Space, Events and Narrative
Jeff Zacks
Department of Psychology
Washington University in St. Louis

Events are bounded in space and time. When the spatial region of interaction in an activity changes, this may be perceived as the end of one event and the beginning of a new one. Spatial changes appear to function similarly whether they are perceived directly or through narrative—at least some of the time. I this talk I will discuss data from event segmentation,
reading, and neuroimaging and attempt to draw some implications for comprehension and memory for events.

How Spoken and Signed Language STructure Space Differently: a Neural Model
Leonard Talmy
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
State University of New York at Buffalo

Linguistic research to date has determined many of the factors that govern the structure of the spatial schemas found across spoken languages. We can now integrate these factors and propose the comprehensive system they comprise for spatial structuring in spoken language. This system is characterized by several features. At a componential level, it has a relatively closed universally available inventory of fundamental spatial elements. These elements group into a relatively closed set of spatial categories. And each category includes only a relatively closed small number of particular elements: the spatial distinctions that each category can ever mark. At a compositional level, elements of the inventory combine in particular arrangements to form whole spatial schemas. Each language has a relatively closed set of "pre-packaged" schemas of this sort. Finally, at an "augmentive" level, the system includes a set of processes that can extend or deform pre-packaged schemas and thus enable a language's particular set of schemas to be applied to a wider range of spatial structures.

An examination of signed language shows that its structural representation of space systematically differs from that in spoken language in the direction of what appear to be the structural characteristics of scene parsing in visual perception. Such differences include the following features. Signed language can mark finer spatial distinctions with its inventory of more structural elements, more categories, and more elements per category. It represents many more of these distinctions in any particular expression. It represents these distinctions independently in the expression, not bundled together into pre-packaged schemas. And its spatial representations are largely iconic with visible spatial characteristics. The findings suggest that instead of some discrete whole-language module, as proposed by Fodor and Chomsky, spoken language and signed language are both based on some more limited core linguistic system that then connects with different further subsystems for the full functioning of the two different language modalities. These findings have implications for the evolution of language.

Some Ways Space (and the things in it) Communicate
Barbara Tversky
Professor Emerita of Psychology
Stanford University

Space can communicate meanings in many of the same ways as words. Diagrams (and gesture) use spatial relations to convey both spatial and abstract relations; they also use elements to convey noun or object-like concepts. Space can do both more directly than words. In constrained domains, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics emerge. Diagrams and gestures for routes, assembly, and other concepts will serve as examples. Visual communication abounds with poetic devices, such as rhythm, rhyme, metaphor, pun, onomanopoeia, and more as evident in comics, graphic novels, and cartoons.

Starting at the end: The importance of goals in spatial language and spatial cognition
Barbara Landau
Department of Cognitive Science
Johns Hopkins University

A hallmark of human cognition is our capacity to talk about what we see. How is this accomplished? Given that language and spatial representations engage quite different primitives and structures, the challenge is to understand how such apparently different systems of representation map onto each other, and how these mappings are learned. I will discuss this problem with respect to the language of events, focusing on the structure of path expressions over manner of motion, transfer of possession, attachment/ detachment, and change of state events. I will present evidence from normally developing children, adults, and children with Williams syndrome—a rare genetic deficit that gives rise to an unusual cognitive profile of profoundly impaired spatial representations together with spared language. The evidence shows that a fundamental property of path semantics —an asymmetry between source and goal expressions—is a pervasive fact about our linguistic description of events. Additional evidence shows a similar asymmetry in the non-linguistic event representations of infants, children, and adults, raising the possibility of homologous structures in language and space. As a whole, the evidence suggests that the linguistic source/goal asymmetry stems in part from our non-linguistic representation of events, but that language takes these non-linguistic biases and converts them to an absolute. These observations provide a partial solution to the problem of mapping dissimilar domains onto each other while preserving the unique identity of language.

Spatial experience and demonstrative thought
Rick Grush
Department of Philosophy
University of California, San Diego

I will describe a neural information processing framework that, I claim, underlies our ability to represent behavioral (egocentric) space. The proposed architecture synthesizes two powerful, but heretofore notionally distinct frameworks: the emulation theory of representation, and various basis function models of spatial representation. After outlining the framework, I will show how it sheds novel light on the nature of spatiotemporal representation and its relationship to demonstrative thought. Some claims I will try to motivate are:

1. Contrary to claims by Zenon Pylyshyn, the facts that there are no topographic representations of egocentric space, and that the brain employs a great deal of 'coordinate transformations', it does not follow that the brain really doesn't represent space.

2. Contrary to claims by John Campbell, space is not essential for indexical thought.

Some Observations about the Neural Organization of Spatial Thought and Language
Anjan Chatterjee
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
University of Pennslyvania

The cognitive neuroscience of semantic has focused largely on object knowledge. By contrast spatial semantics, especially as related to language, has received little attention. Understanding spatial thought and language acknowledges the richer texture of our semantic system by considering relational thinking and greater levels of abstraction than evoked by object semantics. I will describe the neural instantiation of spatial thought and language based on imaging and lesion studies. We underscore two functional-anatomic organizational principles. First, perceptual and conceptual representations have a parallel organizational structure within the nervous system. Lateral temporal cortices are important for manners of motion, action representations and action verbs. More dorsal regions are important for paths of motion, locative representations and prepositions. Second, posterior perceptual representations serve as points of entry for more anterior and centripetally located peri-Sylvian conceptual and linguistic representations.

Representations and processes at the interface between perception and language in space
Laura Carlson
Department of Psychology
University of Notre Dame

Imagine that you have misplaced your keys amid the clutter of objects on your desk (books, notebooks, telephone, coffee cup, stapler and so on). Your colleague sees the keys and indicates their location to you with the following spatial description: “Your keys are in front of the stapler.” For this type of spatial expression, the keys are referred to as the target (the object being sought), and stapler is referred to as the reference object (an object whose location is assumed known or easily found, and therefore serves as a good landmark from which to locate the target). Of interest are the underlying representations and processes that are involved during your colleague’s formulation of this description, and during your ensuing understanding. This talk will focus on the processes at work during the comprehension of a spatial description, including finding the relevant objects in the display, assigning directions within the display that correspond to the spatial term, and computing and comparing the spatial relations among the objects. I will present psychophysiological data that suggest distinct neural correlates for each of these processes. I will then discuss production and comprehension data that reflect the impact of various factors on these processes individually and collectively. For example, the presence, placement and properties of surrounding distractor objects have a significant impact during comprehension and production. Finally, I will discuss research examining the features that are used to select a reference object from among a set of candidate objects.