Abstract
In three experiments, we evaluated the hypothesis that subjects align spatial aspects of properties during conceptual combination. The results show that subjects align spatial aspects of the modifier with those of the head noun in producing the referent of a combination (Experiments 1 and 3) and in choosing among possible referents of a combination (Experiment 2). These findings show that people do not rely solely on their general world knowledge in mapping a property of the modifier onto the combination. Other results showed that subjects prefer and produce referents based on differences that researchers would classify as nonalignable. This result is not predicted by current theories of alignment which emphasize the psychological importance of alignable differences. We discuss the implications of our results for current views of alignment and conceptual combination.
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