Event Segmentation

According to event segmentation theory, action perception depends on sensory cues and prior knowledge, and the segmentation of observed actions is crucial for understanding and memorizing these actions. While most activities in everyday life are characterized by external goals and interaction with objects or persons, this does not necessarily apply to dance-like actions. We investigated to what extent visual familiarity of the observed movement and accompanying music influence the segmentation of a dance phrase in dancers of different skill level and non-dancers. In Experiment 1, dancers and non-dancers repeatedly watched a video clip showing a dancer performing a choreographed dance phrase and indicated segment boundaries by key press. Dancers generally defined less segment boundaries than non-dancers, specifically in the first trials in which visual familiarity with the phrase was low. Music increased the number of segment boundaries in the non-dancers and decreased it in the danc...

The goal of our paper is to demonstrate through artistic experimentation that the concept of montage can be an effective vector for conveying complex narratives in immersive, room-scale virtual reality experiences. We review the particularities of virtual reality mediations regarding narrative, and we propose the new conceptual framework of « spatial montage » inspired by traditional cinematographic montage, taking into account the specific needs of virtual reality. We make the hypothesis that spatial montage needs to be related to body action of the user and can play a significant role in relating the immersive experience with an externally authored narrative. To test those hypotheses, we have built a set of tools implementing the basic capabilities of spatial montage in the Unity 3D game engine for use in an immersive virtual environment. The resulting prototype redefines the traditional concepts of shots and cuts using virtual stages and portals and proposes new interaction paradigms for creating and experiencing montage in virtual reality headsets.

This paper reviews best practices for experimental design and analysis for sign language research using neurophysiological methods, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and other methods with high temporal resolution, as well as identifies methodological challenges in neurophysiological research on natural sign language processing. In particular, we outline the considerations for generating linguistically and physically well-controlled stimuli accounting for 1) the layering of manual and non-manual information at different timescales, 2) possible unknown linguistic and non-linguistic visual cues that can affect processing, 3) variability across linguistic stimuli, and 4) predictive processing. Two specific concerns with regard to the analysis and interpretation of observed event related potential (ERP) effects for dynamic stimuli are discussed in detail. First, we discuss the "trigger/effect assignment problem", which describes the difficulty of determining the time point for calculating ERPs. This issue is related to the problem of determining the onset of a critical sign (i.e., stimulus onset time), and the lack of clarity as to how the border between lexical (sign) and transitional movement (motion trajectory between individual signs) should be defined. Second, we discuss possible differences in the dynamics within signing that might influence ERP patterns and should be controlled for when creating natural sign language material for ERP studies. In addition, we outline alternative approaches to EEG data analyses for natural signing stimuli, such as the timestamping of continuous EEG with trigger markers for each potentially relevant cue in dynamic stimuli. Throughout the discussion, we present empirical evidence for the need to account for dynamic, multi-channel, and multi-timescale visual signal that characterizes sign languages in order to ensure the ecological validity of neurophysiological research in sign languages.

From early in development, segmenting events unfolding in the world in meaningful ways renders input more manageable and facilitates interpretation and prediction. Yet, little is known about how children process action structure in events comprised of multiple coarse-grained actions. More importantly, little is known about the time-course of action processing in young children or about the specific features that recruit attention. This is particularly true when we consider action that pauses unexpectedly-as actions sometimes do-violating the expectation of a continuous unfolding of motion. We assessed visual preference to intact and disrupted actions embedded within a multi-action event in toddlers and adults. In one condition, pauses were inserted at intact action boundaries whereas in the other condition they disrupted action. Attention in both groups was recruited to the disrupted relative to intact events. Time-course analyses, however, revealed developmental differences in sensitivity to the movement features (e.g., motion, pauses, and transitions) of disrupted events.

Memories are not perfect recordings of the past and can be subject to systematic biases. Memory distortions are often caused by our experience of what typically happens in a given situation. However, it is unclear whether memory for events is biased by the knowledge that events usually have a predictable structure (a beginning, middle, and an end). Using video clips of everyday situations, we tested how interrupting events at unexpected time points affects memory of how those events ended. In four free recall experiments (1, 2, 4, and 5), we found that interrupting clips just before a salient piece of action was completed, resulted in the false recall of details about how the clip might have ended. We refer to this as "event extension." On the other hand, interrupting clips just after one scene had ended and a new scene started, resulted in omissions of details about the true ending of the clip (Experiments 4 and 5). We found that these effects were present, albeit attenuated, when testing memory shortly after watching the video clips compared to a week later (Experiments 5a and 5b). The event extension effect was not present when memory was tested with a recognition paradigm (Experiment 3). Overall, we conclude that when people watch videos that violate their expectations of typical event structure, they show a bias to later recall the videos as if they had ended at a predictable event boundary, exhibiting event extension or the omission of details depending on where the original video was interrupted. Public Significance Statement Our memory for events is fallible: We often forget or distort certain details or even remember things that never actually happened. Here, we showed that participants often inaccurately remember how events ended if the events were interrupted unexpectedly. For instance, if a video clip of a cyclist preparing to ride a bike was interrupted before the cyclist left, people would often falsely remember that they saw the person riding their bike away at the end. Conversely, if the video clip continued to briefly show the cyclist arriving at their destination before the clip was finished, participants would often not recall this additional detail and remember that the clip ended with the person preparing to ride their bike. These experiments highlight how people are biased to recall events as having well-defined endpoints, even when that conflicts with what was actually experienced.

Episodic memory allows people to reexperience the past by recovering the sequences of events that characterize those prior experiences. Although experience is continuous, people are able to selectively retrieve and reexperience more discrete episodes from their past, raising the possibility that some elements become tightly related to each other in memory, whereas others do not. The current series of experiments was designed to ask how shifts in context during an experience influence how people remember the past. Specifically, we asked how context shifts influence the ability to remember the relative order of past events, a hallmark of episodic memory. We found that memory for the order of events was enhanced within, rather than across, context shifts, or boundaries (Experiment 1). Next, we showed that this relative enhancement in order memory was eliminated when across-item associative processing was disrupted (Experiment 2), suggesting that context shifts have a selective effect o...

This paper attempts to decompose the Motion event into such elements as Figure, Path, Vector, and Ground based upon Talmy's framework, which makes it possible to formally analyze and compare the lexical semantics of the deictic motion verbs within and across languages. It is shown that the difference in interpretations of the Path is attributable to the lexical specifications of both deictic motion verbs and locative phrases. It is argued that deictic motion verbs can be lexically specified for the entailment of arrival only if they express the Path eventually directed to the deictic center. A formal analysis is given based upon the HPSG framework in order to identify the elements of a Motion event contributed by each element of a verb phrase, and to determine the compositional fashion in which they are combined to give the interpretation of the verb phrase as a whole.

This special issue is devoted to a relatively neglected topic in linguistics, namely the verbal component of locative statements. English tends, of course, to use a simple copula in utterances like ''The cup is on the table'', but many languages, perhaps as many as half of the world's languages, have a set of alternate verbs, or alternate verbal a‰xes, which contrast in this slot. 1 Often these are classificatory verbs of 'sitting', 'standing' and 'lying'. For this reason, perhaps, Aristotle listed position among his basic (''noncomposite'') categories: Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or a¤ection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are 'man' or 'the horse', of quantity, such terms as 'two cubits long' or 'three cubits long', of quality, such attributes as 'white', 'grammatical'. 'Double', 'half ', 'greater', fall under the category of relation; 'in the market place', 'in the Lyceum', under that of place; 'yesterday', 'last year', under that of time.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic (Pawley 1987) or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.* 1 See Parsons 1990 and Pianesi & Varzi 2000 for overviews. We lay out our assumptions about linguistic event representations briefly in §3. In a nutshell, we assume that events are represented in language and cognition as time-bound entities individuated by their temporal boundaries, the temporal and causal relations they maintain with other events, and the identity of their participants. 2 The approach we present here-using the 'macro-event property' as a criterion of event segmentation-can and has been applied to other domains of event encoding. Bohnemeyer, Enfield, Essegbey, and Kita (2007) have extended it to the study of the segmentation of causal chains in four languages (Ewe,

Why does ritual continue to be an issue in religious studies and in anthropology? In this paper the author proposes a cognitive approach to rituals, focusing those aspects of rituals that are distinct from other types of actions, together with what cognitive responses these differences provoke. It will be argued that rituals violate basic causal assumptions and by doing so, trigger off cognitive processes in order to ascribe purpose and meaning to the action. In conclusion, this will be related to findings in ethology and evolutionary theory, arguing that ritual as a behavioural category plays an important role in the formation of symbolic thinking.

Characterizing ritual and ritualized behaviors has been a core issue in anthropology and the study of religion for more than a century. Although varying in emphasis, most theories point toward several specific behavioral features that distinguish ritual from instrumental behavior. Specifically, we have chosen to focus on the derivedness from instrumental behavior, intentional underspecification and goal-demotion. In contrast to instrumental or functional behavior (i.e., actions that cohere causally and have a necessary integration of subparts), we propose to view ritual and ritualized action as sub-categories of non-functional behavior (i.e., actions lacking causal coherence and a necessary integration between subparts). New insights in human action processing can help us explain how cognition might vary depending on the type of behavior processed. Using an event segmentation paradigm, we conducted two experiments eliciting differences in participants' response patterns to functional and non-functional actions. Participants consistently segmented non-functional action sequences into smaller units indicating either an attentional shift to the level of gesture analysis or a problem of representational integration. Experimental studies of non-functional behavior can strengthen explanations of recurrent features of human action processing, such as ritual and ritualized behavior, as well as indicate potential sources and effects of breakdown of the system.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the spending patterns of non‐local participants and spectators at a medium‐sized international sport event, to segment their spending patterns and consider implications for the quality of each segment's event experience.Design/methodology/approachSpending in nine sectors of the economy is measured via self‐report, and respondents are segmented into five groups: spectators, athletes, coaches, officials, and other participants (e.g. media, medical staff). The daily and aggregate spend for each segment in each economic sector is calculated and compared. Regression analysis tests differences among segments for each economic sector.FindingsParticipants account for 39 per cent of aggregate spend; coaches are the biggest spenders; athletes spend relatively little. The segments spend differently on hospitality, private transportation, grocery, and retail, with spectators spending significantly more than the participant groups on hospitality...

Most cognitive architectures rely on discrete representation, both in space (e.g., objects) and in time (e.g., events). However, a robot interaction with the world is inherently continuous, both in space and in time. The segmentation of the stream of perceptual inputs a robot receives into discrete and meaningful events poses as a challenge in bridging the gap between internal cognitive representations, and the external world. Event Segmentation Theory, recently proposed in the context of cognitive systems research, sustains that humans segment time into events based on matching perceptual input with predictions. In this work we propose a framework for online event segmentation, targeting robots endowed with active perception. Moreover, sensory processing systems have an intrinsic latency, resulting from many factors such as sampling rate, and computational processing, and which is seldom accounted for. This framework is founded on the theory of dynamical systems synchronization, where the system considered includes both the robot and the world coupled (strong anticipation). An adaption rule is used to perform simultaneous system identification and synchronization, and anticipating synchronization is employed to predict the short-term system evolution. This prediction allows for an appropriate control of the robot actuation. Event boundaries are detected once synchronization is lost (sudden increase of the prediction error). An experimental proof of concept of the proposed framework is presented, together with some preliminary results corroborating the approach.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic (Pawley 1987) or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.* 1 See Parsons 1990 and Pianesi & Varzi 2000 for overviews. We lay out our assumptions about linguistic event representations briefly in §3. In a nutshell, we assume that events are represented in language and cognition as time-bound entities individuated by their temporal boundaries, the temporal and causal relations they maintain with other events, and the identity of their participants. 2 The approach we present here-using the 'macro-event property' as a criterion of event segmentation-can and has been applied to other domains of event encoding. Bohnemeyer, Enfield, Essegbey, and Kita (2007) have extended it to the study of the segmentation of causal chains in four languages (Ewe,

This paper investigates the syntactic and semantic behaviour of directional items in Mandarin Chinese, proposing a constructional-cognitive model. Simultaneously, it argues against the traditional analysis of directionals as part of a compound. Instead, they are treated as proper larger constructions signaling subordination, based upon structural and functional evidence. Particularly, the verbs of motion are presented as catenative verbs (Aarts 2011, Huddleston and Pullum et al 2002) similar to those found in English, showing event complexity (eg Jackendoff 2002, Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2005). The two events then constitute mental spaces at the conceptual structure (Fauconnier 1994, 1997) and project into the entire motion-directional construction, which reflects the mappings of language and thought.

Most cognitive architectures rely on discrete representation, both in space (e.g., objects) and in time (e.g., events). However, a robot interaction with the world is inherently continuous, both in space and in time. The segmentation of the stream of perceptual inputs a robot receives into discrete and meaningful events poses as a challenge in bridging the gap between internal cognitive representations, and the external world. Event Segmentation Theory, recently proposed in the context of cognitive systems research, sustains that humans segment time into events based on matching perceptual input with predictions. In this work we propose a framework for online event segmentation, targeting robots endowed with active perception. Moreover, sensory processing systems have an intrinsic latency, resulting from many factors such as sampling rate, and computational processing, and which is seldom accounted for. This framework is founded on the theory of dynamical systems synchronization, where the system considered includes both the robot and the world coupled (strong anticipation). An adaption rule is used to perform simultaneous system identification and synchronization, and anticipating synchronization is employed to predict the short-term system evolution. This prediction allows for an appropriate control of the robot actuation. Event boundaries are detected once synchronization is lost (sudden increase of the prediction error). An experimental proof of concept of the proposed framework is presented, together with some preliminary results corroborating the approach.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previ-ous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic (Pawley 1987) or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the ‘macro-event prop-erty ’ (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.* 1. TOWARD A SEMANTIC TYPOLOGY OF MOTION-EVENT SEGMENTATION. SEMANTIC TY-POLOGY is the comparative study of linguistic categorizati...

To manage the onslaught of continuously unfolding information in our complex environments, we adults are known to carve up our continuous experience into meaningful events, a process referred to as event segmentation. This segmentation directly shapes how our everyday experiences are construed: content experienced within an event is held mentally in an accessible state, which is then dropped after an event boundary. The greater accessibility of event-specific information has been shown to influence-at its most basic level-how information is processed and remembered. However, it is as yet unknown if accessibility is similarly influenced by event boundaries in children, who are still developing the working memory capacity and semantic knowledge thought to support event segmentation. Here, we tested seven-to nine-year-old children's and adults' recognition of objects experienced either within or across event boundaries of two cartoons. We found that children and adults were both more accurate and faster to correctly recognize objects that last occurred within events versus across event boundaries. We, however, additionally observed an interaction such that children's access to recent experience was less influenced by event boundaries than adults'. Thus, while the spontaneous segmentation of complex events emerges by middle childhood, event structure shapes the active contents of children's minds less reliably than adults'.

The present study investigates the encoding of motion in Japanese motion verbs. Kita (1999) claimed that two Japanese motion verbs hairu ‘enter’ and deru ‘exit’ do not encode motion in transition but only encode change of state. Thus, hairu would not mean ‘enter’ but rather means ‘become inside’. Tsujimura (2002) replied to Kita (1999) by stating that his arguments do not hold and that these motion verbs pattern like other motion verbs, i.e. they encode transition. However, Tsujimura (2002) proposes another analysis of Japanese motion verbs whereby verbs that occur in transitive-intransitive pairs have properties of verbs of putting alongside their directed motion semantics, i.e. they can be interpreted in two ways. Other motion verbs that do not have a transitive counterpart do not display this putting verb semantics. This study aims at disentangling these two accounts by means of an acceptability judgment task in which participants judge sentences as descriptions of video clips. A...

The thesis is about the Path in motion events/expressions. Motion events are situations "containing movement or the maintenance of a stationary location" (Talmy 1985: 85). In the last twenty years there has been an increasing interest in the research of motion events especially Path of motion in different languages. In the understanding of motion, the notion of Source, Path, and Goal are core elements. The Path of motion is part of Spatial Semantics which deals with the relationship between the perception of the world and the representation of the latter by linguistic elements. In so doing, attention is placed on some elements of the observed situation while ignoring others. Talmy (2000a: 257) categorizes this domain as "The Windowing of Attention in Language". The current thesis which is on Eʋe (a language belonging to the Niger-Congo family particularly the Kwa group) investigates Path expressions in Eʋe by laying emphasis on what is more windowed and what is gapped in the language as far as Path types are concerned. These Path types can be initial, medial, and final. This thesis finds that in the language, the final Path is the most windowed one. This is so because the Path verbs introducing it are core and bounded Path verbs. Furthermore, this thesis approves that in Eʋe, there are two Path categories such as Open and Closed Paths which are factive. Additionally, this thesis demonstrates that the Path windowing of attention can be caused by linguistic and non-linguistic factors. The data of the study in this thesis have been collected from literary books and informants met in Tsevie, and Kpome where Waci is spoken. The following is the list of some of my

In this article, I will consider the specificity of narrative in VR from the perspective of its embodied, spatial, and participatory nature. For this purpose, I will look at storytelling in VR from a neurofilmological perspective that accounts for both the cognitive and phenomenological and conceptualizes the viewer as an organism, applying an integrative view. I will probe several ideas from cognitive sciences and phenomenological cinema and media studies in order to support the above understanding of narrative in VR. I will apply these theories and ideas to specific VR case studies: Book of Distance (Randall Okita, 2019), Heterotopias (Noa Kaplan and Szilvia Ruszev, 2018), and Carne y Arena (Alejandro Iñárritu, 2017). Finally, this article will discuss the terms “ambient storytelling” (Stein and Fisher 2013), “somatic montage” (Waite 2016), and “embodied narrative” (a term used in cognitive sciences) and their relevance concerning narrative in VR.

Lo spettatore di un film o di una serie tv tende a segmentare gli eventi narrativi in base a un “montaggio mentale” che non necessariamente corrisponde al montaggio audiovisivo. L’analisi di due episodi stilisticamente opposti della serie televisiva "True Detective" rivela la tendenza naturale dello spettatore a compensare – direttamente o inversamente – l’intensità del montaggio al fine di assicurare la comprensione narrativa. Al contempo l’analisi fa emergere la necessità di integrare alla Event Segmentation Theory un approccio “enattivo” che la natura incorporata del montaggio e la matrice corporea dell’esperienza filmica.

The film or TV series spectator tends to segment the narrative events on the basis of a “mental montage” that does not necessarily correspond to the audiovisual editing. The analysis of two (stylistically opposite) episodes of "True Detective" reveals the spectator’s natural tendency to compensate – directly or inversely – the intensity of audiovisual editing for the purpose of narrative understanding. At the same time, the analysis highlights the need to integrate an “enactive” approach to the Event Segmentation Theory – one that enhances the bodily nature of the filmic experience the embodied nature of audiovisual editing.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

We examine universals and cross-linguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation.
Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic (Pawley 1987) or
intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and
semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we
introduce the ‘macro-event property’ (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event
representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A
case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in 18
genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design
principles that impact motion event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns
and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*
*

INTRODUCTION. This study examines the relationship between language and cognition through a crosslinguistic and crosscultural study of spatial reference. Beginning with a crosslinguistic survey of spatial reference in language use, we find systematic variation that contradicts ...

Event structure describes the relationships between general semantics (Aktionsart) of the verb and its syntactic properties, separating verbs into two classes: telic verbs, which denote change of state events with an inherent end-point or boundary (catch, rescue), and atelic, which refer to homogenous activities (tease, host). As telic verbs describe events, in which the internal argument (Patient) is affected, we hypothesized that processing of telic verb template would activate syntactic position of the Patient during sentence comprehension. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 20 English speakers, who read sentences with reduced Object relative clauses, in which the verb was either telic or atelic. ERPs in relative clauses diverged on the definite article preceding the Agent: the atelic condition was characterized by larger amplitude negativity at the N100. Such processing differences are explained by activation of the syntactic position for the Patient by the event structure template of telic verbs.

People automatically chunk ongoing dynamic events into discrete units. This paper investigates whether linguistic structure is a factor in this process. We test the claim that describing an event with a serial verb construction will influence a speaker’s conceptual event structure. The grammar of Avatime (a Kwa language spoken in Ghana) requires its speakers to describe some, but not all, placement events using a serial verb construction which also encodes the preceding taking event. We tested Avatime and English speakers’ recognition memory for putting and taking events. Avatime speakers were more likely to falsely recognize putting and taking events from episodes associated with takeput serial verb constructions than from episodes associated with other constructions. English speakers showed no difference in false recognitions between episode types. This demonstrates that memory for episodes is related to the type of language used; and, moreover, across languages different conceptual representations are formed for the same physical episode, paralleling habitual linguistic practices.

Drawing on some theories and concepts from symbolic anthropology and ritual studies, recent scholarship on early Christian meal practices has paid considerable attention to their function by formation of early Christian identities. The goal of this paper is to complement these insights by using some cognitive theories of ritual, enabling to analyze meal practices on the level of psychological mechanisms underlying their cognitive processing. The hypothesis is that these mechanisms were in some extent responsible for formation of interpretation of meal elements as disposing special quality, which can be documented in early Christian sources of different provenience since the end of the first century (e.g. Did. 9:5; Ign. Smyr. 7, Eph. 20; Just. 1 Apol. 66). It will be argued that formation of these interpretations was driven by cognitive mechanisms responsible for evaluation of ritual efficacy, activated in the meal context by invention of social restrictions (restrictions of participation and presiding) in the processes of ritualization. From this perspective, conceptual blending of meal elements with Jesus and their ingestion with gain of eternity in John 6 will be analyzed as reflecting this interpretation in given community and thus comparable to extant alternatives.

Scalar adjectives lacking closed upper boundaries (like far) can be coerced to have a closed upper boundary reading when combined with degree modification with too, e.g. too far to walk. Parallel to the mapping of event structure to scalar structure in adjectives [4], we observe that scalar adjectives are end-marked in ASL. These adjectives receive marking similar to telic verbs, indicating that, like the visibility of event structure in verbs, scalar structure, or at least the upper boundary, is also visible in ASL. The Event Visibility Hypothesis (EVH) was formulated based on the observation that telic verb signs are distinguished from atelics by end-marking reflecting final states of telic events. Here, it is extended to a general Visibility Hypothesis for sign languages.

The interaction between language and perception networks in the brain can hold the key to the
biological bases of language evolution. In language, every sentence is built around a verb, which
describes an event. During perception, humans constantly and automatically segment reality into
individualized event (verb) units. The cognitive connection between the perceptual segmentation
of events and their grammatical expression in language is a novel direction for research into the
neurobiology of language, but it may be a key example of the emergence of linguistic structure –
grammatical category – from individualized meaning.
This article summarizes the current state of this research, and is divided into three parts. The initial
overview of cross-linguistic typology of events shows that events and their boundaries are of vital
importance to linguistic communication. We then summarize what is known about perceiving and
identifying event boundaries in the most well-studied domain, that of visual perception. Here, sign
languages provide the link between visual perception and linguistic expression, showing a complex
mapping from perceptual and cognitive event segmentation to linguistic structures at the phonology–
syntax interface. The last section reviews current evidence for neural bases of event processing, showing
that identification of an event boundary (linguistic or perceptual) is used for memory updates, and
suggesting the possible role of an event-type universal in the syntactic structure of human languages.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

In this paper we analyze, from a pragmatic-semantic perspective, the interaction between the  speakers’ selection of  the lexical aspect (Aktionsart) and grammatical aspect to express their temporal representation of the events observed in a sequence of videos. Our study draws on the assumptions that speakers’ choices are the result of a “thinking for speaking” process (Slobin 1997, 2003:167), and that their organization of perceptions follows a hierarchical order, as proposed by Zack in his Theory of Event Segmentation (Zacks 2001, 2007; Tversky et al 2008). We also follow París’ pragmatic-semantic approach (París 2007), assuming that the lexical aspect or Artionsart is determined by the intrinsic semantic properties of each verb prior to any compositional analysis, and it is part of the Lexical Semantic Representation (LSR) of the verb (Verkuyl 1993, Krifka 1998, París 2007). In contrast, grammatical aspect expresses time in terms of (im)perfect intervals. Both aspectual systems interact, yielding a complex system of temporal notions encoded in the Spanish language. Our hypotheses were that the speakers’ decisions on the use of (im)perfect, progressive or preterite morphosyntactic markings to express temporal notions depend on two main features: the dynamics of the event itself, and the speakers’ perception of the event as a bounded or unbounded episode. The results showed that perception and verbalization are  distinct instances  in which the epistemic distance is determined by: 1) the experiencer, 2) the inmediacy of the experience itself and 3)  the properties of the perceived object. Aspectual markings present variations according to the epistemic distance the speakers’ choose to express.

The development of imaging techniques and neurosciences caused a crisis in psychology, the core discipline of cognitivism. Cognitive psychology provided a framework and a common language for different researches: linguistics, philosophy, informatics, anthropology. The links between naturwissenschaften and geistwissenschaften has been a refreshing academical innovation, against the stereotype about the uselessness of human sciences; unfortunately, it often carries to a well-known danger: the risk of naturalization, of explaining an esse with a necesse esse, and confusing cultural creations with natural features. Taking as a starting point a certain innate architecture or some philosophical beliefs lead to force the linguistic data, as in the case of the distinction between space and time. The crisis regards three points:

1. When shifted from a psychologic context to the neuroscience, the meaning of cognitive metalanguage does not refer any more to mental functions but moreover to brain anatomical regions and their metabolism.
2. The criterion of psychologic plausibility is not sufficient to choose between alternative models;
3. Both the innatist and the experience-based explanations are not in grade to express the relation between “mental” functions, cortical anatomy and its biological morphogenesis and phylogenesis.