Stormy Seas and Cloudy Skies: Conceptual Processing is (Still) Linguistic and Perceptual

(e.g., falcon and dolphin) and spatial position (high or low) that is reported in several studies (Zwaan and Yaxley, 2003; Meier and Robinson, 2004; Šetić and Domijan, 2007). The first explanation is that readers understand concept by perceptual simulation. We “hear” the dolphin and see it swimming in the ocean. The second explanation for the processing advantage between congruency of meaning (ocean animal) and position (high or low) is that congruency effects lie in a response selection process rather than in meaning representation (Proctor and Cho, 2006). The response selection process Pecher et al. (2010) rule out as an explanation for the congruency effects (but see Lakens, 2011). This leaves only one of the two explanations for the congruency between word meaning and spatial position: perceptual simulations. Since Pecher et al. (2010) give no alternative explanations, we can infer perceptual simulations to be the best explanation for conceptual processing. And that is where Lakens (2011) criticism becomes relevant: what about linguistic processes? Pecher et al. (2010) attribute the interaction between word meaning and spatial position solely to perceptual simulations. One study that also investigated this interaction, and a study Pecher et al. (2010) refer to, is Zwaan and Yaxley (2003). They used word pairs such as attic-basement, and presented these words in a vertical configuration, attic above basement or basement above attic. Response times were faster when the word pair matched the configuration of their referents, than when they did not. When the word pairs were presented in a horizontal configuration the effect disappeared. As with Pecher et al. (2010), Zwaan and Yaxley (2003) concluded that participants must therefore have perceptually simulated the meaning of the words. Louwerse (2008) replicated Zwaan and Yaxley’s (2003) findings. In that study two predictions were made. First, perceptual Stormy seas and cloudy skies: conceptual processing is (still) linguistic and perceptual