TY - GEN
T1 - The facilitatory role of sound symbolism in infant word learning
AU - Miyazaki, Michiko
AU - Hidaka, Shohei
AU - Imai, Mutsumi
AU - Yeung, H. Henny
AU - Kantartzis, Katerina
AU - Okada, Hiroyuki
AU - Kita, Sotaro
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Janet Werker for insightful discussion and advice in designing the experiment. Mamiko Arata, Noburo Saji and Junko Kanero all contributed to the creation and selection of stimuli. Asako Isawa, Kaoru Takata and Satomi Kanbara contributed to the video coding. This research was supported by MEXT KAKENHI (#15300088, #22243043, #23120003) for Imai, Okada, and (#23300099) for Hidaka, MEXT GCOE program to Tamagawa University, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Research Development Fellowship [BB/G023069/1] to Kita.
Publisher Copyright:
© CogSci 2013.All rights reserved.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Sound symbolism or the nonarbitrary link between language sound and meaning are commonly found across many languages of the world. A well-known example is the association between rounded vs. angular shapes and labels (i.e., the Bouba-kiki effect by Köhler, 1929/1947). Previous research has shown that sound symbolic words play facilitative role for preschool children's novel verb learning (Imai, Kita, Nagumo & Okada, 2008; Kantartiz, Imai & Kita, 2011), helping children identify what aspects of motion events should be mapped to verbs. In this research, we explore whether sound symbolism may facilitate language learning in human infants who have just begun to learn word meanings. Sound symbolism may be a useful cue particularly at the earliest stages of word learning, because this cue seems to be available without needing prior word learning experience (Gogate & Hollich, 2010). Using a habituation paradigm and a Bayesian model-based analysis, we demonstrated that 14-month-old infants could detect Köhler-type (1947) shape-sound symbolism, and could use this sensitivity in their effort to establish the word-referent association.
AB - Sound symbolism or the nonarbitrary link between language sound and meaning are commonly found across many languages of the world. A well-known example is the association between rounded vs. angular shapes and labels (i.e., the Bouba-kiki effect by Köhler, 1929/1947). Previous research has shown that sound symbolic words play facilitative role for preschool children's novel verb learning (Imai, Kita, Nagumo & Okada, 2008; Kantartiz, Imai & Kita, 2011), helping children identify what aspects of motion events should be mapped to verbs. In this research, we explore whether sound symbolism may facilitate language learning in human infants who have just begun to learn word meanings. Sound symbolism may be a useful cue particularly at the earliest stages of word learning, because this cue seems to be available without needing prior word learning experience (Gogate & Hollich, 2010). Using a habituation paradigm and a Bayesian model-based analysis, we demonstrated that 14-month-old infants could detect Köhler-type (1947) shape-sound symbolism, and could use this sensitivity in their effort to establish the word-referent association.
KW - Bayesian analysis
KW - Iconicity of language
KW - Multisensory mapping
KW - Origin of language
KW - Sound symbolism
KW - Word learning
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85083672659
T3 - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013
SP - 3080
EP - 3085
BT - Cooperative Minds
A2 - Knauff, Markus
A2 - Sebanz, Natalie
A2 - Pauen, Michael
A2 - Wachsmuth, Ipke
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
T2 - 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013
Y2 - 31 July 2013 through 3 August 2013
ER -