Concepts are essential to mental life - they allow us to think about the world, and to communicate these thoughts. Much of psycholinguistic research converges on the view that the meaning of a concept can be decomposed into individual features (eg a tiger has eyes, is carnivorous, etc). Within this framework, the statistical properties of individual features determine how concepts are processed in language tasks. For example, the higher the number of features (NOF) in a concept, and the more highly correlated the features (feature correlation; eg many animals have the features has eyes and has ears), the faster the concept is processed. Moreover, highly distinctive features (eg a cow's udder) facilitate subsequent recognition of their concept. However, most of these claims have been based on data from one type of concept only - concrete nouns. One major class of concepts that has been neglected yet is central to our thinking about the world is verbs. In a series of four behavioural experiments, we aim to examine whether variables that affect how nouns are represented and processed (feature correlation, feature distinctiveness and NOF) apply to verbs as well. The results of these studies will provide the foundation of a more comprehensive model of conceptual knowledge across word classes.
45 native British English speakers (between 18 and 40 years old) completed the verb property norm study. Participants were asked to list all the features they could think of for 137 verb concepts which included 12 verbs of appearance, disappearance and existence (e.g. appear, perish); 12 verbs of change of possession (e.g. give, sell); 12 verbs of change of state including verbs of transformation, removing and assuming a position (e.g. bend, grind); 12 verbs of communication, non verbal expression and gesture/sign involving body parts (e.g. shout, salute); 12 intransitive verbs of motion (e.g. crawl, run); 11 verbs with predicative complements (e.g. describe, judge); 11 verbs of psychological state (e.g. bore, offend); and 12 transitive verbs of motion, including verbs of putting, cutting, sending and carrying, combining and attaching, separating and disassembling (e.g. carry, drill). In addition, we included 9 verbs denoting imageable actions (e.g. curtsey, tiptoe) and 43 unambiguous verbs (i.e. non homophonous with noun forms) from a variety of the previous classes (e.g. ignore, preach). The verb property norms were collected together with norms for 167 nouns which acted as fillers for this study. To disambiguate word class, all verbs were preceded by to, and all nouns by the, a(n). The 137 verbs were divided into four lists (three lists containing 34 verbs and one containing 35 verbs). Including the noun fillers, each of the four lists comprised 76 words, presented in a booklet, and was given to 45 participants. To avoid any list effects, the items in each list were arranged in two different orders, which were presented equally often to participants. Participants were instructed to work quickly through the paper booklet and were advised not to spend more than about half a minute on each word, but no actual time limit was set. This was a pen and pencil task.
