Perception and Action Systems in High-Level Cognition

语言传达意义，但如何做到这一点呢？乍一看，答案似乎很简单：一个人说话，另一个人听，然后他们交换角色。理解似乎归根结底是听者知道所说的单词的意思，外加一些语法规则。但这并不是故事的全部。为了理解语言，人们带着与他们世界中的物体和与其他人相关的互动的记忆。这就好像他们有意识或无意识地想象对话中描述的情景--成功的理解与成功的想象比语法分析更紧密地联系在一起。在NSF的支持下，亚瑟·格伦伯格博士将研究语言和想象力的这些特征。例如，要理解“强风导致帆船倾覆”这句话，可能需要一种想象的形式，在这种想象中，一股想象的风施加的力量足以打翻船。这种形式的想象可能会引发同样的思维过程，就像理解帆船被强风倾覆的感觉一样。格伦伯格博士使用一种新开发的程序探索了这种可能性，在这种程序中，人们在阅读暗示相反或相同方向的力的句子时按下杠杆。按压的动作可以让人更容易读到含有相同方向的力的句子，或者更难读到相反方向的力的句子。这被解释为同样的心理过程在语言和知觉中被利用的证据。另一项研究考察了这些思想在英语以外的语言中的应用，以及在数学等非语言领域的表现。这项研究的更广泛影响被用来指导阅读补救技术的设计和新型教育工具的创建。

Language conveys meaning but how so? At first the answer seems simple: One person talks while the other listens, and then they exchange roles. Understanding seems to boil down to the listener knowing the meaning of the spoken words plus some rules of grammar. But that is not the whole story. To understand language, people bring to bear memories of related interactions with objects in their world and with other people. It is as though they imagine, consciously or unconsciously, the situations described within the conversation-successful understanding is more closely tied to successful imagination than to grammatical analysis. With NSF-support, Dr. Arthur Glenberg will investigate these characteristics of language and imagination. For example, to understand the sentence "The strong wind caused the sailboat to capsize" may require a form of imagination in which an imagined wind exerts enough force to tip over the boat. This form of imagination may invoke the same processes of mind that would understand the perception of a sailboat capsized by a strong wind. Dr. Glenberg explores such possibilities using a newly developed procedure in which people press a lever while reading sentences that imply force in the opposite or same direction. The action of pressing makes it easier to read sentences that entail force in the same direction, or harder to read for forces in the opposite direction. This is interpreted as evidence that the same mental process is tapped in language and perception. Additional research examines the application of these ideas to languages other than English and to performance in non-linguistic domains such as mathematics. Broader impacts of this research are used to guide the design of reading remediation technologies and the creation of new types of educational tools.