Incremental Simulation Effects in Sentence Comprehension

According to the experiential-simulations view of language comprehension (Zwaan and Madden, 2005), we comprehend the meaning of words by re-activating sensorimotor experiences that are associated with the word's referent. In the case of sentences it is assumed that the activated sensorimotor experiences are combined to yield a simulation that is consistent with the sentence meaning. In the current research, we focused on the question whether these simulations are created incrementally. We presented participants with garden-path sentences (e.g., "While Eve walked the dog lay on the ground.") and unambiguous control sentences (e.g., "The dog lay on the ground while Eve walked."). Typically, comprehenders interpret the first verb of the garden-path sentences as being transitive and have to re-analyze the sentence when reaching the second verb.  We wanted to figure out whether there are simulation effects reflecting the initial interpretation. In each experimental trial, our participants read either a garden-path sentence or a control sentence. In Experiment 1 and 2, they subsequently saw a picture of the target entity matching either the initial or the final interpretation during garden-path processing (e.g., a walking vs. a lying dog). The task was to judge whether the depicted entity was mentioned in the sentence or not (there were filler trials demanding a "no" response). In Experiment 3, both picture versions were shown simultaneously. The participants had to decide which of the two pictures better matched with the sentence.