Universität zu Köln

Dolscheid, Sarah ORCID: 0000-0001-9104-6386, Hunnius, Sabine, Casasanto, Daniel and Majid, Asifa ORCID: 0000-0003-0132-216X (2014). Prelinguistic Infants Are Sensitive to Space-Pitch Associations Found Across Cultures. Psychol. Sci., 25 (6). S. 1256 - 1262. THOUSAND OAKS: SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC. ISSN 1467-9280

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Abstract

People often talk about musical pitch using spatial metaphors. In English, for instance, pitches can be high or low (i.e., height-pitch association), whereas in other languages, pitches are described as thin or thick (i.e., thickness-pitch association). According to results from psychophysical studies, metaphors in language can shape people's nonlinguistic space-pitch representations. But does language establish mappings between space and pitch in the first place, or does it only modify preexisting associations? To find out, we tested 4-month-old Dutch infants' sensitivity to height-pitch and thickness-pitch mappings using a preferential-looking paradigm. The infants looked significantly longer at cross-modally congruent stimuli for both space-pitch mappings, which indicates that infants are sensitive to these associations before language acquisition. The early presence of space-pitch mappings means that these associations do not originate from language. Instead, language builds on preexisting mappings, changing them gradually via competitive associative learning. Space-pitch mappings that are language-specific in adults develop from mappings that may be universal in infants.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Dolscheid, Sarah UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-9104-6386 UNSPECIFIED Hunnius, Sabine UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Casasanto, Daniel UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Majid, Asifa UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-0132-216X UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-437647
DOI:	10.1177/0956797614528521
Journal or Publication Title:	Psychol. Sci.
Volume:	25
Number:	6
Page Range:	S. 1256 - 1262
Date:	2014
Publisher:	SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
Place of Publication:	THOUSAND OAKS
ISSN:	1467-9280
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language CROSS-MODAL SIMILARITY; SPEEDED CLASSIFICATION; CORRESPONDENCES; THICKNESS; MAPPINGS; LANGUAGE; COLOR Multiple languages Psychology, Multidisciplinary Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/43764