One emerging view in cognitive science is that language understanding is fundamentally grounded in perception. In this view, mental simulation or mental imagery serves as the basic substrate through which people represent and process linguistic meaning. However, such theories can only have explanatory power if there is a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underlying mental simulation and mental imagery. If mental imagery proves to be just as mysterious as language understanding, then there is little use in trying to explain one in terms of the other. In the present work, Dr. Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University explores the nature of mental imagery and the relationships between language understanding, mental imagery and perception. The studies examine whether imagined, inferred and real motion show the same motion aftereffect properties in response to changes in perceptual contrast, motion speed, motion type, and frame of reference. Dr. Boroditsky will also explore whether motion imagery is affected by cultural differences in how specific languages represent space. For example, residents of Pormpuraaw, a remote aboriginal community on the west coast of Cape York in Australia, organize space according to cardinal directions (as in "there is an ant on your North-West leg"). This raises the possibility that people who have learned different default ways of organizing space in their language or culture may be imagining motion in different sets of spatial coordinates.
This research has the potential to draw important connections between cognition and perception, two areas that are often viewed as separate. If the characteristics of one's language fundamentally affect perception, this has broad implications for understanding mathematics, which is known to be strongly related to spatial cognition. Effective teaching methods for learners in different cultures should be sensitive to, or exploit, how language structures perception.
