Spatial language and converseness

Typical spatial language sentences consist of describing the location of an object (the located object) in relation to another object (the reference object) as in “The book is above the vase”. While it has been suggested that the properties of the located object (the book) are not translated into language because they are irrelevant when exchanging location information, it has been shown that the orientation of the located object affects the production and comprehension of spatial descriptions. In line with the claim that spatial language apprehension involves inferences about relations that hold between objects it has been suggested that during spatial language apprehension people use the orientation of the located object to evaluate whether the logical property of converseness (e.g., if “the book is above the vase” is true, then also “the vase is below the book” must be true) holds across the objects’ spatial relation. In three experiments using sentence acceptability rating tasks we tested this hypothesis and demonstrated that when converseness is violated people's acceptability ratings of a scene's description are reduced indicating that people do take into account geometric properties of the located object and use it to infer logical spatial relations

Head up, foot down : object words orient attention to the objects' typical location

Many objects typically occur in particular locations, and object words encode these spatial associations. We tested whether such object words (e.g., head, foot) orient attention toward the location where the denoted object typically occurs (i.e., up, down). Because object words elicit perceptual simulations of the denoted objects (i.e., the representations acquired during actual perception are reactivated), we predicted that an object word would interfere with identification of an unrelated visual target subsequently presented in the object's typical location. Consistent with this prediction, three experiments demonstrated that words denoting objects that typically occur high in the visual field hindered identification of targets appearing at the top of the display, whereas words denoting low objects hindered target identification at the bottom of the display. Thus, object words oriented attention to and activated perceptual simulations in the objects' typical locations. These results shed new light on how language affects perception

Atlas.txt : Exploring Lingusitic Grounding Techniques for Communicating Spatial Information to Blind Users

Peer reviewedPostprin

Visuo-spatial cognition in Williams syndrome: Reviewing and accounting for the strengths and weaknesses in performance

Individuals with Williams syndrome typically show relatively poor visuo-spatial abilities in comparison to stronger verbal skills. However, individuals' level of performance is not consistent across all visuo-spatial tasks. The studies assessing visuo-spatial functioning in Williams syndrome are critically reviewed, in order to provide a clear pattern of the relative difficulty of these tasks. This prompts a possible explanation of the variability in performance seen which focuses on the processing demands of some of these tasks. Individuals with Williams syndrome show an atypical processing style on tests of construction, which does not affect tests of perception

The development of complex verb constructions in British Sign Language

This study focuses on the mapping of events onto verb-argument structures in British Sign Language (BSL). The development of complex sentences in BSL is described in a group of 30 children, aged 3;2–12;0, using data from comprehension measures and elicited sentence production. The findings support two interpretations: firstly, in the mapping of concepts onto language, children acquiring BSL overgeneralize the use of argument structure related to perspective shifting;secondly, these overgeneralizations are predicted by the typological characteristics of the language and modality. Children under age 6;0, in attempting to produce sentences encoded through a perspective shift, begin by breaking down double-verb constructions (AB verbs) into components, producing only the part of the verb phrase which describes the perspective of the patient. There is also a prolonged period of development of non-manual features, with the full structure not seen in its adult form until after 9;0. The errors in the use of AB verbs and the subsequent protracted development of correct usage are explained in terms of the conceptual–linguistic interface

Communicative success in spatial dialogue: The impact of functional features and dialogue strategies

This paper addresses the impact of dialogue strategies and functional features of spatial arrangements on communicative success. To examine the sharing of cognition between two minds in order to achieve a joint goal, we collected a corpus of 24 extended German-language dialogues in a referential communication task that involved furnishing a dolls’ house. Results show how successful communication, as evidenced by correct placement of furniture items, is affected by a) functionality of the furniture arrangement, b) previous task experience, and c) dialogue features such as description length and orientation information. To enhance research in this area, our 'Dolldialogue' corpus is now available as a free resource on www.dolldialogue.spac

Language and memory for object location

In three experiments, we investigated the influence of two types of language on memory for object location: demonstratives (this, that) and possessives (my, your). Participants first read instructions containing demonstratives/possessives to place objects at different locations, and then had to recall those object locations (following object removal). Experiments 1 and 2 tested contrasting predictions of two possible accounts of language on object location memory: the Expectation Model (Coventry, Griffiths, & Hamilton, 2014) and the congruence account (Bonfiglioli, Finocchiaro, Gesierich, Rositani, & Vescovi, 2009). In Experiment 3, the role of attention allocation as a possible mechanism was investigated. Results across all three experiments show striking effects of language on object location memory, with the pattern of data supporting the Expectation Model. In this model, the expected location cued by language and the actual location are concatenated leading to (mis)memory for object location, consistent with models of predictive coding (Bar, 2009; Friston, 2003)

On the role of informativeness in spatial language comprehension

People need to know where objects are located in order to be able to interact with the world, and spatial language provides the main linguistic means of facilitating this. However, the information contained in the description about objects locations is not the only message conveyed; there is evidence in fact that people carry out inferences that go beyond the simple geometric relation specified (Coventry & Garrod, 2004; Tyler & Evans, 2003). People draw inferences about objects dynamic and objects interaction, and these information become critical for the apprehension of spatial language. Among the inferences people draw from spatial language the property of the converseness is particularly appealing; this principle states that given the description "A is above B" one can also infers "B is below A" (Leveit, 1984, 1996). Thus if the speaker says "the book is above the telephone" implicitly the listener also knows that the telephone is below the book. However this extra information does not necessary facilitate the apprehension of spatial descriptions. If it is true that inferences increase the amount of information the description conveys (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), it is also true that this "extra-information" can be a disadvantage. In fact the spatial preposition used in the description can end up in being ambiguous because it suits more than one interpretation: The consequence is a reduction of the informativeness (Bar-Hillel, 1964). Tyler and Evans (2003) called this inferential process Best Fit. Speakers choose the spatial preposition which offers the best fit between the conceptual spatial relation and the speaker's communicative needs. This principle can be considered a logical extension of the notion of relevance (Grice. 1975; Sperber & Wilson, 1986) and an integration for the Q-Principle (Asher & Lascarides, 2003; Levinson, 2000a) according to which speakers have the duty to avoid statements that are informationally weaker than their knowledge of the world allows. This dissertation explores whether the inferences people draw on spatial representations, in particular those based on the converseness principle (Levelt, 1996), will affect the process that drive the speaker to choose the most informative description, that is the description that best fit spatial relations and speaker needs (Tyler & Evans, 2003). Experiment 1 and 2 study whether converseness, tested by manipulating the orientation of the located object, affects the extent to which a spatial description based on the preposition over, under, above, below is regarded as a good description of those scenes. Experiment 3 shows that the acceptability for a projective spatial preposition is affected by the orientation of both the object presented in the scene. Experiment 4 and 5 replicate the results achieved in the previous experiments using polyoriented objects (Leek, 1998b) in order to exclude the possibility that the decrease of acceptability was due to the fact that one object was shown in a non-canonical orientation. Experiment 6, 7 and 8 will provide evidence that converseness generates ambiguous descriptions also with spatial prepositions such as in front of, behind, on the left and to the right. Finally Experiment 9 and 10 show that for proximity terms such as near and far informativeness is not that relevant, but rather it seems that people simply use contextual information to set a scale for their judgments

Information and Experience in Metaphor: A Perspective From Computer Analysis

Novel linguistic metaphor can be seen as the assignment of attributes to a topic through a vehicle belonging to another domain. The experience evoked by the vehicle is a significant aspect of the meaning of the metaphor, especially for abstract metaphor, which involves more than mere physical similarity. In this article I indicate, through description of a specific model, some possibilities as well as limitations of computer processing directed toward both informative and experiential/affective aspects of metaphor. A background to the discussion is given by other computational treatments of metaphor analysis, as well as by some questions about metaphor originating in other disciplines. The approach on which the present metaphor analysis model is based is consistent with a theory of language comprehension that includes both the intent of the originator and the effect on the recipient of the metaphor. The model addresses the dual problem of (a) determining potentially salient properties of the vehicle concept, and (b) defining extensible symbolic representations of such properties, including affective and other connotations. The nature of the linguistic analysis underlying the model suggests how metaphoric expression of experiential components in abstract metaphor is dependent on the nominalization of actions and attributes. The inverse process of undoing such nominalizations in computer analysis of metaphor constitutes a translation of a metaphor to a more literal expression within the metaphor-nonmetaphor dichotomy