Deconstructing my thesis topic

Transcription

1 Deconstructing my thesis topic The central claim of interest to me is this: The meaning of word or sentence depends, at least in part, on the automatic activation of sensory-motor representations. In the literature, this activation is referred to as a mental simulation. However, there is a term in widespread use, mental imagery that also refers to the activation of sensory-motor representations.

2 How can we distinguish mental imagery from mental simulation? Researchers have argued that mental simulation can sometimes be (a) automatic or even unconscious and (b) does not always require working memory resources. Mental imagery, in contrast is (i) always conscious and (ii) always requires working memory resources.

3 Some researchers have presented words subliminally and have shown effects having to do with the spatial properties of the object referred to (eagle versus submarine). These effects cannot be due to conscious processes. Ignore for now the fact that the effect we discussed in class is the REVERSE of what was seen when the effect was conscious. This oddity can be brought up in the introduction or even serve as the motivation for another research study.

4 Eagle Submarine Kite Worm Mountain Tunnel

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6 Fig. 3 e Mean reaction times in Experiment 2 for down- and up-responses and down- and up-words. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval according to Loftus and Masson (1994).

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8 Word is unconscious Word is conscious Fig. 2 e Mean reaction times in Experiment 1 for down- and up-responses and down- and up-words. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval according to Loftus and Masson (1994). Fig. 3 e Mean reaction times in Experiment 2 for down- and up-responses and down- and up-words. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval according to Loftus and Masson (1994).

9 Other researchers have included many filler trials in their experiments to avoid or limit strategic effects. Automatic ultrarapid activation and inhibition of cortical motor systems in spoken word comprehension Yury Shtyrov, Anna Butorinad, Anastasia Nikolaevad, and Tatiana Stroganovad amindlab - Center of Functiona"y Integrative Neuroscience, Institute for Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark; Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; Faculty of Psychology, Higher School of Economics, Moscow , Russia; and Moscow MEG Center, Moscow State University for Psychology and Education, Moscow , Russia Previous neurophysiological research showed that activation of individual word memory traces may be recorded in the form of a so-called mismatch negativity (MMN) response when linguistic materials (typically a small group of acoustically controlled words, as also done here) is presented passively in pseudorandom oddball sequences. Notably, such representation-specific potentials are generated automatically, in the absence of attention on the stimuli or stimulus-related tasks. Therefore, the stimuli were passively presented in oddball nonattend conditions as rare unexpected (so-called deviant ) trials among acoustically similar but senseless frequent ( standard ) pseudoword stimuli.. Each of the three blocks included 1,200 stimuli (80% standards, 10% verbs, and 10% nouns with identical onsets), pseudorandomized and presented at a stimulus onset asynchrony jittered between 1,000 and 1,500 ms.

10 So there is some evidence that we can find effects that might be due to mental simulation that definitely cannot be due to mental imagery. Nevertheless, many situations that seem to be free of strategic effects may still be affected by them. Central Problem Motivating a Research Study Strategic effects can be unconscious, according to some evidence in the literature.

11 However, despite minimizing strategic word processing in masked priming studies, it cannot be fully excluded that task-driven processes are affecting participants' performance (e.g., Dehaene & Naccache, 2001; Kunde, Kiesel & Hoffmann, 2003). For example, Kunde et al. (2003) showed that the way unconscious stimuli are processed highly depends on the structure of the task and the stimulus material that is consciously processed. In the current experiment there was no familiarization period where participants were made familiar with the material, therefore no pre-experimental classification of the stimulus material has taken place that potentially affected the way the words were processed un- consciously. However, even the mounting of the response apparatus in the vertical dimension might activate specific response codes that might have influenced how the words were unconsciously processed. Nevertheless, the current study provides one important step towards showing that not purely strategic language processes underlie the language- action compatibility effects. For example, our paradigm did not allow participants to consciously categorize the words into two spatial categories or to consciously map the single words onto the response dimension. In order to rule out the possibility that conscious processing of the response dimension affects the unconscious processing and classification of the words, future studies could be designed in a way that stimuli and responses cannot be classified into two categories referring to opposite meanings.

12 Response Up versus Down Words : Up versus Down Question: Is it possible to show an effect of Up/Down words on responses that do not explicitly indicate up versus down?

13 Bondi Icebergs

14 FIGURE 1 Experiment 1 trial sequence of example congruent and incongruent (90 ) trial types. Note that font sizes of masks, primes, and targets are

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16 FIGURE 3 (A,B) Experiment 1 plotted movement trajectory data for the Left (A) and Right (B) target locations, for each of the six Prime Types. Bingo! North versus South: Change to Eagle versus Submarine

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18 EAGLE 18

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20 Validation Experiment Task: Respond only if the word is a direction word ABOVE FACT 20

21 Spatial prepositions Up, Over, Above. Down, Under, Below. a b c Y Time Short Long Prime Up Down Vertical Diff Time Short Long AUC X Sample Short Initiation Speed Long 21

22 Ignore the word EAGLE 22

23 a b c Y Time Short Long Prime Up Down Vertical Diff Time Short Long AUC X Sample Short Initiation Speed Long 23

24 Ignore the word EAGLE 24

25 Up/Down responses 25

26 Left/Right responses a b c Y Time Short Long Prime Up Down Vertical Diff Time Short Long AUC X Sample Short Initiation Speed Long 26

27 Summary A semantic task that requires attending to the direction of a spatial word (up, down, above, below, etc.) triggers a representation that affects the vertical component of left/right trajectories. Passively viewed words do not trigger spatial representations that affect the vertical component of left/right trajectories. The intention to engage in up/down movements trigger spatial representations from passively viewed words that affect the vertical component of left/right trajectories. 27

28 Some additional background constraints and theoretical considerations Arrows (but not the words up/down/left/right) evoke obligatory spatial representations which affect an orthogonal movement trajectory under passive viewing conditions. 28

29 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2010, 63 (11), Gaze and arrow distractors influence saccade trajectories similarly Frouke Hermens and Robin Walker Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK Figure 2. Illustration of the stimulus sequence in Experiment 1. A fixation screen consisting of a drawing of an outline of a face was presented for a random duration between 800 ms and 1,200 ms. After this interval, the distractor appeared (a peripherally presented filled square, or a centrally presented arrow or gaze cue), immediately followed (SOA ¼ 10 ms) by the saccade target (a black plus sign) above or below fixation. A blank screen of 500 ms separated the trials (not shown). 29

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31 The trajectory of eye movements up/down are affected by an arrow signalling a left/rightward direction under passive viewing conditions. 31

32 Ignore the arrow Prediction: Unlike the effect of words, the horizontal trajectory should be affected. 32

33 The difference between the meaning of versus UP UP 33

34 UP/DOWN The semantics of these two words is particularly complex. Many meanings have nothing to do with space. How did all the different senses of UP and DOWN arise? One answer: There are just lots of meanings that have grown over time, depending on context. There is no core meaning of UP and DOWN. 34

35 Alternative: The core meaning is a spatial proto-scene UP DOWN The proto-scene for up, according to Tyler and Evans (2003), involves a background element a landmark or LM conceptually partitioned into a top and bottom. A moving object or trajector (TR) is conceptualized as being oriented in an upward direction relative to the LM 35

36 UP DOWN These authors suggest that the human body itself is used to develop a schematization of the LM into top versus bottom, the head being our highest body part when we are standing upright. As they note, in a study of fifty-five languages, over half applied the word for head to indicate the spatial relation denoted by up (Svorou, 1994). 36

37 UP DOWN When we say the head of an organization, we likewise draw upon the notion that the head is located at the top of the human body. The proto-scene for down stands in a contrastive relationship with up; it is now the lower half of the human body that is emphasized in the schematization of the LM, and the TR is oriented downward. 37

38 The sentence A bird flew up/down the chimney describes a TR (bird) oriented upward/ downward in relation to a LM (chimney). The chimney is symmetrical in appearance, but has a vertical asymmetry projected onto it from the proto-scene (we can refer to the top or bottom of a chimney). In addition to up and down as directions, a cluster of meanings referring to quantity (e.g., prices are going up/down) is grounded in our experience that an increase/ decrease in quantity correlates with an increase/decrease in vertical elevation. Moreover, a change in our posture from vertical to horizontal always requires a stable surface that halts our downward path; lying down implicates the end of a trajectory, so that down can also be taken to mean complete, as in two down and one to go. 38

39 Let us assume UP DOWN The activation of an up or down proto-scene is directly responsible for the priming effect of a word or symbol on vertically oriented components of movement. 39

40 An arrow pointing up or down automatically activates the corresponding proto-scene; the object is schematized as an upward or downward TR against the background of the computer screen acting as the LM. The priming effect of an arrow on movement trajectories is therefore obligatory even when the task set does not include up/down movements. 40

41 Attending to the direction along a vertical axis implied by a spatial preposition also activates an up/down proto-scene. Thus, we find that directionality judgments on a spatial preposition acting as a prime affects the vertical component of a horizontal movement in Experiment 1. Similarly, any intentional (task) set of carrying out up versus down movements automatically enlists the corresponding proto-scenes which can then be triggered by an UP/DOWN word (and presumably by a spatial preposition) under passive viewing conditions (Experiment 3). However, in the absence of an up/down intention (when the task requires moving only along a horizontal axis), neither spatial prepositions nor UP/DOWN words activate any proto-scene (Experiment 2). 41

42 The activation of a proto-scene is not obligatory when spatial words are passively viewed and subjects have no intention to engage in up/down movements. Why do EAGLE and SUBMARINE activate a proto-scene for UP and DOWN under certain task conditions? 42

43 We conjecture that representing the prototypical height of an object or its location in terms of up or down is similarly dependent on a schematization of the upright human body. Objects that are conceptualized as up are at head height or higher, objects that are construed as down are near or below our feet. Under the right task conditions, and given this anthropocentric viewpoint, the words aeroplane as well as hat will trigger the proto-scene for up, while submarine as well as floor will trigger the proto-scene for down. Although the evocation of these spatial attributes, as we have seen, depends on intentional set, their presence is directly linked to our embodied perception of the world. 43