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- Title
How Sound Symbolism Is Processed in the Brain: A Study on Japanese Mimetic Words.
- Authors
Kanero, Junko; Imai, Mutsumi; Okuda, Jiro; Okada, Hiroyuki; Matsuda, Tetsuya
- Abstract
Sound symbolism is the systematic and non-arbitrary link between word and meaning. Although a number of behavioral studies demonstrate that both children and adults are universally sensitive to sound symbolism in mimetic words, the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not yet been extensively investigated. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how Japanese mimetic words are processed in the brain. In Experiment 1, we compared processing for motion mimetic words with that for non-sound symbolic motion verbs and adverbs. Mimetic words uniquely activated the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS). In Experiment 2, we further examined the generalizability of the findings from Experiment 1 by testing another domain: shape mimetics. Our results show that the right posterior STS was active when subjects processed both motion and shape mimetic words, thus suggesting that this area may be the primary structure for processing sound symbolism. Increased activity in the right posterior STS may also reflect how sound symbolic words function as both linguistic and non-linguistic iconic symbols.
- Subjects
SOUND symbolism; MIMETIC words; JAPANESE language; WORD recognition; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS; FUNCTIONAL magnetic resonance imaging; COGNITIVE psychology
- Publication
PLoS ONE, 2014, Vol 9, Issue 5, p1
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0097905