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Abstract Based on a series of self-paced reading tasks, the study investigates Chinese EFL learners’ processing features of directionality related to the activation of perceptual motor simulation. The results show that unlike the concreteness effect discovered among native English speakers, the processing accuracy rate is higher when the directionality is encoded in abstract verbs rather than concrete ones. Verbs obtain more attention, and the concreteness effect in the response time, though not distinct, indicates that the way how particles are combined exerts great influences on the directionality processing. In other words, a weak concreteness effect is found if the verb is presented in an isolated Area of Interest (AOI), while the processing speed is inhibited if the verb is presented with its particle in the same AOI due to multiple factors, such as the generative se¬mantic features of concrete verbs and L1 coding of directionality. The study also reveals that the involvement of perceptual motor simulation relies on how the perception of directionality is rep¬resented in participants’ L1 and in what way their L2 is learned. The findings provide some in¬sights into the understanding of the interactive relationship between linguistic and cognitive mechanisms among L2 learners.
Key words: directionality; verb; concreteness; perceptual motor simulation
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