Cognitive neural responses in the semantic comprehension of sound symbolic words and pseudowords

Kaori Sasaki; Seiichi Kadowaki; Junya Iwasaki; Marta Pijanowska; Hidehiko Okamoto

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2023.1208572

Cognitive neural responses in the semantic comprehension of sound symbolic words and pseudowords

Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 Oct 11:17:1208572. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1208572. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Kaori Sasaki¹, Seiichi Kadowaki², Junya Iwasaki¹, Marta Pijanowska^{3

4}, Hidehiko Okamoto²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, International University of Health and Welfare, Narita, Japan.
² Graduate School of Medicine, International University of Health and Welfare, Narita, Japan.
³ Office of Medical Education, International University of Health and Welfare, School of Medicine, Narita, Japan.
⁴ Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

Introduction: Sound symbolism is the phenomenon of sounds having non-arbitrary meaning, and it has been demonstrated that pseudowords with sound symbolic elements have similar meaning to lexical words. It is unclear how the impression given by the sound symbolic elements is semantically processed, in contrast to lexical words with definite meanings. In event-related potential (ERP) studies, phonological mapping negativity (PMN) and N400 are often used as measures of phonological and semantic processing, respectively. Therefore, in this study, we analyze PMN and N400 to clarify the differences between existing sound symbolic words (onomatopoeia or ideophones) and pseudowords in terms of semantic and phonological processing.

Methods: An existing sound symbolic word and pseudowords were presented as an auditory stimulus in combination with a picture of an event, and PMN and N400 were measured while the subjects determined whether the sound stimuli and pictures match or mismatch.

Results: In both the existing word and pseudoword tasks, the amplitude of PMN and N400 increased when the picture of an event and the speech sound did not match. Additionally, compared to the existing words, the pseudowords elicited a greater amplitude for PMN and N400. In addition, PMN latency was delayed in the mismatch condition relative to the match condition for both existing sound symbolic words and pseudowords.

Discussion: We concluded that established sound symbolic words and sound symbolic pseudowords undergo similar semantic processing. This finding suggests that sound symbolism pseudowords are not judged on a simple impression level (e.g., spiky/round) or activated by other words with similar spellings (phonological structures) in the lexicon, but are judged on a similar contextual basis as actual words.

Keywords: event-related potential; lexical semantic processing; onomatopoeia; semantic comprehension; sound symbolism.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants in Aids for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Grant Number 21K13620.