Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:03:40.359Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Property generation reflects word association and situated simulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Ava Santos ,
Sergio E. Chaigneau ,
W. Kyle Simmons  and
Lawrence W. Barsalou
Ava Santos*
Affiliation:
Fort Lewis College
Sergio E. Chaigneau
Affiliation:
Universidad Adolfo Ibanez
W. Kyle Simmons
Affiliation:
Laureate Institute for Brain Research
Lawrence W. Barsalou*
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
Correspondence addresses: Ava Santos, Department of Psychology, 1000 Rim Dr., Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO 81301, USA
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. E-mail: Santos_a@fortlewis.edu or barsalou@emory.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The property generation task (i.e. “feature listing”) is often assumed to measure concepts. Typically, researchers assume implicitly that the underlying representation of a concept consists of amodal propositions, and that verbal responses during property generation reveal their conceptual content. The experiments reported here suggest instead that verbal responses during property generation reflect two alternative sources of information: the linguistic form system and the situated simulation system. In two experiments, properties bearing a linguistic relation to the word for a concept were produced earlier than properties not bearing a linguistic relation, suggesting the early properties tend to originate in a word association process. Conversely, properties produced later tended to describe objects and situations, suggesting that late properties tend to originate from describing situated simulations. A companion neuroimaging experiment reported elsewhere confirms that early properties originate in language areas, whereas later properties originate in situated simulation areas. Together, these results, along with other results in the literature, indicate that property generation is a relatively complex process, drawing on at least two systems somewhat asynchronously.

Keywords

conceptscategorieslexical semanticsfeaturesfeature normsproperty generationmental simulationsituated cognitionword associationlinguistic forms
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 83 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, M., Vigliocco, G. & Vinson, D.. 2009. Integrating experiential and distributional data to learn semantic representations. Psychological Review 116. 463–498.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 1999. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22. 577–660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barsalou, L. W. 2003a. Abstraction in perceptual symbol systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 358. 1177–1187.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2003b. Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes 18. 513–562.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2005a. Abstraction as dynamic interpretation in perceptual symbol systems. In Gershkoff-Stowe, L. & Rakison, D. (eds.), Building object categories (Carnegie Symposium Series), 389–431. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2005b. Continuity of the conceptual system across species. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9. 309–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barsalou, L. W. 2008a. Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology 59. 617–645.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2008b. Grounding symbolic operations in the brain's modal systems. In Semin, G. R. & Smith, E. R. (eds.), Embodied grounding: Social, cognitive, affective, and neuroscientific approaches, 9–42. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 2008c. Situating concepts. In Robbins, P. & Aydede, M. (eds.), Cambridge handbook of situated cognition, 236–263. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., Breazeal, C. & Smith, L. B.. 2007. Cognition as coordinated non-cognition. Cognitive Processing 8. 79–91.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., Niedenthal, P. M., Barbey, A. & Ruppert, J.. 2003. Social embodiment. In Ross, B. (ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, Volume 43, 43–92. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., Santos, A., Simmons, W. K. & Wilson, C. D.. 2008. Language and simulation in conceptual processing. In Vega, M. De, Glenberg, A. M. & Graesser, A. C. (eds.), Symbols, embodiment, and meaning, 245–283. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. & Wiemer-Hastings, K.. 2005. Situating abstract concepts. In Pecher, D. & Zwaan, R. (eds.), Grounding cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thought, 129–163. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burgess, C. & Lund, K.. 1997. Modelling parsing constraints with high-dimensional context space. Language and Cognitive Processes 12. 177–210.Google Scholar
Chaffin, R. 1997. Associations to unfamiliar words: Learning the meanings of new words. Memory and Cognition 25. 203–226.Google Scholar
Collins, A. M. & Loftus, E. F.. 1975. A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82. 407–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craik, F. I. M. 2002. Levels of processing: Past, present … and future? Memory 10. 305–318.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Craik, F. I. M. & Lockhart, R. S.. 1972. Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11. 671–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craik, F. I. M. & Tulving, E.. 1975. Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104. 268–294.Google Scholar
Cree, G. S. & McRae, K.. 2003. Analyzing the factors underlying the structure and computation of the meaning of chipmunk, cherry, chisel, cheese, and cello (and many other such concrete nouns). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 132. 163–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. R. 1989. Time-locked multiregional retroactivation: A systems-level proposal for the neural substrates of recall and recognition. Cognition 33. 25–62.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. 1975. The language of thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. 2000. Adaptive thinking: Rationality in the real world. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glaser, W. R. 1992. Picture naming. Cognition 42. 61–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glenberg, A. M. 1997. What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20. 1–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hampton, J. A. 1979. Polymorphous concepts in semantic memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18. 441–461.Google Scholar
James, C. 1975. The role of semantic information in lexical decisions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 104. 130–136.Google Scholar
Joordens, S. & Becker, S.. 1997. The long and short of semantic priming effects in lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 23. 1083–1105.Google Scholar
Kan, I. P., Barsalou, L. W., Solomon, K. O., Minor, J. K. & Thompson-Schill, S. L.. 2003. Role of mental imagery in a property verification task: fMRI evidence for perceptual representations of conceptual knowledge. Cognitive Neuropsychology 20. 525–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosslyn, S. M. 1976. Can imagery be distinguished from other forms of internal representation? Evidence from studies of information retrieval times. Memory and Cognition 4. 291–297.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landauer, T. K. & Dumais, S. T.. 1997. A solution to Plato's Problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review 104. 211–240.Google Scholar
Lockhart, R. S. 2002. Levels of processing, transfer-appropriate processing, and the concept of robust encoding. Memory 10. 397–403.Google Scholar
Louwerse, M. M. 2008. Embodied representations are encoded in language. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 15. 838–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, A. 2001. Functional neuroimaging of semantic memory. In Cabeza, R. & Kingstone, A. (eds.), Handbook of functional neuroimaging of cognition, 153–186. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Martin, A. 2007. The representation of object concepts in the brain. Annual Review of Psychology 58. 25–45.Google Scholar
McRae, K., Cree, G. S., Seidenberg, M. & McNorgan, C.. 2005. Semantic feature production norms for a large set of living and nonliving things. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 37. 547–559.Google Scholar
Morris, C. D., Bransford, J. D. & Franks, J. J.. 1977. Levels of processing versus test-appropriate strategies. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 16. 519–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, G. L. 2002. The big book of concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L. & Schreiber, T. A.. 1999. The University of South Florida word association, rhyme and word fragment norms. http://web.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/Google Scholar
Paivio, A. 1971. Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Paivio, A. 1986. Mental representations: A dual coding approach. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pylyshyn, Z. W. 1984. Computation and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. & Mervis, C. B.. 1975. Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology 7. 573–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, D. M. & Boyes-Braem, P.. 1976. Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 8. 382–439.Google Scholar
Shulman, H. G. & Davidson, T. C. B.. 1977. Control properties of semantic coding in the lexical decision task. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 16. 91–98.Google Scholar
Simmons, W. K., Hamann, S. B., Harenski, C. N., Hu, X. P. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2008. fMRI evidence for word association and situated simulation in conceptual processing. Journal of Physiology—Paris 102. 106–119.Google Scholar
Solomon, K. O. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2004. Perceptual simulation in property verification. Memory and Cognition 32. 244–259.Google Scholar
Stone, G. O. & Orden, G. C. Van. 1993. Strategic control of processing in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 19. 744–774.Google Scholar
Smith, E. E. 1978. Theories of semantic memory. In Estes, W. K. (ed.), Handbook of learning and cognitive processes, Volume 6, 1–56. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Smith, E. E. & Medin, D. L.. 1981. Categories and concepts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson-Schill, S. L. 2003. Neuroimaging studies of semantic memory: inferring “how” from “where”. Neurosychologia 41. 280–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tulving, E. & Thomson, D. M.. 1973. Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review 80. 352–373.Google Scholar
Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., Barrett, L. F., Simmons, W. K. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2011. Grounding emotion in situated conceptualization. Neuropsychologia.Google Scholar
Wilson-Mendenhall, W. K., Simmons, , Martin, A. & Barsalou, L. W.. Under review. Contextual processing of abstract concepts reveals neural representations of relevant non-linguistic content.Google Scholar
Winer, B. J. 1971. Statistical principles in experimental design, 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Wu, L. L. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2009. Perceptual simulation in conceptual combination: Evidence from property generation. Acta Psychologica 132. 173–189.Google Scholar
Yap, M. J., Balota, D. A., Cortese, M. J. & Watson, J. M.. 2006. Single versus dual process models of lexical decision performance: Insights from RT distributional analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 32. 1324–1344.Google Scholar
Yeh, W. & Barsalou, L. W.. 2006. The situated nature of concepts. American Journal of Psychology 119. 349–384.Google Scholar