Mabel Urrutia

Canceling updating in the comprehension of counterfactuals embedded in narratives

Participants were given counterfactual sentences—for example, “If Mary had won the lottery she would have bought a Mercedes car” —or factual sentences—for example, “Because Mary won the lottery, she bought a Mercedes car” —embedded in short narratives. Reading times showed that readers were immediately sensitive to the special status of counterfactual information (Experiment 1). In addition, probe-recognition latencies demonstrated that old information was more accessible in counterfactual than in factual stories, and new information was equally accessible in both kinds of stories (Experiment 2). However, after reading additional clauses, new information became less accessible in counterfactual than in factual stories (Experiment 3). These results suggest that counterfactual events are momentarily represented but are later suppressed and the readers’ attention goes back to previous events in the story.

Determining the time course of lexical frequency and age of acquisition using ERP.

OBJECTIVE The main goal of the present study was to dissociate the effects on reading of frequency, age of acquisition (AoA) and imageability using the evoked response potential paradigm. METHOD Twenty participants read words from three experimental conditions: high and low frequency, late and early age of acquisition and high and low imageability. RESULTS High frequency words produced more positive mean amplitude than low frequency words in the 175-360 ms post-stimulus onset time window and late AoA produced more negative amplitudes than early AoA in the 400-610 ms window. Imageability did not produce any effect in any time window tested. Brain electromagnetic tomography showed the most activated cortical areas for each category of stimuli. CONCLUSIONS The lexical frequency of words seems to affect an early phase in the recognition process, perhaps at the level of the orthographic input lexicon, while AoA was observed at a later stage, indicating that this variable influence processing at a semantic level or at the links between semantics and phonology. SIGNIFICANCE EEG permits the researcher to investigate the time course, and approximate location in the brain, of psycholinguistic variables.

Counterfactual sentences activate embodied meaning: An action–sentence compatibility effect study

Recent evidence suggests that understanding factual action-related sentences involves embodied simulations. But, what happens with counterfactual sentences that describe hypothetical events in the past? This study demonstrates that even in this case embodied simulations of actions take place. Participants listened to factual or counterfactual sentences describing a transfer away from or towards them. After the transfer verb (e.g., gave) was received, either a motion cue (Exp. 1) or a static cue (Exp. 2) prompted participants to move their finger towards or away from them to press a button. Finger motion was initially interfered with in cases involving a concurrent matching sentence (e.g., transfer away-motion away), suggesting that counterfactual meaning involves a motor simulation or “resonance”. The temporal course of this resonance differs slightly between factual and counterfactual sentences.

Counterfactuals in action: An fMRI study of counterfactual sentences describing physical effort

Counterfactual statements such as if Mary had cleaned the room, she would have moved the sofa convey both actual and hypothetical actions, namely, that Mary did not clean the room or move the sofa, but she would have done so in some possible past situation. Such statements are ubiquitous in daily life and are involved in critical cognitive activities like decision-making and evaluation of alternative outcomes. Here, we investigate the brain mechanisms and the nature of the semantic representations involved in understanding the complex meaning of counterfactual statements. We used fMRI to examine brain responses to counterfactual statements describing actions of high and low physical effort and compared them to similar factual statements describing the same actions. Results indicated that the inferior parietal lobule, known to support planning of object-directed actions, responded more strongly to high-effort than low-effort statements. Moreover, counterfactual statements, compared to factual ones, recruited a distinctive neural network partially overlapping with action execution networks. This network included medial pre-motor and pre-frontal structures, which underpin selection and inhibition of alternative action representations, and parahippocampal and temporal regions, involved in retrieving episodic memories. We argue that counterfactual comprehension recruit action-related networks encoding and managing alternative representations of behaviors.

Carefully Encoding Approach/Avoidance Body Locomotion With Interpersonal Conduct in Narrated Interactions

Approach and avoidance tendencies towards valenced others could be associated with our interpersonal conduct towards them: helping would be associated with approach tendency, and harming (or denying help) would be associated with avoidance. We propose that the encoding of this association enjoys attentional priority, as approach/avoidance representations of past interactions would regulate ones predisposition to either help or harm in subsequent interactions. Participants listened to interactions conveying positive/negative conduct between 2 characters. The conduct verb was then presented visually with a cue prompting participants to quickly step forward or backward. Subsequently, they performed a recognition task of noncentral story details. In matching conditions (positive conduct-step forward, negative conduct-step backward) the concurrent step should interfere with the encoding of motor representation of the conduct verb, and the verb encoding should divert attentional resources from the consolidation of memory traces of less relevant information. Results showed the predicted impairment in the recognition task in matching conditions, which supports an attentional bias towards encoding motor approach/avoidance representation of interpersonal conduct in the process of comprehending narrated interactions.

Lenguaje y acción: Una revisión actual a las teorías corpóreas

El presente articulo revisa las teorias corporeas del significado, describiendo algunos de los paradigmas y resultados experimentales mas notables de los ultimos anos, tanto a nivel conductual como en el campo de la neurociencia, pero deteniendose tambien en los aspectos mas polemicos de la nocion de corporeidad. De este modo, se trata el actual debate entre teorias simbolicas y corporeas, y el problema de la abstraccion, una de las principales objeciones a las teorias corporeas. Algunos resultados de las investigaciones apoyan la prediccion central de las teorias corporeas, activacion motora tanto para las palabras concretas como abstractas, mientras que otros solo encuentran activacion motora para las expresiones de contenido motor.