Current paradigms study language comprehension as if archival memory were its primary function. Subjects only receive linguistic material and are later tested on memory for its contents. In contrast, the two target articles in this issue, Glenberg and Robertson (in press) and Roth (in press), examine comprehension as if preparing for situated action were its primary function. Besides receiving linguistic materials as input, subjects study objects, actions, and interactions between agents. Rather than simply being tested on memory for linguistic materials, subjects also produce actions and enter into group interactions. Although these researchers focus their attention on specific genres---the comprehension of verbal instructions and the comprehension of scientific theories---their methods and findings have wider implications. In particular, the primary function of comprehension is not to archive information but is instead to prepare agents for situated action. Arguments from the evolution of cognition and language are brought to bear on this thesis, and perceptual simulation is proposed as a mechanism well-suited for supporting situated comprehension. Finally, it is conjectured that studying comprehension in the context of situated action is likely to produce significant scientific progress. Sense fades into reference. Roth (in press) If an outsider reviewed research on language comprehension, what conclusions might he or she reach? After reviewing this literature myself for a text on cognitive psychology (Barsalou, 1992, Chapters 8 and 9), I concluded that comprehension is essentially archival memory, describing it as follows: (1) Words enter the cognitive system through phonemic and graphemic processing. (2) Word representations are translated into amodal syntactic str...
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531
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The symbol grounding problem
– Harnad
- 1990
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365
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Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again
– Clark
- 1996
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245
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Minds, brains, and programs
– Searle
- 1980
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231
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dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: Univ
– Lakoff
- 1987
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101
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A critique of pure reason
– McDermott
- 1987
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100
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of language use
– Clark, Arenas
- 1992
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92
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Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition
– Donald
- 1991
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89
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Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability
– Tversky, Kahneman
- 1973
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85
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What memory is for
– Glenberg
- 1997
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79
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Language and Species
– Bickerton
- 1990
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47
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The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding
– Gibbs
- 1994
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46
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Inference during reading
– McKoon, Ratcliff
- 1992
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43
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Models of the emergence of language
– MacWhinney
- 1998
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42
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Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension
– Graesser, Singer, et al.
- 1994
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28
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Assessing the thinking curriculum: new tools for educational reform
– Resnick, Resnick
- 1992
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24
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Cognitive psychology: An overview for cognitive scientists
– Barsalou
- 1992
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24
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Picture naming
– Glaser
- 1992
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23
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Mental Models Contribute to Foregrounding During Text Comprehension
– Glenberg, Meyer, et al.
- 1987
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21
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Considerations of some problems of comprehension
– Bransford, Johnson
- 1973
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20
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Cultural learning
– Tomasello, Kruger
- 1993
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16
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Investigating differences in general comprehension skill
– Gernsbacher, Varner, et al.
- 1990
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16
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The situativity of knowing, learning, and research
– Greeno
- 1998
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15
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The imagery debate revisited: A computational perspective
– Glasgow
- 1993
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15
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Accessibility and situation models in narrative comprehension
– Morrow, Greenspan
- 1987
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14
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Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences
– Barsalou
- 1999
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13
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Time to understand pictures and words
– Potter
- 1975
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11
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Pictures in sentences: Understanding without words
– Potter, Kroll, et al.
- 1986
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9
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The Lopsided Ape: Evolution of the Generative Mind
– Corballis
- 1991
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9
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The prehistory of the mind: The cognitive origins of art, religions and science
– Mithen
- 1996
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9
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Foundations of understanding
– Newton
- 1996
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8
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The use of stereotypical gender information in constructing a mental model: Evidence from English and Spanish
– Carreiras, Garnham, et al.
- 1996
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7
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The body in the mind: The bodily basis of reason and imagination
– Johnson
- 1987
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7
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The metrics of spatial situation models
– Rinck, Hahnel, et al.
- 1997
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7
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The behavior of communicating: An ethological approach
– Smith
- 1977
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6
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Deriving categories to achieve goals. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation
– Barsalou
- 1991
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6
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Point of view in narrative comprehension, memory, and production
– Black, Turner, et al.
- 1979
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5
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Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes
– Rubin
- 1995
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5
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Mental models and narrative comprehension: Some qualifications
– Wilson, Rinck, et al.
- 1993
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4
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Interactive learning environments: A new look at assessment and instruction
– Brown, Campione, et al.
- 1992
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4
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Category induction and representation. In S. Harnad (Ed.), Categorical perception: The groundwork of cognition (pp
– Harnad
- 1987
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3
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Precis of "Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition
– Donald
- 1993
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3
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Reading and visual memory: Remembering scenes that were never seen
– Intraub
- 1992
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3
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Only connections: A critique of semantic networks
– Johnson-Laird, Herrmann
- 1984
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2
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Category learning as problem solving
– Ross
- 1996
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1
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Evolution of the human mind
– Corballis
- 1998
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1
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of the Honors Seminar in Cognitive Psychology
– Glenberg, Robertson
- 1997
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1
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Recruitment screams of pigtail monkeys (Macca Nemestrina): Ontogenetic perspectives
– Gouzoules
- 1995
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1
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Representational signaling in non-human primate vocal communication
– Gouzoules, Gouzoules
- 1995
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1
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Representation of a sentence and its pragmatic Barsalou 26 implications: Verbal, imagistic, or abstract
– Potter, Valian
- 1977
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1
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Clauses and the semantic representation of words
– Eckardt
- 1985
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