The present research shows that language comprehenders are sensitive to multiple states of target and semantically related objects. In Experiments 1 to 2B, participants (total N = 273) read sentences that either implied a minimal change of an object’s state (e.g., “Jane chose a mango”) or a substantial change (e.g., “Jane stepped on a mango”) and then verified whether a subsequently pictured object was mentioned in the sentence. Crucially, the picture either showed the original/modified state of an object that was mentioned in the sentence (e.g., “mango” in Experiment 1) or not (e.g., “banana” in Experiments 2A and 2B). The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that the objects in a modified state were verified faster when a sentence implied a substantial state-change rather than a minimal state-change. In contrast, the reverse was true for the objects in the original state. Importantly, verification latencies of pictures depicting original and modified states of an object in the substantial state-change condition were approximately similar, thus suggesting that language comprehenders maintain multiple representations of an object in different states. The results of Experiments 2A and 2B revealed that when participants had to indicate that a pictured object (e.g., banana) was not mentioned in the sentence, their verification latencies were slowed down when the sentence contained a semantically related item (e.g., mango) and described this item as being changed substantially by the action. However, these verification latencies varied continuously with the degree of change: the more dissimilar the states of a semantically related item, the less time participants needed to verify a pictured object. The results are discussed through the prism of theories emphasizing dynamic views of event cognition.

目前的研究表明，语言理解者对目标和语义相关对象的多种状态敏感。在实验 1 至 2B 中，参与者（总共N  = 273）阅读的句子要么暗示对象状态发生微小变化（例如，“Jane选择了芒果”），要么暗示了重大变化（例如，“Jane踩在芒果上”）然后验证句子中是否提到了随后拍摄的物体。至关重要的是，图片要么显示了句子中提到的物体的原始/修改状态（例如，实验 1 中的“芒果”），要么不显示（例如，实验 2A 和 2B 中的“香蕉”）。实验 1 的结果表明，当句子暗示实质性的状态变化而不是最小的状态变化时，处于修改状态的对象得到更快的验证。相比之下，对于原始状态的物体则相反。重要的是，在实质性状态变化条件下描绘对象的原始状态和修改状态的图片的验证延迟大致相似，因此表明语言理解者在不同状态下维持对象的多种表示。实验 2A 和 2B 的结果表明，当参与者必须指出句子中未提及图片中的物体（例如香蕉）时，当句子包含语义相关的项目（例如芒果）和描述该项目因该操作而发生重大变化。然而，这些验证延迟随着变化的程度而不断变化：语义相关项目的状态越不同，参与者验证图片对象所需的时间就越少。通过强调事件认知动态观点的理论棱镜对结果进行了讨论。