Visual motion aftereffect from understanding motion language.
Do people spontaneously form visual mental images when understanding language, and if so, how truly visual are these representations? We test whether processing linguistic descriptions of motion produces sufficiently vivid mental images to cause direction-selective motion adaptation in the visual system (i.e., cause a motion aftereffect illusion). We tested for motion aftereffects (MAEs) following explicit motion imagery, and after processing literal or metaphorical motion language (without instructions to imagine). Intentionally imagining motion produced reliable MAEs. The aftereffect from processing motion language gained strength as people heard more and more of a story (participants heard motion stories in four installments, with a test after each). For the last two story installments, motion language produced reliable MAEs across participants. Individuals differed in how early in the story this effect appeared, and this difference was predicted by the strength of an individual's MAE from imagining motion. Strong imagers (participants who showed the largest MAEs from imagining motion) were more likely to show an MAE in the course of understanding motion language than were weak imagers. The results demonstrate that processing language can spontaneously create sufficiently vivid mental images to produce direction-selective adaptation in the visual system. The timecourse of adaptation suggests that individuals may differ in how efficiently they recruit visual mechanisms in the service of language understanding. Further, the results reveal an intriguing link between the vividness of mental imagery and the nature of the processes and representations involved in language understanding.
Dils
Alexia Toskos
AT
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. atoskos@stanford.edu
Boroditsky
Lera
L
D006801:Humans; D009038:Motion; D014796:Visual Perception
Psychol Sci. 2002 Mar;13(2):168-71
11934002
Cereb Cortex. 2009 Aug;19(8):1905-14
19068489
Mem Cognit. 2005 Jun;33(4):710-26
16248335
Psychon Bull Rev. 2002 Sep;9(3):558-65
12412897
J Neurosci. 2009 May 20;29(20):6490-9
19458220
Cogn Sci. 2007 Sep 10;31(5):733-64
21635316
Nature. 2008 Jun 12;453(7197):869-78
18548064
Vision Res. 1993 Jul;33(11):1589-92
8351831
Psychol Res. 2001 Nov;65(4):235-41
11789427
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1992 Oct 1;89(19):9025-8
1409598
Psychol Sci. 2001 Mar;12(2):153-6
11340925
Psychol Sci. 2007 Nov;18(11):1007-13
17958716
Behav Brain Sci. 1999 Aug;22(4):577-609; discussion 610-60
11301525
Cognition. 2010 Feb;114(2):276-84
19853246
Eur J Neurosci. 1998 May;10(5):1563-73
9751129
J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Nov;22(11):2480-90
19925197
Vision Res. 2001;41(10-11):1475-82
11322987
Percept Psychophys. 1989 Mar;45(3):251-7
2710623
Mem Cognit. 2000 Dec;28(8):1310-20
11219959
Psychol Sci. 2008 Mar;19(3):276-83
18315801
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1997 May;23(3):622-37
9165708