2015/06/18 by Rolf A. Zwaan · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Categorization, perception, and language #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · pdf · doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0864-x
openalex publication_date 2015/06/18 · crossref created 2015/06/18 · crossref issued 2015/06/19 · crossref published 2015/06/19 · crossref published-online 2015/06/19 · crossref published-print 2016/08/01 · crossref deposited 2019/02/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30
This article sets out to examine the role of symbolic and sensorimotor representations in discourse comprehension. It starts out with a review of the literature on situation models, showing how mental representations are constrained by linguistic and situational factors. These ideas are then extended to more explicitly include sensorimotor representations. Following Zwaan and Madden (2005), the author argues that sensorimotor and symbolic representations mutually constrain each other in discourse comprehension. These ideas are then developed further to propose two roles for abstract concepts in discourse comprehension. It is argued that they serve as pointers in memory, used (1) cataphorically to integrate upcoming information into a sensorimotor simulation, or (2) anaphorically integrate previously presented information into a sensorimotor simulation. In either case, the sensorimotor representation is a specific instantiation of the abstract concept.