Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, Department of Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2010 Jul;36(4):1017-27. doi: 10.1037/a0019339.
Signed languages exploit the visual/gestural modality to create iconic expression across a wide range of basic conceptual structures in which the phonetic resources of the language are built up into an analogue of a mental image (Taub, 2001). Previously, we demonstrated a processing advantage when iconic properties of signs were made salient in a corresponding picture during a picture and sign matching task (Thompson, Vinson, & Vigliocco, 2009). The current study investigates the extent of iconicity effects with a phonological decision task (does the sign involve straight or curved fingers?) in which the meaning of the sign is irrelevant. The results show that iconicity is a significant predictor of response latencies and accuracy, with more iconic signs leading to slower responses and more errors. We conclude that meaning is activated automatically for highly iconic properties of a sign, and this leads to interference in making form-based decisions. Thus, the current study extends previous work by demonstrating that iconicity effects permeate the entire language system, arising automatically even when access to meaning is not needed.
手语利用视觉/手势模态在广泛的基本概念结构中创建直观表达，其中语言的语音资源构建成心理图像的模拟物（Taub，2001）。之前，我们在图片和手语匹配任务中，当手语的直观属性在相应的图片中变得明显时，证明了处理上的优势（Thompson、Vinson 和 Vigliocco，2009）。目前的研究通过语音决策任务（手语是否涉及直的或弯曲的手指？）来调查直观性的影响，其中手语的含义是无关紧要的。结果表明，直观性是反应时和准确性的重要预测指标，更直观的手语导致反应更慢且错误更多。我们得出结论，对于手语的高度直观属性，意义会自动激活，这会导致在进行基于形式的决策时产生干扰。因此，本研究通过证明直观性效应渗透整个语言系统，即使不需要访问意义也会自动出现，扩展了之前的工作。
