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http://hdl.handle.net/1893/27230| Appears in Collections: | Psychology Journal Articles |
| Peer Review Status: | Refereed |
| Title: | Abstract images and words can convey the same meaning |
| Author(s): | Kuipers, Jan Rouke Jones, Manon W Thierry, Guillaume |
| Issue Date: | 8-May-2018 |
| Date Deposited: | 10-May-2018 |
| Citation: | Kuipers JR, Jones MW & Thierry G (2018) Abstract images and words can convey the same meaning. Scientific Reports, 8 (1), Art. No.: 7190. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25441-5 |
| Abstract: | Intuitively, deriving meaning from an abstract image is a uniquely human, idiosyncratic experience. Here we show that, despite having no universally recognised lexical association, abstract images spontaneously elicit specific concepts conveyed by words, with a consistency akin to that of concrete images. We presented a group of naïve participants with abstract picture–word pairs construed as ‘related’ or ‘unrelated’ according to a preliminary norming procedure conducted with different participants. Surprisingly, the naïve participants with no prior exposure to the abstract images or any hints regarding their possible meaning, displayed a reaction time priming effect for ‘related’ versus ‘unrelated’ picture-word pairs. Critically, this behavioural priming effect, and an associated decrease in N400 mean amplitude indexing semantic priming, both correlated significantly with the degree of relatedness established in the preliminary norming procedure. Given that ratings and electrophysiological measures were obtained in different groups of individuals, our results show that abstract images evoke consistent meaning across observers, as has been shown in the case of music. |
| DOI Link: | 10.1038/s41598-018-25441-5 |
| Rights: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Licence URL(s): | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kuipers Jones Thierry 2018.pdf | Fulltext - Published Version | 1.41 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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