IALP 2025

Cognitive Neural Responses in Semantic Comprehension of Sound Symbolic Words and Pseudowords in Children

Kaori Sasaki Mr. Junya Iwasaki
School of Health Sciences at Narita Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, International University of Health and Welfare, Japan

【Introduction】Sound symbolism has been defined as "the direct link between sound and meaning" (Hinton et al., 1995) and it provides a scaffold for children`s language learning (Imai et al., 2014). In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the effects of sound symbolism on children`s word comprehension, focusing on the phonological mapping negativity (PMN) (phonological processing) and the N400 (semantic processing). 【Method】Subjects: Nine children aged 8 to 10 years. All were enrolled in regular classes and had no history of developmental disorders. Stimuli: In this experiment, we created speech sounds and pictures. The speech sounds consisted of 40 sound symbolic words (SSW) (e.g., "fuwa-fuwa": means soft) and 40 sound symbolic pseudowords (SSP) (e.g., "fuha-fuha"), which were created by changing one syllable of the SSW. The pictures described by the SSW were used for both tasks, the SSW and the SSP. Procedure: Participants judged whether the pictures and speech sounds (SSW or SSP) were matched or mismatched by pressing a button. Analysis: PMN and N400 were measured at the Cz position. PMN was defined as a peak between 200 and 350 milliseconds (ms), and N400 was defined as a peak between 350 and 500 ms after the sound presentation, and statistical analysis was performed.【Results】There were significant differences between SSW and SSP in match (z=3.54, p<.001) and mismatch (z=3.63, p<.001) of PMN and in match (z=3.65, p<.001) and mismatch (z=3.54, p<. 001) of N400. 【Discussion】This study showed that SSW has a greater processing load than SSP for children, but Sasaki (2023) reported the opposite for adults. Adults in the proficiency of language acquisition have strong and fixed connections between language and meaning, and the processing work needed for the word SSW is reduced. While children in acquisition have insufficient fixed connections between meaning and language sounds, the processing work needed for the non-arbitrariness of sound and meaning of sound symbolism (SSP) is reduced than that of words (SSW). The results support the hypothesis that sound symbolism provides a scaffold for connecting sounds to meaning.