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Published on: May 23, 2019
Experiential simulations of negated text information
Barbara Kaup1, Richard H Yaxley, Carol J Madden
1Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany. barbara.kaup@tu-berlin.de
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|July 10, 2007
Summary
Even when a situation is negated, people mentally simulate it. This finding supports the experiential-simulations view of language comprehension.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Language and Cognition
Background:
- Understanding negated sentences is crucial for language comprehension.
- The experiential-simulations view posits that language comprehension involves mental simulation of described situations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether individuals mentally simulate situations described in negated sentences.
- To test the experiential-simulations hypothesis in the context of negation.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted using a recognition task.
- Participants read sentences containing explicit negation (e.g., 'There was no eagle in the sky').
- Response times to subsequently presented pictures of mentioned entities were measured.
Main Results:
- Participants responded faster to pictures that matched the negated situation compared to those that mismatched.
- This indicates that the negated situation was mentally simulated.
Conclusions:
- Language comprehension involves mental simulation of described situations, even when explicitly negated.
- The findings provide empirical support for the experiential-simulations view of language processing.
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