Modality Switching Costs Emerge in Concept Creation as Well as Retrieval

Louise Connell, Dermot Lynott

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Theories of embodied cognition hold that the conceptual system uses perceptual simulations for the purposes of representation. A strong prediction is that perceptual phenomena should emerge in conceptual processing, and, in support, previous research has shown that switching modalities from one trial to the next incurs a processing cost during conceptual tasks. However, to date, such research has been limited by its reliance on the retrieval of familiar concepts. We therefore examined concept creation by asking participants to interpret modality-specific compound phrases (i.e., conceptual combinations). Results show that modality switching costs emerge during the creation of new conceptual entities: People are slower to simulate a novel concept (e.g., auditory jingling onion) when their attention has already been engaged by a different modality in simulating a familiar concept (e.g., visual shiny penny). Furthermore, these costs cannot be accounted for by linguistic factors alone. Rather, our findings support the embodied view that concept creation, as well as retrieval, requires situated perceptual simulation. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)763-778
Number of pages15
JournalCognitive Science
Volume35
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2011

Keywords

  • Concepts
  • Conceptual combination
  • Embodied cognition
  • Modality switching
  • Perceptual simulation
  • Representation

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