Functional Features in Language and Space Insights from Perception, Categorization, and Development

The 'language and space' area is a relatively new research area in cognitive science. Studying how language and spatial representation are linked in the human brain mainly draws on research in existing disciplines focusing on language, perception, categorization and development. Representative researchers from these sub-disciplines of cognitive science discuss new insights in their own field of expertise and show what role their definition of 'function', 'feature', or 'functional feature' plays in their research. New research centred around these concepts is on the forefront of developments in these sub-disciplines and in the area of 'Language and Space'.

The notions of 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' are associated with relatively new developments and insights in several areas of cognition. This book brings together different definitions, insights and research related to defining these notions from such diverse areas as language, perception, categorization and development. Each of the contributors in this book explicitly defines the notion of 'function', 'feature' or 'functional feature' within their own theoretical framework, presents research in which such a notion plays a pivotal role, and discusses the contribution of functional features in relation to their insights in a particular area of cognition. As such, this book not only presents new developments devoted to defining 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' in several sub-disciplines of cognitive science, but also offers a focused account of how these notions operate within the cognitive interface linking language and spatial representation. All book chapters are accessible for the interested novice, and offer the specialized researcher new empirical and theoretical insights into defining function, both with respect to the language and space interface and across cognition. The introduction to the book presents the reader with the main issues and viewpoints that are discussed in more detail in each of the book chapters.

1 - Introducing the role of features in language and space
2 - Shape: A developmental product
3 - Adaptation of Perceptual and Semantic Features
4 - Dissociation between verbal and pointing responding in perspective change problems
5 - Developmental Constraints on the Representation of Spatial Relation Information: Evidence from Preverbal Infants
6 - An Ecological Approach to the Interface between Language and Vision
7 - Towards a classification of extra-geometric influences on the comprehension of spatial prepositions
8 - The HIPE Theory of Function
9 - Defining function for spatial language
10 - Attention in spatial language: Bridging geometry and function
11 - Infants' attention to and use of functional properties in categorization
12 - Force and function in the acquisition of the preposition in
13 - Being near the ceramic, but not near the mug: On the role of construal in spatial language
14 - Language is Grounded in Action
15 - The bicycle pedal is in front of the table. Why some objects do not fit into some spatial relations
16 - Between space and function: How spatial and functional features determine the comprehension of between
17 - Is it in or is it on? The influence of geometry and location control on children's descriptions of containment and support events.
18 - Contextual, Functional, and Geometric Components in the Semantics of Projective Terms
19 - Verbs and Directions: The interaction of geometry and function in determining orientation
20 - Path expressions in Finnish and Swedish: The role of constructions
21 - Form and Function

Laura Carlson is Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Her publications include journal articles published in Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human, Perception and Performance,Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition and Journal of Memory and Language. Emile van der Zee is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Lincoln. His publications include Cognitive Interfaces: Constraints on Linking Cognitive Information (2000, with Urpo Nikanne), and Representing Direction in Language and Space (2003, with Jon Slack) both published by Oxford University Press.