Journal article
Abstract structural representations of goal-directed behavior
Psychological science, Vol.21(10), pp.1518-1524
10/2010
PMID: 20855906
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Source: InCites
Abstract
Linguistic theory holds that the structure of a sentence can be described in abstract syntactic terms, independent of the specific words the sentence contains. Nonlinguistic behavior, including goal-directed action, is also theorized to have an underlying structural, or "syntactic," organization. We propose that purposive action sequences are represented cognitively in terms of a means-ends parse, which is a formal specification of how actions fit together to accomplish desired outcomes. To test this theory, we leveraged the phenomenon of structural priming in two experiments. As predicted, participants read sentences describing action sequences faster when these sentences were presented amid other sentences sharing the same parse. Results from a second experiment indicate that the underlying representations relevant to observed action sequences are not strictly tied to language processing. Our results suggest that the structure of goal-directed behavior may be represented abstractly, independently of specific actions and goals, just as linguistic syntax is thought to stand independent of other levels of representation.
Details
- Title
- Abstract structural representations of goal-directed behavior
- Creators
- Kachina Allen (Author) - Princeton UniversitySteven Ibara (Author) - Princeton UniversityAmy Seymour (Author) - Princeton UniversityNatalia Cordova (Author) - Princeton UniversityMatthew Botvinick (Author) - Princeton University
- Publication Details
- Psychological science, Vol.21(10), pp.1518-1524
- Publisher
- United States
- Identifiers
- 991012842500502368
- Academic Unit
- Human Sciences; Faculty of Health; School of Health and Human Sciences
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article