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The shape of words in the brain

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The shape of words in the brain. / Kovic, Vanja; Plunkett, Kim; Westermann, Gert.
In: Cognition, Vol. 114, No. 1, 01.2010, p. 19-28.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Kovic, V, Plunkett, K & Westermann, G 2010, 'The shape of words in the brain', Cognition, vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 19-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016

APA

Kovic, V., Plunkett, K., & Westermann, G. (2010). The shape of words in the brain. Cognition, 114(1), 19-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016

Vancouver

Kovic V, Plunkett K, Westermann G. The shape of words in the brain. Cognition. 2010 Jan;114(1):19-28. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016

Author

Kovic, Vanja ; Plunkett, Kim ; Westermann, Gert. / The shape of words in the brain. In: Cognition. 2010 ; Vol. 114, No. 1. pp. 19-28.

Bibtex

@article{c53fdf45918049bfa6d77640ea92aaac,
title = "The shape of words in the brain",
abstract = "The principle of arbitrariness in language assumes that there is no intrinsic relationship between linguistic signs and their referents. However, a growing body of sound-symbolism research suggests the existence of some naturally-biased mappings between phonological properties of labels and perceptual properties of their referents (Maurer, Pathman, & Mondloch, 2006). We present new behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for the psychological reality of sound-symbolism. In a categorisation task that captures the processes involved in natural language interpretation, participants were faster to identify novel objects when label-object mappings were sound-symbolic than when they were not. Moreover, early negative EEG-waveforms indicated a sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations (within 200 ms of object presentation), highlighting the non-arbitrary relation between the objects and the labels used to name them. This sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations may reflect a more general process of auditory-visual feature integration where properties of auditory stimuli facilitate a mapping to specific visual features. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.",
keywords = "Sound-symbolism, Categorisation, ERP, Labels, Pictures, Associations, OBJECT RECOGNITION, PHONETIC SYMBOLISM, SELECTIVE ATTENTION, SOUND, POTENTIALS, HUMANS, COMPREHENSION, PERCEPTION",
author = "Vanja Kovic and Kim Plunkett and Gert Westermann",
year = "2010",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016",
language = "English",
volume = "114",
pages = "19--28",
journal = "Cognition",
issn = "0010-0277",
publisher = "Elsevier",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - The shape of words in the brain

AU - Kovic, Vanja

AU - Plunkett, Kim

AU - Westermann, Gert

PY - 2010/1

Y1 - 2010/1

N2 - The principle of arbitrariness in language assumes that there is no intrinsic relationship between linguistic signs and their referents. However, a growing body of sound-symbolism research suggests the existence of some naturally-biased mappings between phonological properties of labels and perceptual properties of their referents (Maurer, Pathman, & Mondloch, 2006). We present new behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for the psychological reality of sound-symbolism. In a categorisation task that captures the processes involved in natural language interpretation, participants were faster to identify novel objects when label-object mappings were sound-symbolic than when they were not. Moreover, early negative EEG-waveforms indicated a sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations (within 200 ms of object presentation), highlighting the non-arbitrary relation between the objects and the labels used to name them. This sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations may reflect a more general process of auditory-visual feature integration where properties of auditory stimuli facilitate a mapping to specific visual features. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AB - The principle of arbitrariness in language assumes that there is no intrinsic relationship between linguistic signs and their referents. However, a growing body of sound-symbolism research suggests the existence of some naturally-biased mappings between phonological properties of labels and perceptual properties of their referents (Maurer, Pathman, & Mondloch, 2006). We present new behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for the psychological reality of sound-symbolism. In a categorisation task that captures the processes involved in natural language interpretation, participants were faster to identify novel objects when label-object mappings were sound-symbolic than when they were not. Moreover, early negative EEG-waveforms indicated a sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations (within 200 ms of object presentation), highlighting the non-arbitrary relation between the objects and the labels used to name them. This sensitivity to sound-symbolic label-object associations may reflect a more general process of auditory-visual feature integration where properties of auditory stimuli facilitate a mapping to specific visual features. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

KW - Sound-symbolism

KW - Categorisation

KW - ERP

KW - Labels

KW - Pictures

KW - Associations

KW - OBJECT RECOGNITION

KW - PHONETIC SYMBOLISM

KW - SELECTIVE ATTENTION

KW - SOUND

KW - POTENTIALS

KW - HUMANS

KW - COMPREHENSION

KW - PERCEPTION

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=71649111587&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016

DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.016

M3 - Journal article

VL - 114

SP - 19

EP - 28

JO - Cognition

JF - Cognition

SN - 0010-0277

IS - 1

ER -