Abstract
Various studies have provided evidence that people activate
introspective simulations when making valence judgments.
Such evidence is in line with an embodied cognition account
that argues that cognition is fundamentally embodied, with
perceptual simulation rather than language statistics being the
source of lexical semantics. Recently, demonstrations that
conceptual knowledge is encoded in language have been
used to argue that semantic processing involves both
language statistics and perceptual simulation, with linguistic
cues allowing meaning to be bootstrapped with minimal
symbol grounding. Whether language also encodes attitudes
towards concepts is unclear. In three studies, negative-valence
words were found to be more closely associated in language
with individuals commonly considered villains, and positivevalence
words with heroes (both fictional and historical).
These results suggest that attitudes toward persons can be
inferred from lexical associations.
introspective simulations when making valence judgments.
Such evidence is in line with an embodied cognition account
that argues that cognition is fundamentally embodied, with
perceptual simulation rather than language statistics being the
source of lexical semantics. Recently, demonstrations that
conceptual knowledge is encoded in language have been
used to argue that semantic processing involves both
language statistics and perceptual simulation, with linguistic
cues allowing meaning to be bootstrapped with minimal
symbol grounding. Whether language also encodes attitudes
towards concepts is unclear. In three studies, negative-valence
words were found to be more closely associated in language
with individuals commonly considered villains, and positivevalence
words with heroes (both fictional and historical).
These results suggest that attitudes toward persons can be
inferred from lexical associations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. |
| Publisher | Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society |
| Pages | 1264-1269 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
| Event | CogSci 2014 - Québec City, Canada Duration: 23 Jul 2014 → 26 Jul 2014 |
Conference
| Conference | CogSci 2014 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Canada |
| City | Québec City |
| Period | 23/07/14 → 26/07/14 |