Acquiring Experiential Traces 1 Running Head: Acquiring Experiential Traces Acquiring Experiential Traces in Word-referent Learning

National Institute of Mental Health grant MH-63972, and NSF grant BCS-0446637. We would like to thank Malte Elson, Christopher Morris, and Helena Yardley for their help in collecting data. Acquiring experiential traces 2 Abstract Two experiments investigated the activation of perceptual representations of referent objects during word processing. In both experiments, participants learned to associate pictures of novel three-dimensional objects with pseudowords. They subsequently performed a recognition task (Experiment 1) or a naming task (Experiment 2) on the object names while being primed with different types of visual stimuli. Only stimuli that participants had encountered as referent objects during the training phase facilitated recognition or naming responses. New stimuli did not facilitate processing of object names, even if they matched a schematic or prototypical representation of the referent object that participants might have abstracted during word-referent learning. These results suggest that words learned by way of examples of referent objects are associated with experiential traces of encounters with these objects. Key words: Embodied cognition – experiential traces – language comprehension – schemata – word-referent learning. Acquiring experiential traces 3 Acquiring experiential traces in word-referent learning Experiential theories of language comprehension claim that the representations involved in language comprehension are of the same kind as the representations involved in sensory experiences, perceptions, and actions (e. In support of this assumption, a large number of studies have demonstrated that different types of modal representations are indeed activated while comprehenders process words, sentences, or larger segments of text (for an overview, see Zwaan, 2004). Various researchers have proposed that both linguistic constructions such as words and mental representations of objects, people, and events are multimodal mental representations (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Zwaan, 2004). For example, the word " cat " is associated with auditory and visual representations (of the spoken and written versions of the word, respectively), but also with various motor representations (e.g., of how to say, write, or type the word) and in some individuals with tactile representations (braille). Likewise, we have visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile (e.g., what a cat's fur feels like), and motor (how to pet or pick up a cat) representations of interacting with cats. The basic tenet of experiential theories is that these latter representations resonate with the activation of the word. Important questions involve the nature of these word-referent associations and how they are acquired. Pulvermüller (1999) suggests that these associations are formed as a function of …