Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2017
Journal / Book Title
Cognitive Science
Abstract
Previous studies have shown a robust bias to express the goal path over the source path when describing events (“the bird flew into the pitcher,” rather than “… out of the bucket into the pitcher”). Motivated by linguistic theory, this study manipulated the causal structure of events (specifically, making the source cause the motion of the figure) and measured the extent to which adults and 3.5- to 4-year-old English-speaking children included the goal and source in their descriptions. We found that both children's and adults’ encoding of the source increased for events in which the source caused the motion of the figure compared to nearly identical events in which the source played no such causal role. However, a goal bias persisted overall for both causal and noncausal motion events. These findings suggest that although the goal bias in language is highly robust, properties of the source (such as causal agency) influence its likelihood of being encoded in language, thus shedding light on how properties of an event can influence the mapping of event components into language.
DOI
10.1111/cogs.12376
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Lakusta, Laura; Muentener, Paul; Petrillo, Lauren; Mullanaphy, Noelle; and Muniz, Lauren, "Does Making Something Move Matter? Representations of Goals and Sources in Motion Events with Causal Sources" (2017). Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 185.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/psychology-facpubs/185
Published Citation
Lakusta, L., Muentener, P., Petrillo, L., Mullanaphy, N., & Muniz, L. (2017). Does making something move matter? Representations of goals and sources in motion events with causal sources. Cognitive Science, 41(3), 814-826.