Massive modularity theory has replaced classic, Fodorian modularity as a major focus of research within cognitive science. The massive modularity thesis posits that there are a large number of knowledge and action stories, designed in a piecemeal fashion over evolutionary time to solve specific, adaptive problems. We criticize massive modularity as a general theory of human cognition, with particular attention to the issue of context-sensitive perception, thought, and language. First, the experimental methods used to uncover individual modules are notoriously inadequate and fail to meet reasonable standards by which modules may be dissociated from one another. Second, input criteria, by which modules are presumably defined, may be impossible to discover given the context-embedded nature of human performance. Third, catalogues of experimental effects that are assumed to demonstrate the presence of modules do not constitute a comprehensive theory of the acknowledged interaction of brain, body, and world in ordinary cognition. An alternative conception of cognitive performance, based on principles of self-organization, better explains the embedded, context-sensitive mechanisms of adaptive cognition.

Speakers move their hands when they talk—they gesture. These gestures can signal whether the speaker is ready to learn a particular task and, in this sense, provide a window onto the speaker's knowledge. But gesture can do more than reflect knowledge. It can play a role in changing knowledge in at least two ways: indirectly through its effects on communication with the learner, and directly through its effects on the learner's cognition. Gesturing is, however, not limited to learners. Speakers who are proficient in a task also gesture. Their gestures have a different relation to speech than the gestures that novices produce, and seem to support cognition rather than change it. Gesturing can thus serve as a tool for thinking and for learning.

This article proposes that the representation of concepts in infancy is in the form of spatial image-schemas. A mechanism that simplifies spatial information is described along with a small set of spatial primitives that are sufficient to account for the conceptualizations that preverbal infants use to interpret objects and events. This early system is important to understand because it organizes the adult conceptual system of objects and events and remains its core. With development, the system becomes enriched by language in several ways, and also by means of analogical extension to non-spatial information. Nonspatial bodily information, such as feelings of force and motor activity, is also added, but remains secondary. It becomes associated with spatial representations, but except for its spatial aspects is represented in a more inchoate and less accessible fashion.

In English, numerals modify nouns directly (two tables), but in Mandarin Chinese, they modify numeral classifiers that are associated with nouns (two flat-thing table). Classifiers define a system of categories based on dimensions such as animacy, shape, and function (Adams and Conklin 1973; Dixon 1986), but do these categories predict differences in cognitive processing? The present study explored possible effects of classifier categories in a speeded task preventing significant deliberation and strategic responding. Participants counted objects in a visual display that were intermixed with distractor objects that had either the same Mandarin classifier or a different one. Classifier categories predicted Mandarin speakers' search performance, as Mandarin speakers showed greater interference from distractors with the same classifier than did Russian or English speakers. This result suggests that classifier categories may affect cognitive processing, and may have the potential to influence how speakers of classifier languages perform cognitive tasks in everyday situations. Two theoretical accounts of the results are discussed.

It is widely believed that explicit verbatim memory for language is virtually nonexistent except in certain circumstances, for example if participants are warned they are to receive a memory test, if the language is ‘interactive’ (emotion-laden), or if the texts are exceedingly short and memory is tested immediately. The present experiments revisit the question of verbatim memory for language and demonstrate that participants do reliably recognize and recall full sentences that they are exposed to only once at above chance rates (Experiments 1 and 3). The texts are 300 words long, non-interactive, and no advanced warning of a memory test is given. Verbatim memory is demonstrated even when lexical content and memory for gist are controlled for (Experiments 2 and 4). The most striking finding is one of incidental recall: even after a six-day delay, participants reliably reproduce sentences they have heard before when asked to describe scenes, even though they are not asked to recall what they had heard (Experiment 5).

Deontic meanings have frequently been considered in relation to epistemic meanings and the present paper introduces a novel framework for investigating this relationship. The paper first introduces the basic ideas in Deictic Space Theory (DST), illustrating the geometrical elements involved with respect to counterfactual conceptualisations. This framework is then used to explore deontic conceptualisations in relation to epistemic conceptualisations. Following the implications of the geometrical structure logic of DST, epistemic concepts are taken as fundamental and as presupposed in deontic meanings. It is argued that counterfactuality, which can be modelled as a geometrical reflection transformation, is crucial to the modelling of the conceptual space of obligation concepts expressed in English modal verbs. It is further argued that a second-order reflection transformation can model permission concepts. Deontic ‘force’ is modelled in a natural way as force vectors, an already assumed ingredient of DST's geometrical framework. Finally the paper considers ways in which this framework does and does not run counter to existing claims about deontic and epistemic meaning in Cognitive Semantics.

In this paper we examine how vague quantifiers, such as few, several, lots of, map onto non-linguistic number systems. In particular our focus is to examine how judgements about vague quantifiers are affected by the presence of objects in visual scenes other than those being referred to. An experiment is presented that manipulated the number of objects in a visual scene (men playing golf; the ‘focus’ objects) together with the number of other objects in those scenes and their similarity—in terms of form (women or crocodiles) and function (playing golf, not playing golf)—to the focus objects. We show that the number of other objects in a scene impacts upon quantifiers judgements even when those objects are in a different category to the focus objects. We discuss the results in terms of the mapping between the large approximate number (estimation) system and language.

The idea that concepts are embodied by our motor and sensory systems is popular in current theorizing about cognition. Embodied cognition accounts come in different versions and are often contrasted with a purely symbolic amodal view of cognition. Simulation, or the hypothesis that concepts simulate the sensory and motor experience of real world encounters with instances of those concepts, has been prominent in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Here, with a focus on spatial thought and language, I review some of the evidence cited in support of simulation versions of embodied cognition accounts. While these data are extremely interesting and many of the experiments are elegant, knowing how to best interpret the results is often far from clear. I point out that a quick acceptance of embodied accounts runs the danger of ignoring alternate hypotheses and not scrutinizing neuroscience data critically. I also review recent work from my lab that raises questions about the nature of sensory motor grounding in spatial thought and language. In my view, the question of whether or not cognition is grounded is more fruitfully replaced by questions about gradations in this grounding. A focus on disembodying cognition, or on graded grounding, opens the way to think about how humans abstract. Within neuroscience, I propose that three functional anatomic axes help frame questions about the graded nature of grounded cognition. First, are questions of laterality differences. Do association cortices in both hemispheres instantiate the same kind of sensory or motor information? Second, are questions about ventral dorsal axes. Do neuronal ensembles along this axis shift from conceptual representations of objects to the relationships between objects? Third, are questions about gradients centripetally from sensory and motor cortices towards and within perisylvian cortices. How does sensory and perceptual information become more language-like and then get transformed into language proper?

Dynamic conceptualization is a fundamental notion in cognitive linguistics. Abstract motion is one type of dynamic conceptualization. It is said to structure descriptions of static scenes such as ‘The mountain range goes from Mexico to Canada’, and in doing so, invokes a subjective sense of motion or state change. In recent years, a growing body of experimental research supports this claim. However, additional work is needed to understand the dynamics of abstract motion and the extent to which it generalizes. This paper provides some background on abstract motion and reports two new experiments that investigate two unexplored types of abstract motion, including visual paths and pattern paths. Together, the results indicate that abstract motion plays a central role in language use and understanding.

Personal pronouns belong to the most conservative parts of grammar; that is, they are diachronically fairly stable, as suggested by the fact that in many cases they can be traced back etymologically to or even beyond the earliest stages of reconstructible language history. This is why so far not much progress has been made in unraveling the genesis of personal pronouns: the number of cases where it has been possible to determine their origin is severely limited. Still, some data do exist and allow for the reconstruction of some major lines of grammatical evolution. As we hope to show in this paper, this evolution is the product of a handful of crosslinguistically fairly uniform cognitive and communicative strategies.

What makes us so smart as a species, and what makes children such rapid learners? We argue that the answer to both questions lies in a mutual bootstrapping system comprised of (1) our exceptional capacity for relational cognition and (2) symbolic systems that augment this capacity. The ability to carry out structure-mapping processes of alignment and inference is inherent in human cognition. It is arguably the key inherent difference between humans and other great apes. But an equally important difference is that humans possess a symbolic language.

The acquisition of language influences cognitive development in many ways. We focus here on the role of language in a mutually facilitating partnership with relational representation and reasoning. We suggest a positive feedback relation in which structural alignment processes support the acquisition of language, and in turn, language—especially relational language—supports structural alignment and reasoning.

We review three kinds of evidence (a) evidence that analogical processes support children's learning in a variety of domains; (b) more specifically, evidence that analogical processing fosters the acquisition of language, especially relational language; and (c) in the other direction, evidence that acquiring language fosters children's ability to process analogies, focusing on spatial language and spatial analogies. We conclude with an analysis of the acquisition of cardinality—which we offer as a canonical case of how the combination of language and analogical processing fosters cognitive development.