Fwd: [ontolog-forum] Body Parts and Early-Learned Verbs

Intentionally cross posted..No apologies!

This is relevant to both communities and highly relevant to the work we are doing in modeling depression & treatment response. 

Not sure how we manage this discussion - that's probably a totally different thread topic :-) 
-quick reply to that, ok, but that isn't where I want to see the cross post go.

This is a fascinating observation about relationships, and raises interesting questions about whether and how well we can capture context and culture in our current mapping schemes.

Thanks John!

Joanne


Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John F Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net>
> Date: September 3, 2013, 12:30:22 AM EDT
> To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net>
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] Body Parts and Early-Learned Verbs
> Reply-To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net>
> 
> The subject line of this note is the title of an article about
> relationships between the verbs that children learn by the age of 3
> and the body parts that are involved in the actions of those verbs.
> (See the URL and abstract at the end of this note.)
> 
> Some excerpts from the article:
> 
>> The body stands between the mind and the world and thus the properties
>> of the body itself may shape knowledge...
> 
>> Many common verbs — for example, kiss, hug, kick — seem to be about actions
>> performed by specific body parts.  Further, imaging studies show that
>> merely hearing a verb (e.g., kick) activates the cortical motor areas
>> relevant to moving the appropriate body part (e.g., leg and foot) ...
> 
>> Behavioral studies also suggest a connection between verbs and movements
>> by particular parts of the body. For example, moving the arm away from
>> the body slows judgment about the sentence, “Open the drawer” (an action
>> involving the movement of the arm toward the body)... Such results
>> suggest that the on-line processing of verb meanings may involve or
>> interact with some of the same processes that generate bodilyaction...
> 
>> The overall acquisition pattern—from relatively many mouth verbs, to
>> more hand verbs, to less bodily defined verbs—was unexpected and
>> tantalizing in its similarity to traditional Piagetian (Piaget, 1953)
>> descriptions of the developmental course of sensory-motor development
>> as infants first explore relations in their world.
> 
> This study is one of many that show how the semantics of natural
> language is grounded in the neural mechanisms of perception and action.
> 
> John Sowa
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> Source: http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/2008v32/7/HCOG_A_302167_O.pdf
> 
> Body Parts and Early-Learned Verbs
> 
> Josita Maouene, Shohei Hidaka, Linda B. Smith
> 
> Abstract.
> 
> This article reports the structure of associations among 101 common
> verbs and body parts. The verbs are those typically learned by children
> learning English prior to 3 years of age.  In a free association task,
> 50 adults were asked to provide the single body part that came to mind
> when they thought of each verb.  Analyses reveal highly systematic and
> structured patterns of associations that are also related to the
> normative age of acquisition of the verbs showing a progression
> from verbs associated with actions by the mouth, to verbs strongly
> associated with actions by hand and arm, to verbs not so strongly
> associated with any one body part.  The results have implications
> for proposals about embodied verb meaning and also for processes
> of early verb learning.
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@ontolog.cim3.net
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
>