Grounding language in action

@article{Glenberg2002GroundingLI,
  title={Grounding language in action},
  author={Arthur M. Glenberg and Michael P. Kaschak},
  journal={Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review},
  year={2002},
  volume={9},
  pages={558-565}
}
We report a new phenomenon associated with language comprehension: theaction—sentence compatibility effect (ACE). Participants judged whether sentences were sensible by making a response that required moving toward or away from their bodies. When a sentence implied action in one direction (e.g., “Close the drawer” implies action away from the body), the participants had difficulty making a sensibility judgment requiring a response in the opposite direction. The ACE was demonstrated for three… 
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1,927 Citations

Just out of reach: On the reliability of the action-sentence compatibility effect.

  • Megan H Papesh
  • Psychology
    Journal of experimental psychology. General
  • 2015
TLDR
The present study began as an attempt to extend the ACE in a new direction, but eventually became a series of attempts to simply replicate the effect, testing whether the ACE extends to a novel mouse-tracking method and/or is susceptible to higher-order cognitive influences.

Counterfactual sentences activate embodied meaning: An action–sentence compatibility effect study

Recent evidence suggests that understanding factual action-related sentences involves embodied simulations. But, what happens with counterfactual sentences that describe hypothetical events in the…

Action-Sentence Compatibility: The Role of Action Effects and Timing

TLDR
Evidence is provided by the action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE) which shows that sensibility judgments for sentences are faster when the direction of the described action matches the response direction, and results provide evidence that the comprehension of action sentences involves the activation of representations of action effects.

Inferences about action engage action systems

The Action-Sentence Compatibility Effect in ASL: the role of semantics vs. perception*

TLDR
A significant congruency effect relative to the verb’s semantics rather than to the perceived motion indicates that (a) the motor system is involved in the comprehension of a visual–manual language, and (b) motor simulations for sign language are modulated by verb semanticsrather than by the perceived visual motion of the hands.

Comprehending Sentences With the Body: Action Compatibility in British Sign Language?

TLDR
Results suggest that the richer contextual information provided by BSL sentences versus written or spoken English may reduce the need for action simulation in comprehension, at least when the event described does not map completely onto the signer's own body.

Taking Action: A Cross-Modal Investigation of Discourse-Level Representations

TLDR
Two experiments that used a cross-modal priming paradigm to investigate how humans represent the relations between events point toward common representations activated by motor sequences and discourse-semantic relations, and further the understanding of the mental representation of discourse structure.

Constructing meaning for up and down situated sentences: Is a sentence more than the sum of its words?

abstract The present study was concerned with the question whether comprehension is based on mental simulation processes beyond the word level. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with…

The Action-Sentence Compatibility Effect: It's All in the Timing

TLDR
Results show that the ACE arises only when participants have the opportunity to plan their motor response while they are processing the sentence, and how the time at which one prepares the motor response required for the sensibility judgment affects the magnitude of the ACE is explored.

The Action-Sentence Compatibility Effect in Japanese Sentences

  • S. Awazu
  • Psychology
    Perceptual and motor skills
  • 2011
TLDR
Action-sentence compatibility effect is assessed in Japanese, an SOV language, and in foot responses, where reaction times were significantly faster when there was congruity between theeffector described in the sentences and the effector actually used for the response.
...

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