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On doing two things at once: temporal constraints on actions in language comprehension
Manuel de Vega1, David A Robertson, Arthur M Glenberg
1Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain. mdevega@ull.es
Memory & Cognition
|April 9, 2005
Summary
Text comprehension difficulties arise when simultaneous actions share the same sensorimotor system. This effect is reduced when one action is a mental plan, supporting embodied cognition theories.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Understanding text comprehension is crucial for cognitive science.
- The role of sensorimotor properties and temporal adverbs in processing actions is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the interaction between action properties and temporal adverbs affects text comprehension.
- To examine the influence of sensorimotor similarity and temporal relations on reading times and subjective coherence.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted using short narratives in Spanish and English.
- Participants read descriptions of protagonists performing simultaneous or successive actions with similar or different sensorimotor systems.
- Reading times and subjective coherence were measured to assess comprehension.
Main Results:
- Comprehension was impaired (longer reading times, lower coherence) for simultaneous actions sharing the same sensorimotor system.
- This impairment was observed with the adverb 'while' but not 'after'.
- Comprehension improved when one of the similar sensorimotor actions was presented as a mental plan.
Conclusions:
- Results support a revised indexical hypothesis, emphasizing syntax and embodied constraints in comprehension.
- Comprehension relies on how sensorimotor information and temporal relations are integrated into mental spaces.
- The findings highlight the impact of embodied cognition on language processing.