Evidence for image-scanning eye movements during transitive inference

Demarais, Ann M; Cohen, Brian D.

doi:10.1016/s0301-0511(98)00042-8

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Their findings extended previous results of Demarais and Cohen (1998), strongly suggesting that people not only "visualize" directional information in these descriptions, but also engage utterance-driven attentional mechanisms, despite the absence of any visual context (see also Johanssson, Holsanova, & Holmqvist, 2006, for further evidence and discussion). While the underlying explanation for some of these behaviors is not entirely clear, what these findings do suggest is that people employ situated comprehension mechanisms -such as simulation, visual grounding, and spatial indexing -even when they are not engaged in canonical situated language use (e.g., a request to pass an object).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Situated sentence processing: The coordinated interplay account and a neurobehavioral model

2010

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Empirical evidence demonstrating that sentence meaning is rapidly reconciled with the visual environment has been broadly construed as supporting the seamless interaction of visual and linguistic representations during situated comprehension. Based on recent behavioral and neuroscientific findings, however, we argue for the more deeply rooted coordination of the mechanisms underlying visual and linguistic processing, and for jointly considering the behavioral and neural correlates of scene-sentence reconciliation during situated comprehension. The Coordinated Interplay Account (CIA; Knoeferle & Crocker, 2007) asserts that incremental linguistic interpretation actively directs attention in the visual environment, thereby increasing the salience of attended scene information for comprehension. We review behavioral and neuroscientific findings in support of the CIA's three processing stages: (i) incremental sentence interpretation, (ii) language-mediated visual attention, and (iii) the on-line influence of non-linguistic visual context. We then describe a recently developed connectionist model which both embodies the central CIA proposals and has been successfully applied in modeling a range of behavioral findings from the visual world paradigm (Mayberry, Crocker, & Knoeferle, in press). Results from a new simulation suggest the model also correlates with event-related brain potentials elicited by the immediate use of visual context for linguistic disambiguation (Knoeferle, Habets, Crocker, & Münte, 2008). Finally, we argue that the mechanisms underlying interpretation, visual attention, and scene apprehension are not only in close temporal synchronization, but have co-adapted to optimize real-time visual grounding of situated spoken language, thus facilitating the association of linguistic, visual and motor representations that emerge during the course of our embodied linguistic experience in the world.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Situated sentence processing: The coordinated interplay account and a neurobehavioral model

2010

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“…The goal of Experiment 1 was to extend the previous studies (Demarais & Cohen 1998;Spivey & Geng 2001;Spivey et al, 2000) in two respects: First, instead of only studying simple directions, we focused on complex spatial relations (expressions like at the center, at the top, between, above, in front of, to the far right, on top of, below, to the left of). Second, apart from measuring eye movements during the listening phase, we added a retelling phase in which the participants were asked to retell the described scene from memory.…”

Section: Experiments 1: Listening To and Then Retelling A Spoken Descrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A similar eye movement effect has also been found for spatial relations that are verbally described. Demarais and Cohen (1998) demonstrated that participants tend to move their eyes in the same direction as simple relational terms; and Spivey and Geng (2001) and Spivey, Tyler, Richardson, and Young (2000) showed that participants listening to a spatial scene description make eye movements that correspond to directions indicated in the described scene. In the absence of a visual input, participants have to construct a spatial mental model of an object from linguistic input (e.g., Bower & Morrow, 1990;Johnson-Laird, 1981).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pictures and Spoken Descriptions Elicit Similar Eye Movements During Mental Imagery, Both in Light and in Complete Darkness

2006

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This study provides evidence that eye movements reflect the positions of objects while participants listen to a spoken description, retell a previously heard spoken description, and describe a previously seen picture. This effect is equally strong in retelling from memory, irrespective of whether the original elicitation was spoken or visual. In addition, this effect occurs both while watching a blank white board and while sitting in complete darkness.This study includes 4 experiments. The first 2 experiments measured eye movements of participants looking at a blank white board. Experiment 1 monitors eye movements of participants on 2 occasions: first, when participants listened to a prerecorded spoken scene description; second, when participants were later retelling it from memory. Experiment 2 first monitored eye movements of participants as they studied a complex picture visually, and then later as they described it from memory. The second pair of experiments (Experiments 3 and 4) replicated Experiments 1 and 2 with the only difference being that they were executed in complete darkness. This method of analysis differentiated between eye movements that are categorically correct relative to the positions of the whole eye gaze pattern (global correspondence) and eye movements that are only locally correct (local correspondence). The discussion relates the findings to the current debate on mental imagery.

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“…The debates flourish because of the pivotal role transitive inference was afforded in Piagetian theory and the resultant close scrutiny of both (Bouwmeester, Vermunt & Sijtsma, 2007;Breslow, 1981;Chapman, 1999;Piaget, 1970). The Piagetian classical 3-term task had loosely followed recommendations from cognitive theorists working in the area of reasoning or logic (Bara, Bucciarelli & Lombardo, 2001;Demarais & Cohen, 1998;Goel et al, 2004;Goodwin & Johnson-Laird, 2005). Thus, the minimum two premise pairs were used (A:B and B:C), with the reasoner typically required to make the inference between items A and C (Hong & Chond, 2001;Sternberg, 1980;Wright & Dowker, 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As with the dual process accounts outlined above, this finding for transitive inference is directly mirrored by recent conclusions from reasoning tasks more generally (Evans, 2003;Kokis et al, 2002). Responding to the above issues, one aim of the present paper was to provide research findings that bridge the gap between children and adults, by working with participants who could be considered just too old to be typical of children and just too young to be typical of adults.According to all relevant theories, such a participant group would exhibit transitive performance at near ceiling (Acuna et al, 2002;Demarais & Cohen, 1998;Wright, 2006b). …”

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confidence: 99%

Getting one step closer to deduction: Introducing an alternative paradigm for transitive inference

Wright¹,

Howells²

2008

Thinking & Reasoning

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Transitive inference is claimed to be "deductive". Yet every group/species ever reported apparently uses it. We asked 58 adults to solve 5-term transitive tasks, requiring neither training nor premise learning. A computer-based procedure ensured all premises were continually visible.response-accuracy and RT (non-discriminative nRT) were measured as typically done. We also measured RT confined to correct responses (cRT). Overall, very few typical transitive phenomena emerged. The symbolic distance effect never extended to premise recall and was not at all evident for nRT; suggesting the use of non-deductive end-anchor strategies. For overall performance and particularly the critical B?D inference, our findings indicate deductive transitive inference is far more intellectually challenging than previously thought. Contrasts of our present findings against previous findings, suggests at least two distinct transitive inference modes, with most research and most computational models to date targeting an associative mode rather than their desired deductive mode. This conclusion fits well with the growing number of theories embracing a "Dual Process" conception of reasoning. Finally, our differing findings for nRT versus cRT, suggests researchers should give closer consideration to matching the RT measure they use to the particular conception of transitive inference they pre-held. Inference (Goel, Makale & Grafman, 2004;Goodwin & Johnson-Laird, 2005;Martin & Alsop, 2004). Consider the following example. During your lunch break yesterday, you might have gone out running with one friend (say Jane), and noted that you really struggled to keep up with her.We can term the above information a premise, where A and B are entities and there is some comparison made between them (i.e. premise A:B). Now, during today's lunch break you ran the same route with Kerry, and noted she was really struggling to keep up with you (premise B:C). At the end of the day, Kerry tells you Jane has asked her to go running during tomorrow's lunch break, asking you whether you think she will struggle or not (A?C). A transitive inference allows you to work out that, exceptional circumstances aside, Kerry will struggle running with Jane. The beauty is that you can infer such an outcome, without having already experienced it directly.Many argue that the capacity for transitive inference is logical (i.e., deductive), partly because the conclusion necessarily follows as long as the relation used is a linear comparative term (e.g., "runs faster than"), and partly because we can deduce the conclusion upon simply being told the two premises, rather than having to directly perceive and verify them as true for ourselves.Transitive inference may lay at the heart of a plethora of cognitive and sub-cognitive competencies, from spatial navigation through to predicting where to find food; and from placing oneself within a social network through to scientific thinking (Allen, 2006;Archie et al., 2006;Bond, Kamil & Bolda, 2003;Hummel & Holyoak, 2001;Markovits...

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Evidence for image-scanning eye movements during transitive inference

Cited by 39 publications

References 30 publications

Situated sentence processing: The coordinated interplay account and a neurobehavioral model

Situated sentence processing: The coordinated interplay account and a neurobehavioral model

Pictures and Spoken Descriptions Elicit Similar Eye Movements During Mental Imagery, Both in Light and in Complete Darkness

Getting one step closer to deduction: Introducing an alternative paradigm for transitive inference

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