Abstract
Research suggests that language comprehenders simulate visual features such as shape during language comprehension. In sentence-picture verification tasks, whenever pictures match the shape or orientation implied by the previous sentence, responses are faster than when the pictures mismatch implied visual aspects. However, mixed results have been demonstrated when the sentence-picture paradigm was applied to color (Connell, Cognition, 102(3), 476–485, 2007; Zwaan & Pecher, PLOS ONE, 7(12), e51382, 2012). One of the aims of the current investigation was to resolve this issue. This was accomplished by conceptually replicating the original study on color, using the same paradigm but a different stimulus set. The second goal of this study was to assess how much perceptual information is included in a mental simulation. We examined this by reducing color saturation, a manipulation that does not sacrifice object identifiability. If reduction of one aspect of color does not alter the match effect, it would suggest that not all perceptual information is relevant for a mental simulation. Our results did not support this: We found a match advantage when objects were shown at normal levels of saturation, but this match advantage disappeared when saturation was reduced, yet still aided in object recognition compared to when color was entirely removed. Taken together, these results clearly show a strong match effect for color, and the perceptual richness of mental simulations during language comprehension.
Highlights
Research suggests that language comprehenders simulate visual features such as shape during language comprehension
This match advantage has been found for visual aspects such as shape (Zwaan, Stanfield, & Yaxley, 2002), visibility (Yaxley & Zwaan, 2006), and motion (Zwaan, Madden, Yaxley, & Aveyard, 2004); has been found for children (Engelen, Bouwmeester, de Bruin, & Zwaan, 2011) as well as for the elderly population (Dijkstra, Yaxley, Madden, & Zwaan, 2004); that spoken words rapidly activate visual representations that affect our ability to recognize objects (Ostarek & Huettig, 2017); and the shape of an object becomes activated during encoding, and not during retrieval (Zeng, Zheng, & Mo, 2016)
Another study appeared to support a match advantage for color, as reading words in a color matching the color implied by a previous sentence (e.g., Joe was excited to see a bear at the North Pole) facilitated reading times (Connell & Lynott, 2009)
Summary
Research suggests that language comprehenders simulate visual features such as shape during language comprehension. The study showed that when the implied orientation matches the orientation of the object shown in an object-verification task, that reaction times are shorter than when they mismatch, suggesting that we create mental simulations during sentence comprehension. Another study appeared to support a match advantage for color, as reading words in a color (e.g., white ink) matching the color implied by a previous sentence (e.g., Joe was excited to see a bear at the North Pole) facilitated reading times (Connell & Lynott, 2009) These contradictory findings in studies examining color as part of mental simulations prompt further questions into how we process color during language comprehension and how much sensory information we include in these simulations. One possibility is that color is an unstable visual feature in mental simulations, as the color of an object can change without eliminating the ability to recognize the object, and may play a less present role in mental simulations
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