Individual differences in the storage of perceptual semantics: An exploratory study

Individual differences of cognitive processes are in the focus of today's research. Gender, age, cultural and professional experiences are considered as important factors influencing human cognition at all levels (perception, categorization, high-level cognitive processing of symbols, such as numbers or words). Embodied cognition theory considers perception and language as tightly linked systems, thus leading to the concept of perceptual semantics, i.e., the whole volume of perceptual information associated with and allowing humans to understand a particular linguistic unit. In the present study, individual differences in the storage of perceptual semantics are investigated. Perceptual semantics is understood as visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory and gustatory experiences associated with the word. A database collected in an earlier study (Miklashevsky, 2018) is used as a source of psycholinguistic data. The study is exploratory, so a preliminary hypothesis was formulated: the storage of perceptual semantics in the individual mind (i.e., when the data are averaged by a participant) should follow the same principles as at the general linguistic level (i.e., when the data are averaged by item) revealed in the earlier study (Miklashevsky, 2018). Statistical methods were used, particularly descriptive statistics, correlational analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test, cluster analysis (k-means). As a result of the study, a pattern similar to a general pattern at linguistic level was revealed. Namely, individuals have the following sequence of perceptual information associated with linguistic units (volume of information, descending): visual information > tactile information > auditory information > (olfactory information = gustatory information). Similar correlation between these types of information are observed at both individual (averaged by participant) and general linguistic (averaged by word) levels. The main difference is related to auditory modality: it is associated with other modalities at the individual level (the correlations are positive), when at linguistic level no such associations or even negative associations were found (absent or negative correlations). No influence of gender on perceptive semantics was revealed. It was found that participants studying humanities give higher ratings of visual and gustatory modality than those who study technical disciplines. Two clusters were revealed: group 1 (66% of the sample), which rated visual modality lower than expected, when auditory, olfactory and gustatory modalities higher than expected; group 2 (34% of the sample) with a reversed pattern: higher ratings of visual, lower ratings of auditory, olfactory and gustatory modalities. No differences in the haptic modality are found. The results of this exploratory study might motivate future research investigating revealed regularities by using behavioral (such as reaction time measurement) and neuroimaging methods.

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