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Processing compound words: evidence from synaesthesia

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posted on 2023-06-09, 02:27 authored by Jennifer MankinJennifer Mankin, Christopher Thompson, Holly P Branigan, Julia SimnerJulia Simner
This study used grapheme-colour synaesthesia, a neurological condition where letters evoke a strong and consistent impression of colour, as a tool to investigate normal language processing. For two sets of compound words varying by lexical frequency (e.g., football vs lifevest) or semantic transparency (e.g., flagpole vs magpie), we asked 19 grapheme-colour synaesthetes to choose their dominant synaesthetic colour using an online colour palette. Synaesthetes could then select a second synaesthetic colour for each word if they experienced one. For each word, we measured the number of elicited synaesthetic colours (zero, one, or two) and the nature of those colours (in terms of their saturation and luminance values). In the first analysis, we found that the number of colours was significantly influenced by compound frequency, such that the probability of a one-colour response increased with frequency. However, semantic transparency did not influence the number of synaesthetic colours. In the second analysis, we found that the luminance of the dominant colour was predicted by the frequency of the first constituent (e.g. rain in rainbow). We also found that the dominant colour was significantly more luminant than the secondary colour. Our results show the influence of implicit linguistic measures on synaesthetic colours, and support multiple/dual-route models of compound processing.

Funding

MULTISENSE:Lifespan Development of Typical & Atypical Multisensory Perception; G1568; EUROPEAN UNION; 617678

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Cognition

ISSN

0010-0277

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

150

Page range

1-9

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2016-08-08

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-08-08

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-08-08

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