Bite the Hand that Bores You

Science Sunday! I’m going to occasionally toss things I’m reading up here. Stupid language tricks, or things that are in line with my own research. Enjoy.

Today’s is the latter; this is related to things I’d like to work further on. In this paper, T. Matlock demonstrates effects consistent with readers simulating actual motion to understand descriptions of fictive motion.

Fictive motion is shown in sentences like ‘A line of trees runs along the driveway’, where nothing is actually running.

Longer paths, or ones that cross more difficult terrain or greater distance, take longer to comprehend, even controlled for the number of words or complexity of description.

This may seem obvious - but it runs counter to the usual assumptions of most of the field, which thinks of your brain as much like a dictionary, where senses of words are ‘looked up’ when you hear them, so it’s a really nice result.

Sentences such as ‘The road runs through the valley’ and ‘The mountain range goes from Canada to Mexico’ include a motion verb but express no explicit motion or state change. It is argued that these sentences involve fictive motion, an implicit type of motion. But do people trying to understand these sentences mentally simulate motion?

This question was addressed in four experiments. In each, participants read a story about travel-for instance, fast versus slow, short versus long distance, and easy versus difficult terrain-and then made a timed decision about a fictive motion sentence. Overall, latencies were shorter after they had read about fast travel, short distances, and easy terrains. Critically, the effect did not arise with nonfictive motion target sentences (e.g., The road is in the valley).

• Matlock, Teenie (2004), ‘Fictive motion as cognitive simulation‘, Memory & Cognition, 32 (8), 1389-400.

I just used the word ‘grok’ in a sentence to a German colleague. Realising my mistake and preempting the question, I said, “Sorry, ‘grok’ is a word meaning ‘to understand deeply’. It’s not in the dictionary, it was coined by an American science fiction writer in the seventies.”

Then I idly hit apple-space and typed ‘grok’, and

grok |grɑk|
verb ( grokked, grokking)

[ trans. ] informal - understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.

[ intrans. ] empathize or communicate sympathetically; establish a rapport.

ORIGIN mid 20th cent.: a word coined by Robert Heinlein (1907–88), American science fiction writer, in Stranger in a Strange Land.

Neologism in action!

A squib is a short paper that introduces data in a linguistic topic. It may make some sketches toward analysis, but usually demonstrates an unusual or interesting wrinkle and shows how it may be worthwhile or interesting to explain.

Slow Children Playing is one I wrote last semester; it’s on the semantic and syntactic ambiguities of street signs.

Here’s one. Not as exciting as you might guess: gender climbing