When semantics aids phonology: A processing advantage for iconic word forms in aphasia

Abstract

Iconicity is the non-arbitrary relation between properties of a phonological form and semantic content (e.g. "moo", "splash"). It is a common feature of both spoken and signed languages, and recent evidence shows that iconic forms confer an advantage during word learning. We explored whether iconic forms conferred a processing advantage for 13 individuals with aphasia following left-hemisphere stroke. Iconic and control words were compared in four different tasks: repetition, reading aloud, auditory lexical decision and visual lexical decision. An advantage for iconic words was seen for some individuals in all tasks, with consistent group effects emerging in reading aloud and auditory lexical decision. Both these tasks rely on mapping between semantics and phonology. We conclude that iconicity aids spoken word processing for individuals with aphasia. This advantage is due to a stronger connection between semantic information and phonological forms.

Affective iconic words benefit from additional sound–meaning integration in the left amygdala

“…This finding aligns with the results of previous work on onomatopoetic words showing a greater activation for bimodal information (i.e., onomatopoetic words imitating animal calls) in the left and right superior temporal sulcus (STS) than for unimodal information (i.e., either animal names, or animal calls; Hashimoto et al, 2006). In fact, in a recent lesion study involving individuals with aphasia following left-hemisphere stroke (Meteyard et al, 2015), a consistent processing advantage was observed for onomatopoetic words in reading aloud and auditory lexical decision; two tasks that rely on sound-meaning mapping. These results suggest the existence of more direct links between semantic information and sound information for iconic words with corresponding neural hubs as convergence zones for information integration.…”

“…Iconic words might therefore be more immune to neurological damages that affect language-processing networks as, for instance, in aphasic patients. In fact, in a recent lesion study involving individuals with aphasia following left-hemisphere stroke (Meteyard et al, 2015), a consistent processing advantage was observed for onomatopoetic words in reading aloud and auditory lexical decision; two tasks that rely on sound-meaning mapping.…”

“…Iconic words have been suggested to be capable of directly activating the semantic domain that they refer to by bridging the gap between linguistic form and human (sensory, motor and affective) experience (Aryani, Conrad, Schmidtke, & Jacobs, 2018;Perniss & Vigliocco, 2014;Vinson, Thompson, Skinner, & Vigliocco, 2015). Thus, iconicity may provide additional mechanisms for both vocabulary learning and language processing by means of direct sound-meaning mappings in neural systems devoted to perception, action and affective experience; a mechanism that can potentially realize the embodiment of language (Aryani, Conrad, et al, 2018;Meteyard, Stoppard, Snudden, Cappa, & Vigliocco, 2015;Perniss & Vigliocco, 2014;Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, & Kousta, 2009;Vinson et al, 2015). In addition to behavioral studies supporting an iconic advantage for language learning (e.g., Imai et al, 2008) and language processing (e.g., Vinson et al, 2015), a growing number of neuroimaging research in the past few years aimed at revealing the neural mechanisms underlying such beneficial role of iconicity mostly by focusing on ideophones.…”

Emotional sound symbolism: Languages rapidly signal valence via phonemes

“…It supported language evolution (i.e., the emergence of language), it influences language development (i.e., the emergence and persistence of words within languages), and it facilitates language learning (i.e., learning the words of a language). Regarding language evolution, humans appear biologically predisposed for sound symbolism: Chimpanzees exhibit behavioral precursors of it (Ludwig, Adachi, & Matsuzawa, 2011), preverbal infants and aphasic adults are sensitive to it (Asano et al, 2015;Meteyard et al 2015), and it is observed across many languages (Blasi et al, 2016;Nuckolls, 1999;Perniss et al, 2010). Sound symbolism may have emerged as a physical analogy between the production of the speech sound and the meaning of the word (Imai & Kita, 2014).…”

Acoustic and Visual Stimulus Parameters Underlying Sound Symbolic Crossmodal Correspondences

“…Sound and meaning may be mapped not only at the word or phonetic level, but perhaps also at the more finely tuned level of acoustic properties and in the case of concrete, physical meanings, also at the level of visual properties. It is also interesting that iconic words such as "moo" and "splash" lead to better performance than non-iconic words on reading aloud and auditory lexical decision tasks in aphasic individuals (Meteyard et al, 2015).…”