| Sound symbolic naming of novel objects is a graded function. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 21895561 Owner: NLM Status: Publisher |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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Although linguistic traditions of the last century assumed that there is no link between sound and meaning (i.e., arbitrariness), recent research has established a nonarbitrary relation between sound and meaning (i.e., sound symbolism). For example, some sounds (e.g., /u/ as in took) suggest bigness whereas others (e.g., /i/ as in tiny) suggest smallness. We tested whether sound symbolism only marks contrasts (e.g., small versus big things) or whether it marks object properties in a graded manner (e.g., small, medium, and large things). In two experiments, participants viewed novel objects (i.e., greebles) of varying size and chose the most appropriate name for each object from a list of visually or auditorily presented nonwords that varied incrementally in the number of "large" and "small" phonemes. For instance, "wodolo" contains all large-sounding phonemes, whereas "kitete" contains all small-sounding phonemes. Participants' choices revealed a graded relationship between sound and size: The size of the object linearly predicted the number of large-sounding phonemes in its preferred name. That is, small, medium, and large objects elicited names with increasing numbers of large-sounding phonemes. The results are discussed in relation to cross-modal processing, gesture, and vocal pitch. |
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Authors:
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Patrick D Thompson; Zachary Estes |
Publication Detail:
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Type: JOURNAL ARTICLE Date: 2011-7-20 |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) Volume: - ISSN: 1747-0226 ISO Abbreviation: - Publication Date: 2011 Jul |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2011-9-7 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 101259775 Medline TA: Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester) Country: - |
Other Details:
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Languages: ENG Pagination: - Citation Subset: - |
Affiliation:
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a Department of Psychology , University of Warwick , Coventry , UK. |
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From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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