Does action semantic knowledge influence mental simulation in sentence comprehension?

• Published in: Shinrigaku kenkyū Vol. 83; no. 1; pp. 10 - 17
• Main Authors: Mochizuki, Masaya, Naito, Katsuo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japan The Japanese Psychological Association 01.04.2012
• Subjects: action semantic knowledge; Adult; Comprehension; Female; Humans; Knowledge; Male; mental simulation; perceptual representation about action; Semantics; sentence comprehension
• ISSN: 0021-5236; 1884-1082
• DOI: 10.4992/jjpsy.83.10

This research investigated whether action semantic knowledge influences mental simulation during sentence comprehension. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that the words of face-related objects include the perceptual knowledge about the actions that bring the object to the face. In Experiment 2, we used an acceptability judgment task and a word-picture verification task to compare the perceptual information that is activated by the comprehension of sentences describing an action using face-related objects near the face (near-sentence) or far from the face (far-sentence). Results showed that participants took a longer time to judge the acceptability of the far-sentence than the near-sentence. Verification times were significantly faster when the actions in the pictures matched the action described in the sentences than when they were mismatched. These findings suggest that action semantic knowledge influences sentence processing, and that perceptual information corresponding to the content of the sentence is activated regardless of the action semantic knowledge at the end of the sentence processing.