title: Sound symbolism facilitates word learning in 14-month-olds.
abstract: Sound symbolism, or the nonarbitrary link between linguistic sound and meaning, has often been discussed in connection with language evolution, where the oral imitation of external events links phonetic forms with their referents (e.g., Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001). In this research, we explore whether sound symbolism may also facilitate synchronic language learning in human infants. Sound symbolism may be a useful cue particularly at the earliest developmental stages of word learning, because it potentially provides a way of bootstrapping word meaning from perceptual information. Using an associative word learning paradigm, we demonstrated that 14-month-old infants could detect Köhler-type (1947) shape-sound symbolism, and could use this sensitivity in their effort to establish a word-referent association.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, 5322 Endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, 252-8520, Japan.
authors.forename: Mutsumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Imai
authors.affiliation: School of Social Information Studies, Otsuma Women's University, 2-7-1, Karakida, Tama-city, Tokyo, 206-8540, Japan; Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1, Tamagawa-gakuen, Machida-city, Tokyo, 194-8610, Japan.
authors.forename: Michiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.affiliation: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France & Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, Paris Sorbonne Cité, Paris, France.
authors.forename: H Henny
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Yeung
authors.affiliation: School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa, 923-1292, Japan.
authors.forename: Shohei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hidaka
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kantartzis
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1, Tamagawa-gakuen, Machida-city, Tokyo, 194-8610, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sotaro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kita
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D013016:Sound; D013561:Symbolism; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology