The semantics of words and a perceptive channel: the impact of sensomotor experience on the perception of words

The article describes the main results in the field of interaction between word semantics and perception channels (the physical form of the word). The word is an object of the two modalities. Therefore, the word can have two forms of physical existence: the auditory shell (the word as a sequence of sounds) and the visual shell (the word as a sequence of graphs). Any word mediates the perception of a semantic multimodal simulation (in terms of L. Barsalou). A multimodal simulation is a mental construct that contains information about modalities that help to perceive certain objects or phenomena of reality. The word semantics is investigated on the material of Bulgarian adjectives containing information about modality. For example, "cherven" is "red", "silen" is "loud", etc. The author suggests that a semantic modal simulation is mediated by word perception. The word has two forms of existence: auditory and visual. A person can perceive the word through two sensory channels: visual and auditory. The basis of the study is a hypothesis that the form of word existence (and, therefore, the channel of perception) will affect the perception of words with auditory or visual semantics. Words with visual semantics ("cherven" - "red") will be more successfully (faster) acquired if they are perceived through the visual perceptual channel. Words with auditory semantics ("silen" - "loud") will be successfully acquired if perceived through the auditory perceptual channel. A behavioral RT-experiment is being conducted to test this hypothesis. The experiment involves parallel bimodal presentation of words with visual and auditory semantics. Some of the words are given on the screen, the others in the headphones. The hypothesis was confirmed for the visual modality. Words with visual semantics (red, yellow, bald, round) are better perceived in their graphical form through the visual channels of perception, unlike words with auditory semantics (loud, squeaky). Such a determination is typical for the conditions of the interchannel correlation. The appearance of words with visual semantics in the audial channel (names of colors, for example) catalyzes the perception of information received through visual channels of perception.

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