Language
How do we understand language? How do we create meaning from linguistic
symbols (such as words)? How does our experience guide the way we comprehend
and produce language? These are the central questions that guide language
research at Florida State.
One major line of research concerns the mechanisms through which language
conveys meaning. This is a central question for researchers in cognitive
science. The approach taken by researchers in our department is to start
from the claim that the comprehension of language is grounded in our
own bodies' systems of perception and action planning (see also Embodiment).
For example, understanding a sentence such as, "He turned up the
volume on his stereo," requires the use of one's action planning
system to internally simulate the action involved in turning up the
stereo (e.g., rotating the volume knob in a clockwise direction). Several
ongoing projects explore the ways that the neural systems involved in
action planning, visual perception, and auditory perception are recruited
in the service of language comprehension, and the ways that experience
shapes the relationship between perception, action, and language.
A second line of research concerns the role of experience in language
comprehension and production. Research is focused on understanding how
changing patterns in one's linguistic environment affects the way that
language is comprehended and produced at later points in time. By studying
the ability of adults to adapt to the linguistic patterns that surround
them, we aim to address important questions about the nature of language
learning.
Faculty:
Michael Kaschak
(Cognitive)
Publications:
Kaschak, M.P., Zwaan, R.A., Aveyard, M., & Yaxley, R.H. (in press).
Perception of Auditory Motion Affects Language Processing. Cognitive
Science.
Borreggine, K. L., & Kaschak, M. P. (in press). The Action-sentence
Compatibility Effect: Its all in the timing. Cognitive Science.
Kaschak, M. P., Loney, R. A., & Borreggine, K. L. (2006). Recent
experience affects the strength of structural priming. Cognition,
99, B73-B82.
Madden, C.J., & Zwaan, R.A. (in press). Perceptual representation
as a mechanism of lexical ambiguity resolution: an investigation of
span and processing time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, & Cognition.
Zwaan, R.A., & Taylor, L.J. (2006). Seeing, acting, understanding:
motor resonance in language comprehension. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 135, 1-11.
Pecher, D., & Zwaan, R.A., (Eds.). (2005). Grounding cognition:
The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thinking.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kaschak, M.P., Madden, C.J., Therriault, D.J., Yaxley, R.H., Aveyard,
M., Blanchard, A.A., & Zwaan, R.A. (2005). Perception of motion
affects language processing. Cognition, 94, B79-B89.
Zwaan, R.A., Madden, C.J., Yaxley, R.H., & Aveyard, M.E. (2004).
Moving words: Dynamic mental representations in language comprehension.
Cognitive Science, 28, 611-619.
Kaschak, M. P., & Glenberg, A. M. (2004). This construction needs
learned. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 450-467
Zwaan, R.A., Stanfield, R.A., Yaxley, R.H. (2002). Do language comprehenders
routinely represent the shapes of objects? Psychological Science,
13, 168-171.
Stanfield, R.A. & Zwaan, R.A. (2001). The effect of implied orientation
derived from verbal context on picture recognition. Psychological
Science, 12, 153-156.
