Visually Situated Language Comprehension: (93 Advances in Consciousness Research)

Visually Situated Language Comprehension has been compiled as a state-of the-art introduction to real-time language processing in visually-situated contexts. It covers the history of this emergent field, explains key methodological developments and discusses the insights these methods have enabled into how language processing interacts with our knowledge and perception of the immediate environment. Scientists interested in how language users integrate what they know with their perception of objects and events will find the book a rewarding read. The book further covers lexical, sentence, and discourse level processes, as well as active visual context effects in both non-interactive and interactive tasks and thus present a well-balanced view of the field. It is aimed at experienced researchers and students alike in the hopes of attracting new talent to the field. Thanks to its in-depth methodological introduction and broad coverage it constitutes an excellent course book.

Table of Contents:
1. Preface; 2. Towards a situated view of language (by Spivey, Michael J.); 3. Perception of the visual environment (by Tatler, Benjamin W.); 4. Attention and eye movement metrics in visual world eye tracking (by Pyykkonen-Klauck, Pirita); 5. The role of syntax in sentence and referential processing (by Gompel, Roger P.G. van); 6. Reaching sentence and reference meaning (by Engelhardt, Paul E.); 7. Discourse level processing (by Kaiser, Elsi); 8. Figurative language processing: Fictive motion and the visual world (by Huette, Stephanie); 9. The role of affordances in visually situated language comprehension (by Chambers, Craig); 10. Characterising visual context effects: Active, pervasive, but resource-limited (by Knoeferle, Pia); 11. Visual world studies of conversational perspective taking: Similar findings, diverging interpretations (by Barr, Dale J.); 12. Visual environment and interlocutors in situated dialogue (by Brown-Schmidt, Sarah); 13. Coordinating action and language (by Farmer, Thomas A.); 14. Index

Review :
Never before has the visual world paradigm been situated within such a rich intellectual context. The diversity of perspectives, the empirical range and the depth of theoretical synthesis within this book provide the reader with much of what he or she needs to intelligently consume or produce psycholinguistic research in visual contexts. [T]his book reports cutting edge research that contributes to understanding of the complexity of language processing. The chapters, written by experts in the fields of cognitive science, computational linguistics, developmental psychology, experimental psychology, neurolinguistics, and psycholinguistics, provide a comprehensive review of literature and critical discussions about various topics and theoretical and methodological developments. [...] Due to its introductory chapters, comprehensive literature overviews, and the detailed presentations of a broad range of topics, this edited volume will be an excellent course book. This edited volume offers a superb overview of what is currently known about a key issue in psycholinguistics – the way people understand utterances about the here and now. The chapters provide detailed and comprehensive reviews of a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from scene perception and attention to word recognition, processing of prosody, semantics and grammatical structure and understanding language in dialogue. As much of the research reviewed here has used the visual world paradigm, the book also offers a wealth of information about the many ways this powerful paradigm has been employed, along with insightful discussions of the assumptions underlying the use of the paradigm and the data analysis. The chapters are extremely well written and highly accessible, providing ample background information for newcomers to the field of language comprehension, while also offering stimulating discussions of contentious methodological and theoretical issues. The volume is, in short, an excellent book ‘for all ages’, novices and experts alike.