Doctoral Dissertation Research: Simulation in Sentence Production

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

For a decade, it has been recognized that successful comprehension of language is facilitated by mental simulation, i.e., the mental re-enactment of real-world perceptual and motor experiences. This simulation occurs while understanding language because linguistic knowledge is grounded in our experiences. However, studies investigating the role of simulation in formulating utterances are very limited in both their number and methodology. Using a promising new experimental method that requires hand/arm motions during language production, this dissertation examines whether motor activities affect cognitive processes and ultimately influence the shape of the resulting language. That is, do speakers change their language choice as a result of related hand/arm movements? This study examines both English and Japanese. The inclusion of Japanese, a language with relatively flexible word order, allows critical insight to simulation in sentence production since word order can reflect the temporal order of stages in the simulated event, in addition to choice of linguistic content and speech onset time. Two sets of experiments are conducted in two languages. The first set explores the interaction between motor activities and unconstrained messages (e.g., the relationships among the event's participants and objects are not yet established). The second set investigates the relationship between motion and the production of a fixed message. The timing of executing physical motions is manipulated in each set of experiments in order to explore the time course of integrating motor activities into meaning construction processes. Results, from two typologically distinct languages, showing that meaning construction and human language production are sensitive to motor actions would suggest that our language is cognitively grounded and acquired through a tight bond with our past experiences. This project will help shed light on the influence of motor actions on the human cognitive system, and more generally on the relationships among linguistic and non-linguistic cognition.