Attention Perception and Social Cognition

Perception is the basis of being human. It warrants everything we know and everything there is to be known. This chapter explores the perceptual system that leads to the exploration and interpretation of qualities of urban space. The chapter challenges the disciplinary tradition of regarding perception and cognition as being one and establishes that systems of perception and cognition play an equally important role to enable this construct of ‘place'. By means of an inter-disciplinary review and knowledge transfer, the chapter reimagines the dimension of perceptual simulation in urban design by constructing a process map to understand the complexity of the workflow from subjective perception to social cognition. The chapter further advocates the need for design to incorporate cognitive affordances to better shape physical reality. The process map and framework is intended as a reference for understanding sensory stimuli in urban design practice to aid efficacy and to reinstate the importance in recreating and bridging the physical and perceived realities.

The Role of Perceptual Simulation in L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

Research in embodied cognition suggests that perceptual simulation may play a role in language comprehension. In this study we use a combination of experimental and qualitative research to explore the potential of simulation exercises to improve acquisition of esoteric literary English vocabulary by English majors at a Chinese University. Through quantitative analysis of the data from one pre-test and two post-tests of the experimental and control groups, and qualitative examination of the student feedback collected from an open-ended survey and face-to-face interviews, we find that most of the students in both conditions have simulations of the learned words whether based on self-determined Chinese trigger words or given English language prompts to them, and skilled language learners intuitively adopt perceptual simulations. The research findings give teachers some enlightenment on the pedagogical strategies that might encourage less proficient learners to incorporate perceptual simulations in their study habits.

Relevance Theory and the Effect of Literature on Beliefs

To what extent does literature affect our beliefs about the real world? Relevance theory offers new ways of exploring that old question. That is partly because relevance theory embraces the whole communications circuit: it tracks the communication of meaning from author via text to reader, rather than focusing on just one of those phases. It can also describe how unintended meaning can be inferred by readers. The question of the effect of literature upon beliefs is explored through one case study (Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and through various notions drawn from relevance theory: cognitive environments; contextual assumptions; implicatures; internal and external relevance; epistemic vigilance. It is argued that the evanescence or durability of any effects that literature may have upon readers’ beliefs can be investigated by combining those relevance-theoretic notions with ones drawn from certain other cognitive or literary-critical approaches: immersion; kinesis; perceptual simulation; tagging.