Do eye movements go with fictive motion?

Cognitive scientists interested in the link between language and visual experience have shown that linguistic input influences eye movements. Research in this area, however, tends to focus on literal language alone. In the current study, we investigate whether figurative language influences eye movements. In our experiment, participants viewed two-dimensional depictions of static spatial scenes while they heard either fictive motion sentences, such as The palm trees run along the highway, or non-fictive motion sentences, such as The palm trees are next to the highway. Overall, sentence type influenced participants’ eye movements. Specifically, gaze duration on the figure (e.g., palm trees) was longer with fictive motion sentences than with nonfictive motion sentences. Our results demonstrate that figurative language influences visual experience. They provide further evidence that fictive motion processing includes mentally simulated motion.