The Impact of Verb Speed on the Processing of Goal-Oriented Visual Scenes

Research on mental simulation in language comprehension has yielded mixed findings, with some studies reporting evidence for sensorimotor simulation during language processing and others not. The current study is a conceptual cross-linguistic replication of two eye-tracking experiments on the online processing of speed-induced language originally conducted in English. Participants heard sentences containing a fast- or a slow-motion verb in Estonian (e.g., Laps vudis/tatsas puu juurde ‘The child scurried/toddled to the tree.’), while their eye-movements to a corresponding image with an Agent, Path, and Goal were recorded. We were only partly able to find indications of mental simulation triggered by verb semantics. When sentences were longer and more complex (including a Path phrase such as ‘along the path’), the effect of verb speed (fast vs. slow) on eye-movements varied as a function of scene type (with or without a distractor). Time-course analysis suggested attention allocation differences with earlier looks to the Goal in response to slow compared to fast sentences, but only when the sentences were longer and the scenes had no distractor. These mixed findings make it difficult to formulate strong conclusions about mental simulation of speed. If mental simulation of speed exists, it appears to be less consistently observed in visual-world studies than mental simulation of other information researched in the literature, such as colour. The study highlights the importance of addressing mental simulation in a diverse set of studies and of extending them beyond Indo-European languages.