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11:00 - 12:30
Parallel sessions 8
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11:00 - 12:30
Room: HSZ - N3
Chair/s:
Barbara Kaup, David Dignath
This symposium examines the interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic cognition. While some cognitive functions appear to depend on language, others seem rather independent of it and many more integrate both aspects. In psychology, however, the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic cognition is rarely made explicitly and there is currently no consensus on how language may shape, enable or constrain thought.

The symposium brings together perspectives from cognitive research, developmental psychology and animal cognition to address three questions:

(1) How are language and thought related?
(2) Which cognitive functions are inherently linguistic, and which are not?
(3) To what extend can language modulate domains traditionally considered non-linguistic?

Part 1 of the double symposium brings together comparative and ontogenetic perspectives, focusing on animal cognition and human development. (see detailled description there)

Part 2 adopts a cognitive psychology perspective. First, Carolin Dudschig examines common mechanisms in linguistic and non-linguistic processing by means of electrophysiological investigations. Rasha Abdel-Rahman's contribution addresses the question of whether language influences the formation of visual representations. Senne Braem investigates how semantic knowledge guides learning of new tasks. Tally Miller tests the influence of verbal labels on the categorization of musical stimuli. Finally, Günther Knoblich discusses the role of linguistic and non-linguistic cognition in joint action.
At the end of the double symposium, philosopher Hong Yu Wong will integrate these diverse perspectives in a concluding discussion, aiming to clarify when, whether, and how cognition harnesses the faculty of language.
Submission 664
Parallel Mechanisms in Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Processing: Insights from The N400
SymposiumTalk-01
Presented by: Carolin Dudschig
Carolin Dudschig
University of Tübingen, Germany
Language is a central cognitive faculty, yet research on language processing is often conducted in isolation from studies of other cognitive domains. Recent evidence across different disciplines of psychology suggests that linguistic and non-linguistic cognition may share underlying representational and processing mechanisms. Building on this idea, the present study investigates whether the N400, a neural marker of semantic processing, is sensitive to patterns of violation probability in ways that parallel non-linguistic conflict detection. Specifically, it examines how both overall (global) and recent (local) contextual probabilities of violations influence N400 amplitude. The results indicate that N400 responses are reduced in contexts with very frequent violations and are also modulated by the outcome of preceding trials. These findings support the notion that language processing is not entirely domain-specific but instead reflects broader, domain-general principles of cognitive processing - in line with the neural reuse hypothesis (Anderson, 2010). Follow-up studies further explore whether different formats conveying meaning—linguistic and pictorial—are processed as independent sources or integrated within a shared representational system. By highlighting the parallels between linguistic and non-linguistic conflict monitoring, the study contributes to a more integrated understanding of the cognitive architecture supporting human information processing.