Ling 423/640G: Cognitive Linguistics 

Ben Bergen

 

Meeting 8: Mental simulation

September 18, 2008

 

Mental simulation

á          Mental simulation: the internal creation or recreation of perceptual and motor experiences, in the absence of their external correlates.

o    Perceptual imagery (imagine a bright red elephant, or screeching car tires)

o    Motor imagery (imagine turning the doorknob to your front door)

o    Emotional imagery (imagine what it would feel like to walk on stage to get your diploma)

á          Mental simulation uses parts of the brain that overlap with the parts you use to actually perceive the percepts or perform the actions.

á          Thus, mental simulation interferes with actual perception and action

á          Mental simulation also helps prepare for action - mentally practicing motor routines improves physical performance (as professional athletes know)

á          People perform mental simulation automatically

o    When preparing to act or perceive

o    When observing other people performing actions

o    When asked to imagine percepts or actions

o    When recalling percepts or actions

á          And relevant to us, people mentally simulate when producing or understanding language - they simulate what it would be like to perform or perceive described actions or percepts.

 

Word meaning is therefore at the same time simpler and more complex than dictionary entries.

 

For one, word meanings aren't exhaustive lists of everything that a word could mean

á          Linguistic units, like words, clause patters, and grammatical markers, serve to cue characteristics of this simulation.

á          That means that they don't have to include lots of semantic detail, articulated in symbolic terms (like features, or whatever)

á          Instead, they are basically pointers to the neural circuits that get activated when experiencing the relevant perceptual and motor patterns (and reactivated during simulation)

 

But at the same time, word meaning does a lot more than previously thought

á          Words link to perceptual and motor systems.

á          So when you hear a word, it activates the rich simulations associated with the concept or concepts it denotes

á          And a sequence of words, arranged in some way, tells you how to combine their associated simulation content into a unified mental construct. (This is one thing grammar is for.)