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ABSTRACT
To what extent is predicting language akin to imagining language? Recently, researchers have argued that covert simulation of the production system underlies both articulation imagery and predicting what somebody is about to say. Moreover, experimental evidence implicates potentially similar production-related mechanisms in prediction during language comprehension and in mental imagery tasks. We discuss evidence in favour of this proposal and argue that imagining others’ utterances can also implicate covert simulation. Finally, we briefly review evidence that speakers in joint language tasks cannot help but mentally represent (i.e., imagine) whether others are engaging in language production, and that they do so using mechanisms that are also implicated in preparing to speak.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. We use imagination and imagery interchangeably. Our usage contrasts with accounts in which imagination includes forms of creative thinking and imagery refers only to quasi-perceptual experiences (e.g. Thomas, Citation1999).
2. There is no direct parallel between Tian and Poeppel's (Citation2012) somatosensory forward model and Pickering and Garrod's (Citation2013) forward production model; crucially, Pickering and Garrod's forward production model maps the speaker's intention to production representations, which are not sensory in nature.
3. It may be possible to partly anthropomorphise the behaviour of non-intentional objects by making use of simulation, especially if they mimic intentional agents (e.g. a speech dialogue system that interacts in human-like manner).