Episodic Affordances Contribute to Language Comprehension

Abstract

We demonstrate how a particular type of knowledge about objects, their spatial locations and thus how to direct actions toward them, contributes to the comprehension of language about those objects. In four experiments, participants judged if sentences were about normal objects (e.g., ''The apple has a stem'') or odd objects (e.g., ''The apple has an antenna''). The Normal response key was either on the left of a response box or on the right. The named objects were themselves either on the left or the right of the response box. We demonstrate a compatibility e¤ect in which responding Normal to the side where the object was located was faster than responding Normal to the opposite side. Furthermore, this e¤ect was equally strong for sentences describing states of the objects (as above) and sentences describing actions (e.g., ''Touch the apple at the stem''); the compatibility e¤ect was found when the objects were removed; the e¤ect required compatibility between actions, not just spatial locations; and the e¤ect was found in both English and German. The results are discussed in relation to how action systems are used in language comprehension.

On the mental representations originating during the interaction between language and vision

“…Furthermore, they do not propose any model as such that gives a general explanation of language-vision interaction since their concern was to show the non-modular aspect of syntactic processing and the role of context in syntactic analysis. In contrast to this, a more explicit definition of ''affordances'' and how they affect sentence comprehension is found in the account put forward by Glenberg et al (2009). They propose a dynamic view of affordances where several types of property and action-related knowledge are simultaneously activated.…”

“…Thus, the arguments that a verb requires are incrementally predicted while utilising cues about affordances of objects in the environment (Gibson 1977(Gibson , 1979. Knowledge about objects and how one can act with them in different situations can be vital in guiding both language comprehension and action (Glenberg et al 2009). In sum, current studies reflect the use of sensorimotor experiences in dynamic understanding of scenes and language as reflected in eye movements.…”

Mining the Brain for a New Taxonomy of the Mind

“…I would urge that we seriously consider the likelihood that the best way to understand brain's native ontology – the dimensions of the neurally‐structured psychological space – is in evolutionarily‐inspired, ecological, and enactive terms. Seen in this light, it becomes clear that language and mathematics, for instance, are best understood as extensions of our basic affordance processing capacities augmented with public symbol systems (Glenberg et al ; Landy and Goldstone ; ). The psychological science that results from this reappraisal may well look very different from the one we practice today.…”

“Whatdunit?” Sentence Comprehension Abilities of Children With SLI: Sensitivity to Word Order in Canonical and Noncanonical Structures

“…In most sentences, an affordance between the nouns and their associated semantic roles is expressed. Affordance refers to the ways in which people interact with objects in the world with the interaction reflecting intrinsic constraints that occur between the entities (Gibson, 1979;Glenberg et al, 2009). In The girl is eating the cookie, the affordance between the two nouns (girl, cookie) is a natural one as encoded/expressed through the verb eating.…”