Copyright 2002 Psychonomic Society, Inc. 558

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review2002, 9 (3), 558-565

How language conveys meaning remains an open ques-tion. The dominant approach is to treat language as a sym-bol manipulation system: Language conveys meaning byusing abstract, amodal, and arbitrary symbols (i.e., words)combined by syntactic rules (e.g., Burgess & Lund, 1997;Chomsky, 1980; Fodor, 2000; Kintsch, 1988; Pinker,1994). Words are abstract in that the same word, such aschair, is used for big chairs and little chairs, words areamodal in that the same word is used when chairs arespoken about or written about, and words are arbitrarilyrelated to their referents in that the phonemic and ortho-graphic characteristics of a word bear no relationship tothe physical or functional characteristics of the words ref-erent. An alternative view is that linguistic meaning isgrounded in bodily activity (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Fincher-Kiefer, 2001; Glenberg, 1997; Glenberg & Robertson,1999, 2000; Lakoff, 1987; McNeill, 1992; Stanfield &Zwaan, 2001). Here, we report a new phenomenon thatdiscriminates between these approaches. We demonstratethat merely comprehending a sentence that implies actionin one direction (e.g., Close the drawer implies actionaway from the body) interferes with real action in the op-posite direction (e.g., movement toward the body). Thesedata are consistent with the claim that language compre-hension is grounded in bodily action, and they are incon-sistent with abstract symbol theories of meaning.

Whereas some features of the linguistic signal appearto be consistent with the abstract symbol view (e.g., words

appear to work as abstract symbols), Harnads (1990)version of Searles (1980) Chinese Room argument pro-vides a compelling intuition as to why meaning cannot beconveyed solely by the syntactic relations among abstractsymbols. Harnad considers a person landing at an airportin a foreign country (perhaps China) whose language shedoes not speak. At her disposal is a dictionary writtensolely in that language. Upon disembarking, she sees a signwith a sentence in logograms, and she wishes to deter-mine the meaning of the sentence. She looks up the firstlogogram (an abstract symbol) in the dictionary, only tofind that its definition is given by its relations to addi-tional abstract symbols. To determine the meaning of thefirst symbol in the definition, she looks it up in the dic-tionary only to be faced with additional abstract symbols.No matter how many of these abstract symbols she relatesto one another, she is never going to determine the mean-ing of the sentence. The lesson is that the abstract symbolsof language must be grounded, or mapped, to the world ifthey are to convey meaning. But there are good reasonsfor believing that if one has only abstract symbols at onesdisposal, determination of the correct mapping is impos-sible (Lakoff, 1987).

In contrast to meaning as an abstract symbol system,consider the possibility that meaning is embodiedthatis, that it derives from the biomechanical nature of bodiesand perceptual systems (Glenberg, 1997; Lakoff, 1987).One such account is provided by the indexical hypothesis(IH), which proposes that meaning is based on action(Glenberg & Robertson, 1999, 2000). For example, con-sider how a situation (e.g., a room with a chair) could bemeaningful to an animal. By hypothesis, the meaning ofthe situation consists of the set of actions available to theanimal in the situation. The set of actions results frommeshing (i.e., smoothly integrating) affordances to accom-plish action-based goals. Affordances are potential inter-actions between bodies and objects (Gibson, 1979; Tucker& Ellis, 1998). Thus, a chair affords sitting for adult hu-

This work was partially supported by a University of Wisconsin VilasAssociate Award to the first author and a National Science FoundationGraduate Fellowship to the second author. We thank Sandra Japuntich,Michelle Lenzen, Adam Nelson, Erica Ramirez, and Donald Teague fortheir efforts in data collection and for their discussions about these re-sults. In addition, Immanual Barshi, Angel Fernandez, Will Langston,and Larry Shapiro helped us sharpen our ideas. Correspondence shouldbe addressed to A. M. Glenberg, Department of Psychology, Universityof Wisconsin, 1202 West Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706 (e-mail:glenberg@facstaff.wisc.edu).

Grounding language in action

ARTHUR M. GLENBERG and MICHAEL P. KASCHAKUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

We report a new phenomenon associated with language comprehension: the actionsentence com-patibility effect (ACE). Participants judged whether sentences were sensible by making a response thatrequired moving toward or away from their bodies. When a sentence implied action in one direction (e.g.,Close the drawer implies action away from the body), the participants had difficulty making a sensi-bility judgment requiring a response in the opposite direction. The ACE was demonstrated for three sen-tences types: imperative sentences, sentences describing the transfer of concrete objects, and sentencesdescribing the transfer of abstract entities, such as Liz told you the story. These data are inconsistentwith theories of language comprehension in which meaning is represented as a set of relations amongnodes. Instead, the data support an embodied theory of meaning that relates the meaning of sentencesto human action.

GROUNDING LANGUAGE IN ACTION 559

mans, but not for mice or elephants, who have the wrongsorts of bodies to sit in an ordinary chair. A chair also af-fords standing-on for the human. If the human has the goalof changing a light bulb in a ceiling fixture, the meaningof the situation arises from meshing the affordances of alight bulb (it can be held in the hand) with the affordancesof the chair (it can be stood on to raise the body) to ac-complish the goal of changing the bulb.

According to the IH, three processes transform wordsand syntax into an action-based meaning. First, wordsand phrases are indexed or mapped to perceptual symbols(Barsalou, 1999; Stanfield & Zwaan, 2001). Unlike ab-stract symbols, perceptual symbols are modal and non-arbitrary. They are based on the brain states underlyingthe perception of the referent. Second, affordances are de-rived from the perceptual symbols (Glenberg & Robert-son, 2000; Kaschak & Glenberg, 2000). Unlike the casewith arbitrary symbols, new affordances can be derivedfrom perceptual symbols because perceptual symbols arenot arbitrarily related to their referents. For example, onecan judge that the sentence, Hang the coat on the uprightvacuum cleaner is sensible, because one can derive fromthe perceptual symbol of the vacuum cleaner the affor-dances that allow it to be used as a coat rack. Similarly,one can judge that the sentence Hang the coat on the up-right cup is not sensible in most contexts, because cupsdo not usually have the proper affordances to serve ascoat racks. Note that neither of these judgments could bebased on explicit previous learning (unless you had triedto hang a coat on a cup and you failed), nor could they bebased on abstract symbols; because abstract symbols arearbitrarily related to their referents, one cannot derivenew affordances from them.

The third process specified by the IH is that affordancesare meshed under the guidance of syntactic constructions(Kaschak & Glenberg, 2000). As will be described ingreater detail later, the grammatical form of the sentencedirects a cognitive simulation that combines, for exam-ple, the affordances of an upright vacuum cleaner and ofa coat to accomplish the goal of hanging up the coat. Ifthe meshed set of affordances corresponds to a doable ac-tion, the utterance is understood. If the affordances do notmesh in a way that can guide action (e.g., how could onehang a coat on a cup?), understanding is incomplete, orthe sentence is judged nonsensical, even though all of thewords and syntactic relations may be commonplace. Inshort, the IH proposes that language is made meaningfulby cognitively simulating the actions implied by sen-tences. The experiments that will be reported next weredesigned to provide convincing evidence for this claimby demonstrating that the actions implied by a sentencecan interfere with real action.

EXPERIMENT 1

Participants were presented with a series of sensible andnonsense sentences, and they were asked to determine asquickly as possible whether each sentence made sense. One

independent variable, implied sentence direction (toward/away), was manipulated for the sensible sentences. Thus,toward sentences, such as Open the drawer and Putyour finger under your nose, implied action toward thebody. Away sentences, such as Close the drawer andPut your finger under the faucet, implied action awayfrom the body. The nonsense sentences, such as Boil theair, did not seem to imply any direction. Note that theparticipants were never instructed to consider the implieddirection; their task was merely to judge sensibility. Theactual response direction (yes-is-near/yes-is-far) wasmanipulated by using a specially constructed button boxapproximately 28 3 18 3 6 cm. The box was held in thelap, with the longest dimension projecting outward fromthe body. Three critical response buttons were arrayed onthe top surface (two other buttons were nonfunctional),and they differed in distance from the body: near, middle,and far. Visual presentation of a sentence was initiatedby pressing the middle button with the index finger of theright hand. The sentence was displayed on a computermonitor until the middle button was released. In the yes-is-far condition, the participants responded that the sen-tence was sensible by moving from the middle button tothe far buttonthat is, they moved away from the bodyto respond yes. In this condition, the participants re-sponded no by moving from the middle button to the nearbutton. The yes-is-near condition had the reverse as-signment: The participants moved toward the body to re-spond yes. The major dependent variable was the time be-tween presentation of the sentence and release of themiddle button (to move to the near or the far button), cor-responding to the time to read and understand the sen-tence and to begin to make the sensibility response.

According to the IH, meaning is action-based: Under-standing a toward sentence requires meshing affordances(e.g., of a drawer and the action of opening), resulting ina simulation of actions toward the body, whereas under-standing an away sentence results in a simulation of ac-tions moving away from the body. If this simulation re-quires the same neural systems as the planning andguidance of real action, understanding a toward sentenceshould interfere with making a movement away from thebody to indicate yes (yes-is-far), and understanding anaway sentence should interfere with making a movementtoward the body (yes-is-near). Because we did not controlfor the fine details of the sentences (e.g., length, frequencyof words) or for any intrinsic differences in ease of re-sponse direction, the prediction was for a statistical inter-action between implied sentence direction and actual re-sponse direction. This interaction will be referred to asthe actionsentence compatibility effect (ACE).

We also manipulated the sentence type. Half of the 80sensible sentence pairs (i.e., 40 toward/away pairs) were inthe imperative, such as the examples above. The other halfof the sensible sentence pairs described a type of transfer.The concrete transfer pairs (20 toward/away pairs) de-scribed transfer of a physical object between you andanother person. Half of these used the double-object con-

560 GLENBERG AND KASCHAK

struction (e.g., Courtney handed you the notebook/Youhanded Courtney the notebook) and half used the dativeform (e.g., Andy delivered the pizza to you/You deliv-ered the pizza to Andy). The 20 abstract transfer pairsdescribed a nonphysical transfer, such as Liz told youthe story/You told Liz the story and The policeman ra-dioed the message to you/You radioed the message to thepoliceman.

MethodThe 44 right-handed, native English-speaking participants were

recruited from introductory psychology classes at the University ofWisconsin, Madison, and earned extra credit points for participation.Each participant judged the sensibility of 160 sentences, half ofwhich were intended to be sensible and half of which were intendedto be nonsense. Each participant was initially randomly assigned tothe yes-is-near or yes-is-far condition. Midway through the exper-iment, the participant was instructed to reverse the assignment of re-sponse to button and was given additional practice with the new as-signment. Of the sensible sentences, 40 were randomly chosen frompairs of toward /away imperative sentences, 20 were chosen frompairs of toward /away concrete transfer sentences, and 20 were cho-sen from pairs of toward /away abstract transfer sentences. For boththe concrete and the abstract transfer sentences, half were in thedouble-object form, and half were in the dative form. Forty of thenonsense sentences were in an imperative form but described actionsthat could not (except under some highly metaphorical readings)take place. The other 40 nonsense sentences were in double-objectand dative forms. Some examples are You gave the earring Susanand Joe sang the cards to you. The presentation of the 160 sen-tences was divided into 10 blocks of 16 sentences, in which eachblock contained a random mix of 8 nonsense sentences, 4 impera-tive sentences (2 toward and 2 away), 2 concrete transfer sentences(1 toward and 1 away), and 2 abstract transfer sentences (1 towardand 1 away).

ResultsAnalyses were conducted on the proportion of correct

judgments, as well as on the reading times (time between

presentation of the sentence and when the participant re-leased the middle button). To reduce practice effects, thefirst block of 16 trials was discarded for both the yes-is-near and the yes-is-far conditions. To reduce the effect ofoutliers, for each participant, for each of the 12 condi-tions (defined by combinations of two response direc-tions, two implied sentence directions, and three sentencetypes), both the fastest and the slowest reading times werediscarded. The mean of the remaining reading times is re-ferred to as the trimmed mean reading time. In addition,9 participants were eliminated because of failure to main-tain a constant error rate across conditionsthat is, thewithin-subjects range in their error rates was at least .5.(The results of the analyses were substantially the samewith and without these 9 participants.) A Type 1 error rateof .05 was adopted.

The data of major interest are illustrated in Figure 1.The interaction between response direction and impliedsentence directionthat is, the ACEis significant[F(1,34) 5 7.75, MSe 5 47,013]. Although the effectseems to be stronger for the two types of transfer sen-tences, as compared with the imperative sentences, thethree-factor interaction was not significant (F), 1).1This result confirms the prediction from the IH and is in-consistent with abstract symbol theories of meaning. Infact, the result is quite amazing: Merely understanding asentence can facilitate or interfere with a physical re-sponse.

There were several other significant effects in the analy-ses of the trimmed mean reading times. There was a largemain effect of sentence type [F(2,68) 5 72.41, MSe 5111,207], reflecting the fact that the shorter imperativesentences were read much faster than the longer transfersentences. There was also a significant interaction betweensentence direction and sentence type [F(2,68) 5 3.97,MSe5 63,887]. That is, the away sentences were read more

Figure 1. Data from Experiment 1 illustrating the actionsentence compatibility effect (that is, the interaction between implied sen-tence direction and actual response direction) for imperative sentences, concrete transfer sentences, and abstract transfer sentences.

GROUNDING LANGUAGE IN ACTION 561

quickly than the toward sentences for both the imperativeand the concrete transfer sentences, but the opposite heldfor the abstract transfer sentences.

DiscussionSeveral aspects of the results are notable. First, the ACE

is strong evidence that at least some language under-standing taps into an action-based system. Second, wehave demonstrated the ACE for multiple sentence con-structionsnamely, imperative sentences, double-objectsentences, and dative constructions. Third, the ACE isfound for sentences that describe concrete actions (theimperative and the concrete transfer sentences), as wellas for sentences that describe more abstract actions (theabstract transfer sentences). This finding is important forruling out an alternative explanation of the effect. Ac-cording to the IH, understanding a sentence calls uponthe same cognitive mechanisms as those used in plan-ning and taking action. Hence, when the implied direc-tion of the sentence contrasts with the actual responsedirection, there is interference. The alternative is that un-derstanding reflects the manipulation of abstract sym-bols. However, once a sentence is understood, sentencesthat imply action are translated into an action pattern,and it is this postunderstanding translation that interfereswith the response. This alternative can account for thedata from the imperative and concrete transfer sentences.These sentences either demand actions (imperatives) ordescribe actions (concrete transfer) that may be contraryto the actions needed to make the sensibility response.The alternative cannot account for the ACE observedwith the abstract transfer sentences. For these sentences,the actions required to effect the transfer (e.g., talking,singing, radioing) do not directly contrast with the ac-tions needed to make the response (moving the arm andhand to the yes button). Thus, even if there were a post-understanding translation into an action pattern, therewould be no reason to suspect that that pattern would in-terfere with the manual response.

EXPERIMENTS 2A AND 2B

Experiment 2A was designed to replicate and modestlyextend the major effects from Experiment 1. In Experi-ment 2A, the response direction variable was manipulatedbetween subjects. In addition, the participants respondedwith their left hands. Thus, we could determine whetherthe ACE reflects action-planning specific for the domi-nant hand in these right-handed subjects. Otherwise, theexperiment was substantially identical to Experiment 1.

Experiment 2B was designed to test a spatial locationalternative to the IH. Confounded with the actions requiredin the yes-is-near and yes-is-far conditions, however, waslocationof the yes response buttons: closer or farther fromthe body, respectively. In Experiment 2B, the participantin the yes-is-near or yes-is-far condition did not move thehand. Instead, the left index finger was poised over the yesbutton (either near to or far from the body), and the right

index finger was poised over the no button (either farfrom or near to the body). The prediction derived from theIH is that the ACE will be eliminated in this experimentbecause there is no relevant interfering action when theresponse is made.

MethodThere were 70 participants in Experiment 2A and 72 participants

in Experiment 2B from the same source as in Experiment 1. The par-ticipants were randomly assigned to Experiment 2A or 2B after re-porting to the laboratory. After signing a consent form, the partici-pants were instructed about the operation of the button box andpracticed the appropriate response method. As in Experiment 1, allthe participants judged 160 sentences, consisting of 10 blocks of 16sentences.

ResultsThe first block of 16 trials was treated as practice and

was discarded. No participant showed a range of errorrates greater than or equal to .5, and hence none was elim-inated. Trimmed mean reading times were computedfrom the remaining trials, and the data of most interestare presented in Figure 2 (for Experiment 2A) and Fig-ure 3 (for Experiment 2B).

Experiment 2A. The ACE interaction of implied sen-tence direction and actual response direction was signifi-cant [F(1,68)5 3.72, MSe5 91,069]. The only other sig-nificant finding for the reading times was a main effect ofsentence type [F(2,68) 5 191.71, MSe 5 46,871], indi-cating that the shorter imperative sentences were readmore quickly than the longer transfer sentences. Therewere two main effects in the analysis of error rates. First,there were fewer errors on the toward sentences (4%) thanon the away sentences [7%; F(1,68) 5 6.99, MSe 576.87]. Second, there were fewer errors for the imperativesentences (4%) than for the concrete (6.5%) or the abstract(7%) transfer sentences [F(2,136)5 10.99, MSe5 38.87].

Experiment 2B. There was very little evidence for anACE interaction [F(1,70)5 0.20, MSe5 43,935]. Thus,the contrast between the results of Experiments 2A and2B indicate that the interference arises from action, ratherthan from the spatial location of the response buttons.

Several other effects were significant in the analysis oftrimmed mean reading times and error rates. For the read-ing times, there was a main effect of implied sentence di-rection, in that toward sentences (trimmed mean readingtime of 1,742 msec) were read faster than away sentences[1,800 msec; F(1,70) 5 8.27, MSe 5 43,935]. Also, theimperative sentences were read much faster than thelonger transfer sentences [F(2,140) 5 425.66, MSe 525,902]. Finally, there was a significant interaction of sen-tence direction and sentence type [F(2,140) 5 3.88,MSe 5 23,299]. There were corresponding effects in theerror rates that were positively correlated with the readingtimes, precluding speedaccuracy tradeoffs. There was amain effect of implied sentence direction in that therewere fewer errors on toward sentences (6%) than on awaysentences [7%; F(1,70)5 3.65, MSe5 39.64]. There wasa main effect of sentence type, so that there were fewer er-

562 GLENBERG AND KASCHAK

rors on the imperative sentences (5%) than on the concrete(7%) or the abstract (7%) transfer sentences [F(2,140)54.76, MSe 5 41.10]. Finally, there was an interaction be-tween these factors, in that the difference between the to-ward and the away imperative sentences (4%) was greaterthan the corresponding differences for the concrete (0.5%)and the abstract (2.5%) transfer sentences [F(2,140) 54.23, MSe5 38.78].

DiscussionThe results from Experiments 2A and 2B accomplished

three goals. First, they demonstrated replicability of theACE. Second, they extended the phenomenon to a between-subjects design in which the participants responded usingthe nondominant hand. Thus, the ACE is unlikely to reflect

detailed action planning at the level of particular muscles.Third, the contrast between Experiments 2A and 2B indi-cate that the ACE depends on action, and not solely on spa-tial location of the responses.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The ACE is consistent with the prediction derived fromthe IH and supports the notion that language under-standing is grounded in bodily action. That is, the mean-ing of a sentence is given by an understanding of (1) howthe actions described by the sentence can be accom-plished or (2) how the sentence changes the possibilitiesfor action (as will be described later). The ACE demon-strates that this description of language understanding is

Figure 2. Data from Experiment 2A illustrating the actionsentence compatibility effect for imperative sentences, concrete trans-fer sentences, and abstract transfer sentences.

Figure 3. Data from Experiment 2B. In this experiment, responding did not require movement to the response buttons, and the actionsentence compatibility effect was eliminated.

GROUNDING LANGUAGE IN ACTION 563

not metaphoricalthat is, it is not simply a way to describeunderstanding. Instead, real bodily action is at the root ofmeaning conveyed by language.

This rest of the discussion will be focused on two top-ics. First, we will discuss how the IH proposes that afford-ances are combined with grammatical information toresult in a meshed or integrated understanding. This dis-cussion will lead to an explanation for the ACE found withthe abstract transfer sentences. Second, we will brieflydiscuss whether the claim that language is grounded in ac-tion can be extended to forms of language that seem far re-moved from action.

To review, the IH proposes that words and phrases areindexed to analogical perceptual symbols (Barsalou,1999) based on the brain states underlying the perceptionof the referent. Second, affordances are derived from theperceptual symbols. Third, affordances are meshed underthe guidance of syntactic constructions (Kaschak &Glenberg, 2000). Meshing is the smooth integration orcombination of action or action plans. Thus, one can lit-erally combine the actions of sitting in a chair and eating(those actions mesh), whereas one cannot combine theactions of sitting in a chair and jumping rope.

How does grammatical information guide the meshingof affordances? According to construction grammarians(e.g., Goldberg, 1995; Kay & Fillmore, 1999; Michaelis &Lambrecht, 1996), constructions2 carry a general mean-ing that is not dependent on the particular lexical items inthe sentence. For example, the double-object construction,Subjectverbobject1object2 carries the meaningthat the subject transfers object2 to object1. That the sen-tence form carries meaning can be demonstrated by usinginnovative denominal verbsthat is, verbs made up anewfrom nouns (Kaschak & Glenberg, 2000). For example,upon watching an injured woman who is hobbling past asoccer field return an errant ball to the goalie, one mightremark, The woman crutched the goalie the ball. In thissentence, the innovative denominal verb to crutch seemsto mean use a crutch to transfer an object. However, themeaning must be coming from the construction, becausethe verb to crutch has no (dictionary) meaning. In thisexample, the construction coerces a new perspective oncrutch from something used to support the body to an in-strument of transfer. Importantly, this coercion will be suc-cessful only if the object (the crutch, in this case) has theproper affordances to effect the transfer of object2 (Ka-schak & Glenberg, 2000). For example, it would be diffi-cult to understand how a woman in the park who had justfinished eating a lunch of hard-boiled eggs might egg-shell the goalie the ball: Ordinary eggshells do not havethe right affordances to effect the transfer of soccer balls.Thus, according to the IH, the meaning associated withthe construction (e.g., transfer) is used to guide the mesh-ing of affordances derived from the perceptual symbols.When the affordances can be smoothly combined (e.g.,we can envision how a human can use a crutch to trans-fer a soccer ball to a goalie), the sentence is understood.

How are these constructional meanings learned? It islikely that young children learn the actions associatedwith frequently heard verbs, such as to give, by beingrewarded for correct responses when a parent makes suchutterances as Give me the bottle (Tomasello, 2000).The actions then become associated with the double-object construction because of the frequent pairing of theverb to give and the double-object construction, as inYou give Liz the toy. Thus, the double object construc-tion comes to be treated as an instruction to mesh affor-dances of the referents of you, Liz, and toy in orderto accomplish the goal of giving. Over development, thedouble-object instructions for meshing are applied toother actions that can effect transfer, such as to hand,to send, to bicycle, and to crutch. The final step isto apply the double-object instructions when the transferis not of a physical object but of information, as in Youtold Liz the story. That is, we come to understand thesentence as a physical movement from you to Liz. Tosay it differently, over the course of learning the Englishdouble-object construction, we learn to treat the con-struction as an instruction to simulate a literal transfer ofan object from one entity to another even when the objectbeing transferred is not a physical object. This simulationis consistent with the claim that people understand com-munication as a type of transfer in which words act ascontainers of information (Lakoff, 1987).

What is the scope of this analysis? Clearly, our data il-lustrate an action-based understanding for only a limitedset of English constructions. Furthermore, the construc-tions we examined are closely associated with explicitaction. Even the abstract transfer sentences are not farremoved from literal action. Although we have not at-tempted a formal or an experimental analysis of how toextend the scope of the IH, we provide three sketchesthat illustrate how it may be possible to do so.

Consider first how we might understand such sentencesas The dog is growling or That is a beautiful sunset.We propose that language is used and understood in richcontexts and that, in those rich contexts, some statementsare understood as providing new perspectivesthat is, ashighlighting new affordances for action. Thus, while tak-ing a walk in a neighborhood, one person may remark thatan approaching dog is quite friendly. A companion mightnote, The dog is growling. This statement is meant todraw attention to a new aspect of the situation (i.e., achanging perspective), thereby revealing new affordances.These new affordances change the possibilities for actionand, thus, change the meaning of the situation. A similaranalysis applies to such sentences as That is a beautifulsunset. The statement is meant to change the meaning ofa situation by calling attention to an affordance: The sun-set affords looking at, and acting on this affordance resultsin the goal of a pleasurable experience.

As a second sketch, consider the notion of cause.Causal reasoning is important for our everyday and scien-tific understanding of the physical world, for our under-

564 GLENBERG AND KASCHAK

standing of social relations, and for our understanding ofdiscourse (Keenan, Baillet, & Brown, 1984; Singer, 1994;van den Broek, 1994). Many analyses of causal reasoningand causal language revolve around abstract ideas, whatNovick and Cheng (in press) refer to as purely covaria-tional approaches, in which the inference of causality isbased on an analysis of the covariation of events. In con-trast, a simple, embodied analysis of causal language ispossible. Infants may learn about the causal power of theirown actions early in development (Piaget, 1954). For ex-ample, infants learn how adjusting their sensory appara-tus brings new views of the world (ORegan & Noe,2001). Similarly, from moving body parts with sufficientforce, infants can learn how forceful changes in body partscan affect both their bodies and other objects (Meltzoff &Moore, 1997). From these basic experience, infants learnto conceptualize causes as the application of a bodily forceto effect a change or resist a change. Furthermore, we pro-pose that this notion of cause is used to ground causal lan-guage. That is, even as adults, we understand languageabout physical, social, and psychological causation interms of the pushes and pulls of our bodily experience.

This proposal is consistent with the force dynamicsanalysis of causal language developed by Talmy (1988).According to Talmy, causal constructions portray causalevents as simple contrasts between agonists and antago-nists, acting against one another to produce change or sta-sis. Thus, on Talmys analysis, the sentence The shed fellbecause of the wind blowing on it portrays the weakeragonist, the shed, succumbing to the stronger antagonist,the wind. On our embodied analysis, we propose that peo-ple conceptualize the wind as pushing against the shed,much as one might push over a house of cards. On Talmysanalysis, the sentence The speaker refused to stop despitethe fact that time ran out portrays a stronger agonist (thespeaker) overcoming the weaker antagonist, the socialnorm of stopping when time runs out. We propose that un-derstanding this sort of situation requires an embodied no-tion of forceful action akin to pushing (by the social norm)and resisting the push. This analysis presupposes a type ofidentification or projection process. That is, the languagecomprehender can project onto the wind (or the socialnorm) his or her experiences of forceful action.

The final sketch is based on research reported by Ochs,Gonzales, and Jacoby (1996). They studied interactionsamong scientists participating in a high-energy physicslaboratory. The physicists discussions were about howchanges in the temperature of a substance result in phasetransitions among three magnetic states, one of which istermed a domain state. Ochs et al. reported that while try-ing to understand the relations depicted in a graph of mag-netic field strength (y-axis) as a function of temperature(x-axis), the laboratory director gesturally simulatedchanges in temperature by moving his hand across thegraph parallel to the x-axis. While doing so he said,When I come down [in temperature] Im in the domainstate. Apparently, in attempting to understand the graph

and the underlying hypothesis, the director identified withthe substance (When I come down . . .) and used his armgestures to simulate changes in temperature. Ochs et al.noted that this sort of explicit bodily identification wasused just when the scientists were having a difficult timeunderstanding a new hypothesis. Similarly, Roth (1999)noted that students in a high school physics laboratorygrounded their language about the dynamics of a chaoticsystem by using their bodies (e.g., moving a chin back andforth to correspond to changes in the system). The pointof this sketch is to demonstrate that both professional sci-entists and naive students attempt to ground languageabout abstract phenomena in bodily experience.

In summary, our results demonstrate that the under-standing of imperative, double-object, and dative construc-tions is grounded in action. Given that language almostcertainly arose to facilitate coordination of action, it is notsurprising that there is an observable remnant of that his-tory. The results also raise the intriguing possibility thatmuch, if not all, language comprehension is similarlygrounded. Although substantial work needs to be done tosecure that possibility, that work may well be rewarded byan account of language and meaning firmly anchored inhuman experience.

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NOTES

1. In a separate experiment not reported here, we used only the imper-ative sentences and manipulated response direction between subjects. TheACE was significant [F(1,54)5 12.33, MSe5 11,251].

2. In general, a construction is a pairing of a form and a meaning, inwhich the meaning cannot be deduced from the components of the form(e.g., Goldberg, 1995). Thus, monomorphemic words (e.g., book) andsome phrases (e.g., all of a sudden and by and large; see Fillmore,Kay, & OConnor, 1988) are constructions, in that the meaning cannot bededuced from the letters, individual sounds, or individual words. Here, werestrict the meaning of construction to verb-argument constructions, suchas the double-object construction, in which a meaning (e.g., transfer) ispaired with a syntactic form (e.g., the abstract form of the double objectconstruction).

(Manuscript received August 3, 2001;accepted for publication November 12, 2001.)