The Effect of an Extra Object on the Apprehension of Projective Spatial Terms

A sentence describing a spatial relationship includes at least two objects: a located object and a reference object. However, when we indicate a located object with respect to a reference object using a spatial term, the scene usually contains extra objects that may look like the located or reference object in some cases. What role do such extra objects play on the apprehension of spatial terms? In this study, we examined whether the presence of an extra object like a located object changed the overall acceptability distribution of a projective spatial term in a given space. We conducted Experiment 1 with the acceptability-rating judgment similar to the task used in previous studies (Hayward & Tarr, 1995; Logan & Sadler, 1996). Then, Experiment 2 examined whether the presence of the extra object changed the acceptability distribution using the paired comparison method.