Sentence-based mental simulations: Evidence from behavioral experiments using garden-path sentences

Abstract

Language comprehenders activate mental representations of sensorimotor experiences related to the content of utterances they process. However, it is still unclear whether these sensorimotor simulations are driven by associations with words or by a more complex process of meaning composition into larger linguistic expressions, such as sentences. In two experiments, we investigated whether comprehenders indeed create sentence-based simulations. Materials were constructed such that simulation effects could only emerge from sentence meaning and not from word-based associations alone. We additionally asked when during sentence processing these simulations are constructed, using a garden-path paradigm. Participants read either a garden-path sentence (e.g., “As Mary ate the egg was in the fridge”) or a corresponding unambiguous control with the same meaning and words (e.g., “The egg was in the fridge as Mary ate”). Participants then judged whether a depicted entity was mentioned in the sentence or not. In both experiments, picture response times were faster when the picture was compatible (vs. incompatible) with the sentence-based interpretation of the target entity (e.g., both for garden-path and control sentence: an unpeeled egg), suggesting that participants created simulations based on the sentence content and only operating over the sentence as a whole.