Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Processing correlates of lexical semantic complexity.

Silvia Gennari1, David Poeppel

  • 1Language and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. sgen@lcnl.wisc.edu

Cognition
|August 2, 2003
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Constituent-constrained word prediction during language comprehension.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same author

Mu rhythm motor-auditory delay in imagined speech mirrors overt speech timing.

Scientific reports·2026
Same author

The anticipation of imminent events is time-scale invariant.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Geometric properties of musical scales constitute a representational primitive in melodic processing.

iScience·2025
Same author

Top-down and bottom-up neuroscience as collections of practices.

Nature reviews. Neuroscience·2025
Same author

Hierarchical dynamic coding coordinates speech comprehension in the human brain.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025
Same journal

Evidence for abstract spatial concept learning in young animals.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Blurred lines or clear boundaries? Synchrony and social dominance shape domain-specific self-other processing.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Knowability predicts curiosity and learning.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Throwing good effort after bad: Evidence for a sunk-cost effect in cognitive effort-based decision-making.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Cross-linguistic differences in incremental planning under uncertainty.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Sensory attenuation scales with the strength of action-outcome coupling: A psychophysical study.

Cognition·2026
See all related articles

This study found that eventive verbs, which describe complex causal events, take longer to process than stative verbs. This indicates semantic complexity impacts verb processing time and how we understand event structures.

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Science
  • Semantics

Background:

  • Verb meanings vary in conceptual complexity.
  • Eventive verbs denote causally structured events, while stative verbs denote facts without causal structure.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how semantic complexity influences verb processing and representation.
  • To compare the processing of eventive versus stative verbs.

Main Methods:

  • Lexical decision task.
  • Self-paced reading study.

Main Results:

  • Eventive verbs took significantly longer to process than stative verbs.
  • Semantic complexity is directly reflected in verb processing time.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Verb meaning processing activates event structure properties beyond thematic roles.

    • Conclusions:

    • Lexical event structures, encompassing thematic roles, may bridge syntactic knowledge and semantic interpretation.
    • Processing verb meanings involves understanding their inherent event structures.
    • Cognitive models of language processing must account for semantic complexity in verb representation.