Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2012
Journal / Book Title
Cognitive science
Abstract
When people describe motion events, their path expressions are biased toward inclusion of goal paths (e.g., into the house) and omission of source paths (e.g., out of the house). In this paper, we explored whether this asymmetry has its origins in people's non-linguistic representations of events. In three experiments, 4-year-old children and adults described or remembered manner of motion events that represented animate/intentional and physical events. The results suggest that the linguistic asymmetry between goals and sources is not fully rooted in non-linguistic event representations: linguistic descriptions showed the goal bias for both kinds of events, whereas non-linguistic memory for events showed the goal bias only for events involving animate, goal-directed motion. The findings are discussed in terms of the mapping between non-linguistic representations of goals and sources in language, focusing on the role that linguistic principles play in producing a more absolute goal bias from more gradient non-linguistic representations of paths.
DOI
10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01220.x
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Lakusta, Laura and Landau, Barbara, "Language and Memory for Motion Events: Origins of the Asymmetry Between Source and Goal Paths" (2012). Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 304.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/psychology-facpubs/304
Published Citation
Lakusta, L., & Landau, B. (2012). Language and memory for motion events: Origins of the asymmetry between source and goal paths. Cognitive science, 36(3), 517-544.