Compound words prompt arbitrary semantic associations in conceptual memory

Boutonnet, Bastien; McClain, Rhonda; Thierry, Guillaume

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00222

Cited by 11 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…In the behavioural data, participants were highly accurate in rejecting incongruent phrases (e.g., creepy-diamond), as it is easier to assess two concepts as being unrelated than verifying a link between them, this has been previously shown in similar studies (Wu, Athanassiou, Dorjee, Roberts, & Thierry, 2011;Boutonnet, McClain, & Thierry, 2014). However, accuracy was reduced when incongruent phrases were also alliterating (e.g., dangerous-diamond),…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

How alliteration enhances conceptual–attentional interactions in reading

Egan

Cristino

Payne

et al. 2020

Cortex

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In linguistics, the relationship between phonological word form and meaning is mostly considered arbitrary. Why, then, do literary authors traditionally craft sound relationships between words? We set out to characterise how dynamic interactions between word form and meaning may account for this literary practice. Here, we show that alliteration influences both meaning integration and attentional engagement during reading. We presented participants with adjective-noun phrases, having manipulated semantic relatedness (congruent, incongruent) and form repetition (alliterating, non-alliterating) orthogonally, as in "dazzling-diamond"; "sparkling-diamond"; "dangerous-diamond"; and "creepy-diamond". Using simultaneous recording of event-related brain potentials and pupil dilation (PD), we establish that, whilst semantic incongruency increased N400 amplitude as expected, it reduced PD, an index of attentional engagement. Second, alliteration affected semantic evaluation of word pairs, since it reduced N400 amplitude even in the case of unrelated items (e.g., "dangerous-diamond"). Third, alliteration specifically boosted attentional engagement for related words (e.g., "dazzling-diamond"), as shown by a sustained negative correlation between N400 amplitudes and PD change after the window of lexical integration. Thus, alliteration strategically arouses attention during reading and when comprehension is challenged, phonological information helps readers link concepts beyond the level of literal semantics. Overall, our findings provide a tentative mechanism for the empowering effect of sound repetition in literary constructs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

How alliteration enhances conceptual–attentional interactions in reading

Egan

Cristino

Payne

et al. 2020

Cortex

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“…Horse and sea , however, are formally related in English through the existence of the compound word seahorse . In the study by Boutonnet, McClain, and Thierry (), we tested whether such relations between words idiosyncratic to a language would yield predictable links between corresponding nonverbal representations and concepts. We presented participants undergoing ERP recordings with picture pairs that were either related in meaning, unrelated in meaning, or arbitrarily related because of the existence of a compound word comprising the names of the objects depicted by the two pictures.…”

Section: Color and Object Categorizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurolinguistic Relativity: How Language Flexes Human Perception and Cognition

Thierry

2016

Language Learning

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The time has come, perhaps, to go beyond merely acknowledging that language is a core manifestation of the workings of the human mind and that it relates interactively to all aspects of thinking. The issue, thus, is not to decide whether language and human thought may be ineluctably linked (they just are), but rather to determine what the characteristics of this relationship may be and to understand how language influences—and may be influenced by—nonverbal information processing. In an attempt to demystify linguistic relativity, I review neurolinguistic studies from our research group showing a link between linguistic distinctions and perceptual or conceptual processing. On the basis of empirical evidence showing effects of terminology on perception, language‐idiosyncratic relationships in semantic memory, grammatical skewing of event conceptualization, and unconscious modulation of executive functioning by verbal input, I advocate a neurofunctional approach through which we can systematically explore how languages shape human thought.

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“…At higher levels of conceptual representation, it is commonly accepted that the semantic level is shared across all languages spoken by an individual ( De Groot, 1992 ; Kroll and Stewart, 1994 ; La Heij et al , 1996 ; Van Hell and De Groot, 1998 ; Gollan and Kroll, 2001 ). However, recent evidence suggests that the language of operation also affects higher level representations, as is the case in the domain of lexically driven semantic associations ( Boutonnet et al , 2014 ) and motion conceptualization ( Kersten et al , 2010 ; Athanasopoulos et al , 2015 ). Here, we provide the first empirical, neurophysiological evidence that the language in which someone operates interacts with personal factors such as cultural identity to modulate online semantic processing during sentence comprehension.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and culture modulate online semantic processing

Ellis

Kuipers

Thierry

et al. 2015

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh–English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing.

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Compound words prompt arbitrary semantic associations in conceptual memory

Cited by 11 publications

References 50 publications

How alliteration enhances conceptual–attentional interactions in reading

How alliteration enhances conceptual–attentional interactions in reading

Neurolinguistic Relativity: How Language Flexes Human Perception and Cognition

Language and culture modulate online semantic processing

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