射到预先存在的共享空间类别。最近的理论指出，空间编码的跨语言差异很大，这表明空间认知的重要方面可能不是普遍的，而是通过暴露于特定语言中空间关系的编码方式来塑造的。该项目的目标是调查在讲不同语言的人群中处理和获得空间词汇的潜在过程，以便将空间语言的语言特异性成分与语言无关（潜在的普遍性）成分分开。该计划将跨语言行为实验与眼动追踪方法相结合，使我们能够研究空间描述组装的每时每刻过程，以及支持在受控实验环境中获得新空间术语的过程。这是第一次使用这种融合方法的组合来研究语言和非语言表征如何在年轻和更有经验的说话者的头脑中跨语言地走到一起。这种综合方法将空间事件感知到语言的映射视为一个动态过程，它沿着沿着多个时间尺度展开，从毫秒（如计划和理解话语）到年（如发展说母语的能力）。这个基础研究计划将告知正常语言发展和处理的理论，并可能最终有助于双语人群和特定语言障碍儿童的语言和概念发展的帐户。为该项目开发的眼动追踪技术可以为具有非典型语言和认知发育的儿童提供干预措施，并以某种形式作为不同类型脑损伤或失语症患者的认知和语言困难的诊断。我们的工具箱也可以用来为双语研究提供信息（例如，通过研究语言和心理表征之间的联系）。