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Related Experiment Videos

Language and imagery: effects of language modality.

Gabriella Vigliocco1, David P Vinson, Tyron Woolfe

  • 1Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1H 0AP, UK. g.vigliocco@ucl.ac.uk

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|August 13, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Signed languages, unlike spoken languages, often use visual imagery. British Sign Language (BSL) signers utilize imagery in language tasks, while English speakers do so only when prompted, showing language modality impacts cognitive processing.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Spoken languages rarely link word sounds to meaning-based mental imagery.
  • Signed languages frequently feature signforms with visual properties that evoke mental images related to their meaning.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between language modality and the use of imagery in meaning similarity judgments.
  • To compare how English speakers and British Sign Language (BSL) signers utilize imagistic properties in language tasks.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Assessed meaning similarity judgments in English speakers and BSL signers.
  • Experiment 2: Instructed English speakers to form mental images before performing the same judgment task.

Main Results:

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  • BSL signers naturally used imagistic properties for meaning judgments, unlike English speakers.
  • English speakers' performance shifted towards BSL signers' patterns when explicitly prompted to use mental imagery.

Conclusions:

  • Language modality influences cognitive biases, directing attention towards language-specific features.
  • The use of mental imagery in language processing is significantly affected by whether a language is spoken or signed.