Flexible recruitment of semantic richness: context modulates body-object interaction effects in lexical-semantic processing

Cody Tousignant,Penny M Pexman

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00053

Abstract

Body-object interaction (BOI) is a semantic richness variable that measures the perceived ease with which the human body can physically interact with a word's referent. Lexical and semantic processing is facilitated when words are associated with relatively more bodily experience. To date, BOI effects have only been examined in the context of one semantic categorization task (SCT; is it imageable?). It has been argued that semantic processing is dynamic and can be modulated by context. We examined these influences by testing how task knowledge modulated BOI effects. Participants discriminated between the same sets of entity (high- and low-BOI) and action words in each of four SCTs. Task framing was manipulated: participants were told about one (is it an action? vs. is it an entity?) or both (action or entity? vs. entity or action?) categories of words in the decision task. Facilitatory BOI effects were only observed when participants knew that “entity” was part of the decision category. That BOI information was only useful when participants had expectations that entity words would be presented suggests a strong role for the decision context in lexical-semantic processing, and supports a dynamic view of conceptual knowledge.

Highlights

Body-object interaction (BOI) is a semantic richness variable that measures the perceived ease with which the human body can physically interact with a word’s referent
The study of semantic richness effects has provided valuable insight into the process by which meaning is derived from words
As a counterpoint to semantic richness variables such as imageability which focus on sensory experience, Siakaluk and colleagues were interested in the extent to which subjects’ motor interactions with a word’s referent affected lexical-semantic processing

Summary

Introduction

Body-object interaction (BOI) is a semantic richness variable that measures the perceived ease with which the human body can physically interact with a word’s referent. As a counterpoint to semantic richness variables such as imageability which focus on sensory experience, Siakaluk and colleagues were interested in the extent to which subjects’ motor interactions with a word’s referent affected lexical-semantic processing To this end, Siakaluk et al (2008a) collected body-object interaction (BOI) ratings for a series of words by having participants rate how they could interact with each word’s referent. It has been argued that the process of generating word meaning is at least to some degree context dependent (e.g., Barsalou, 1982), such that context determines the particular features activated (Hoenig et al, 2008; Kiefer and Pulvermüller, 2012) This distinction is present in more recent theories, with some proposing stable conceptual representations (e.g., Caramazza and Mahon, 2003) and others proposing more flexibility (e.g., Barsalou, 2008).

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