Speaker
Prof.
Max Louwerse
(Tilburg University)
Description
Over the last decade the cognitive sciences have strongly advocated an embodied view on cognition. Despite the empirical evidence favoring perceptual simulation in language processing, the conclusions drawn from this evidence often suggest perceptual simulation being the only explanation for conceptual processing. This talk demonstrates that language statistics should not be dismissed in a unified account of cognition. For many findings in the embodied cognition literature attributed to perceptual simulation, language statistics are in fact better predictors, depending on the cognitive task, the nature of the stimulus, individual differences and the time course of processing.
