Encoding direction when interpreting proximal terms

Abstract

The location of an object is often described by spatially relating it to a known landmark. The spatial terms used in such descriptions can provide various types of information. For example, projective terms such as above indicate direction but not distance, whereas proximal terms such as near indicate distance but not direction. Previous research has demonstrated that information not explicitly specified by projective prepositions (i.e., distance) is also encoded during the interpretation of these terms. Using a sentence-picture verification task, we examined whether direction is similarly encoded during the apprehension of proximal terms, examining both spatial prepositions (e.g., near) and motion verbs (e.g., approach). Results suggest that interpreting proximal terms involves encoding direction when such information facilitates locating the target.

Acknowledgements

Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association (May, 2005), and the annual meeting of the Psychonomics Society (November, 2005).

Notes

¹Logan and Sadler (1996) originally labelled this parameter scale. However, as Carlson and van Deman (2004) point out, the more general label of distance may be more appropriate because it does not carry the additional assumption that the distance be parsed into equally spaced increments. Hence, we refer to this parameter as distance in the current paper.

²Participants also provided the direction and distance responses for the verbs attract, repel, advance, retreat, ascend, descend.