title: Analysis and analogy in the perception of vowels.
abstract: In two experiments, we investigated the creation of conceptual analogies to a contrast between vowels. An ordering procedure was used to determine the reliability of simple sensory and abstract analogies to vowel contrasts composed by naive volunteers. The results indicate that test subjects compose stable and consistent analogies to a meaningless segmental linguistic contrast, some invoking simple and complex relational properties. Although in the literature of psychophysics such facility has been explained as an effect of sensory analysis, the present studies indicate the action of a far subtler and more versatile cognitive function akin to the creation of meaning in figurative language.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, New York 10027-6598, USA. remez@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Remez
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fellowes
authors.forename: Eva Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Blumenthal
authors.forename: Dalia Shoretz
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Nagel
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D010699:Phonation; D010700:Phonetics; D011340:Problem Solving; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception