Arthur M. Glenberg

Grounding language in action

We report a new phenomenon associated with language comprehension: theaction—sentence compatibility effect (ACE). Participants judged whether sentences were sensible by making a response that required moving toward or away from their bodies. When a sentence implied action in one direction (e.g., “Close the drawer” implies action away from the body), the participants had difficulty making a sensibility judgment requiring a response in the opposite direction. The ACE was demonstrated for three sentences types: imperative sentences, sentences describing the transfer of concrete objects, and sentences describing the transfer of abstract entities, such as “Liz told you the story.” These data are inconsistent with theories of language comprehension in which meaning is represented as a set of relations among nodes. Instead, the data support an embodied theory of meaning that relates the meaning of sentences to human action.

Environmental context and human memory

Five experiments examined the effects of environmental context on recall and recognition. In Experiment 1, variability of input environments produced higher free recall performance than unchanged input environments. Experiment 2 showed improvements in cued recall when storage and test contexts matched, using a paradigm that unconfounded the variables of context mismatching and context change. In Experiment 3, recall of categories and recall of words within a category were better for same-context than different-context recall. In Experiment 4, subjects given identical input conditions showed strong effects of environmental context when given a free recall test, yet showed no main effects of context on a recognition test. The absence of an environmental context effect on recognition was replicated in Experiment 5, using a cued recognition task to control the semantic encodings of test words. In the discussion of these experiments, environmental context is compared with other types of context, and an attempt is made to identify the memory processes influenced by environmental context.

Mental models contribute to foregrounding during text comprehension

A primary property of mental models is that they represent what the text is about (the events, objects, and processes described in the text), rather than features of the text itself. We used this property to demonstrate that mental models are operative during text comprehension. Subjects read texts that were propositionally equivalent, but described events in which the main actor was either spatially associated with a target object or spatially dissociated from the object. Pronominal reference kept the actor foregrounded throughout the text, but the target object was never repeated. The question of interest was whether the target object remained foregrounded when the text described events in which the actor and the object were spatially associated. Data from experiments using item recognition and reading time measures provided an affirmative answer. Thus the mental model controlling foregrounding reflected the structure of the events described by the text, not just the structure of the text.

Comprehension of illustrated text: Pictures help to build mental models☆

Pictures help people to comprehend and remember texts. We report two experiments designed to test among several accounts of this facilitation. Students read texts describing four-step procedures in which the middle steps were described as occurring at the same time, although the verbal description of the steps was sequential. A mental representation of the procedure would have the middle steps equally strongly related to the preceding and succeeding steps (because the middle steps are performed simultaneously), whereas a mental representation of the text would have the middle step that was described first more closely related to the preceding step than the middle step described second. After reading, strengths of the represented relationships between the steps were assessed. When the texts were accompanied by appropriate pictures, subjects tended to mentally represent the procedure. When the texts were presented alone or with pictures illustrating the order in which the steps were described in the text, subjects tended to mentally represent the text. We argue that these results disconfirm motivational, repetition, and some dual code explanations of the facilitative effects of pictures. The results are consistent with a version of mental model theory that proposes that pictures help to build mental models of what the text is about.

The illusion of knowing: Failure in the self-assessment of comprehension

The illusion of knowing is the belief that comprehension has been attained when, in fact, comprehension has failed. In the present experiment, the illusion was defined operationally as having occurred when readers who failed to find a contradiction in a text rated their comprehension of the text as high. Texts containing contradictions between adjacent sentences were presented, and readers were explicitly asked to search for contradictions. The frequency of illusions was greater when the contradictory sentences came at the end of three-paragraph texts rather than at the end of one-paragraph texts and when the contradictory information was syntactically marked as new. These results are interpreted within a framework that emphasizes that the goal of reading expository text is to establish coherence within and among sentences. In addition, the results are apparently incompatible with the notion that readers engage in active and accurate on-line monitoring of the degree to which this goal is met.

Component-levels theory of the effects of spacing of repetitions on recall and recognition.

Spacing repetitions generally facilitates memory for the repeated events. This article describes a theory of spacing effects that uses the same principles to account for both facilitatory and inhibitory effects of spacing in a number of memory paradigms. Increasing the spacing between repetitions is assumed to result in the storage of greater amounts of information of three types or levels: contextual, structural (associative), and descriptive. Contextual information is encoded automatically, while the encoding of the structural and descriptive information depends on control processes utilized. Remembering involves accessing the stored information using retrieval cues containing information on any level that matches the stored information. The ultimate effectiveness of the spacing is controlled by this matching between the retrieval cues and the stored information. Previous experiments demonstrating the operation of these principles on the structural and descriptive levels are reviewed. Three new experiments are reported that illustrate interactions between stored information and retrieval cues based on contextual information.

A temporal distinctiveness theory of recency and modality effects.

A temporal distinctiveness theory of contextually cued retrieval from memory is presented and applied to recency and modality effects. According to this theory, one part of the mnemonic trace of an item is a representation of the items time of presentation. Time of presentation may be encoded with a coarse grain (so that it is consistent with a wide range of times) or with a fine grain (so that it is consistent with a narrow range of times). Retrieval proceeds by constructing temporally defined search sets that include representations of items consistent with the temporal bounds of the search set. The temporal width of the search set increases as the retention interval increases. Recency effects arise from retrieval of recently presented items from narrow search sets that include representations of few items; within the context of the search set, these items are distinctive and recalled well. Superiority in recall of recently presented auditory information in comparison with recently presented visual information is attributed to differences in the grain of time of presentation representations for aurally (fine grain) and visually (coarse grain) presented information. Four experiments confirm qualitative and quantitative predictions of the theory, including the prediction of auditory superiority at the beginning of the list when the initial items are temporally distinct.

Indexical understanding of instructions

Background knowledge is essential for understanding. Our question concerns the nature of that knowledge: Is background knowledge solely descriptive and abstract, that is, consisting of propositions, schemas, and rules, or is there room for experiential and perceptual components? The indexical hypothesis suggests that experiential components are crucial for language comprehension. On this hypothesis, indexing, that is, referring words and phrases to objects (or analogical representations of objects), is required for comprehension. Once a phrase is indexed to an object, then affordances derived from the object are used to guide the interpretation of the language. We demonstrate support for the indexical hypothesis by manipulating the opportunity to index words to objects while acquiring background information about how to use a compass and map to identify landmarks. The participants acquired similar levels of abstract knowledge as assessed by a verbal test. Nonetheless, participants given the opportunity to...

Processing abstract language modulates motor system activity

Embodiment theory proposes that neural systems for perception and action are also engaged during language comprehension. Previous neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies have only been able to demonstrate modulation of action systems during comprehension of concrete language. We provide neurophysiological evidence for modulation of motor system activity during the comprehension of both concrete and abstract language. In Experiment 1, when the described direction of object transfer or information transfer (e.g., away from the reader to another) matched the literal direction of a hand movement used to make a response, speed of responding was faster than when the two directions mismatched (an action–sentence compatibility effect). In Experiment 2, we used single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to study changes in the corticospinal motor pathways to hand muscles while reading the same sentences. Relative to sentences that do not describe transfer, there is greater modulation of activity in the hand muscles when reading sentences describing transfer of both concrete objects and abstract information. These findings are discussed in relation to the human mirror neuron system.

Action-based language: A theory of language acquisition, comprehension, and production

Evolution and the brain have done a marvelous job solving many tricky problems in action control, including problems of learning, hierarchical control over serial behavior, continuous recalibration, and fluency in the face of slow feedback. Given that evolution tends to be conservative, it should not be surprising that these solutions are exploited to solve other tricky problems, such as the design of a communication system. We propose that a mechanism of motor control, paired controller/predictor models, has been exploited for language learning, comprehension, and production. Our account addresses the development of grammatical regularities and perspective, as well as how linguistic symbols become meaningful through grounding in perception, action, and emotional systems.