Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The fundamental issue addressed in the proposed research is how word meaning is derived. That is, when a word is perceived, how is the corresponding concept brought to mind? Accessing word meaning is an important component process in reading, listening, and other skills. This seemingly simple process remains a great puzzle for Cognitive Science. The range of meanings that are represented in human knowledge -- varying, for instance, from more concrete meanings (e.g., truck) to more abstract (e.g., truth) -- is something that any model of semantic processing must be able to explain. Abstract words have received less research attention than concrete words, but they describe social, scientific, philosophical, and introspective concepts that are vital to understanding and sharing the human experience. Numerous theories have been proposed to explain how word meanings are acquired, represented, and retrieved in the human mind. In the proposed research I will tackle the puzzle of semantic processing and test predictions of these theories using two main approaches: 1) measuring semantic variables and investigating their effects on behaviour and brain with greater precision than has previously been possible and 2) measuring individual differences in the healthy adult population that are theoretically relevant to proposed mechanisms of semantic processing and investigating their effects on semantic processing. I will apply these approaches to the full range of human concepts, including words with more concrete meanings and words with more abstract meanings. The first approach will involve more precise measurement of semantic variables, including distinguishing abstract meaning (the horizontal concrete-abstract dimension) from abstraction (the vertical specific-general dimension). The second approach will involve psychometrically-sound measures of individual differences and testing how the diversity they reveal in human cognition maps to variability in semantic processing. There is sometimes a tendency to assume that we all understand the world the same way. Yet there are individual differences in cognitive processes and important theoretical questions can be addressed by studying those differences. My colleagues and I have advanced this approach in recent work to understand the mechanisms of sensorimotor simulation in semantic processing and in the proposed work I will extend the approach further to assess additional mechanisms. This approach acknowledges and incorporates the diversity of human experience into semantic theories. This research will advance our fundamental understanding of the ways we make sense of the world and the language we use to describe it. It will provide rich training and leadership opportunities to trainees at all levels who will be my valued collaborators in the research. We will share the work beyond our group through careful adherence to open science practices, engaging academic audiences and also our broader communities.