声音概念垂直空间隐喻表征的初步探讨

本文通过2个实验,初步探讨汉语声音概念词的垂直空间隐喻表征。实验1先视觉呈现声音概念词,要求被试对随后在屏幕上方或者下方呈现的图形进行形状判断;实验2要求被试先对声音词进行音高判断,再判断图形。结果只在实验2中发现隐喻表征,说明声音词的垂直空间隐喻表征需要一定的条件。后期问卷调查后发现,声音词普遍存在多种表象,且声音并不是首先激活的。意味着声音词的垂直空间隐喻表征需要较高的声音音高维度的语义凸显度,需对声音概念进行较深层次的语义加工,才可激活垂直空间隐喻表征。     

The role of the sound of tapping for nonvisual judgment of gap crossability

The author investigated the possibility that nonvisual locomotion with a cane depends on the sound of the cane tapping. Blindfolded participants were asked to judge whether a gap in front of them could be crossed by walking. An acoustic analysis suggested that sound could, in theory, distinguish the gaps. Blindfolded sighted participants in Experiments 1 and 2 judged crossability under conditions in which only the sound of tapping was available and in which the sound was minimized; the third and fourth experiments included experienced cane users. Both inexperienced observers and experienced cane users were unaffected by sound reduction and were less able to discriminate gaps when using sound only than when using reduced sound. A fifth experiment indicated that active-passive differences were not responsible for these effects. Results indicate that sound is not necessary or sufficient for judging nonvisible crossability with a probe.     

Japanese Sound‐Symbolism Facilitates Word Learning in English‐Speaking Children

Sound‐symbolism is the nonarbitrary link between the sound and meaning of a word. Japanese‐speaking children performed better in a verb generalization task when they were taught novel sound‐symbolic verbs, created based on existing Japanese sound‐symbolic words, than novel nonsound‐symbolic verbs ( Imai, Kita, Nagumo, & Okada, 2008 ). A question remained as to whether the Japanese children had picked up regularities in the Japanese sound‐symbolic lexicon or were sensitive to universal sound‐symbolism. The present study aimed to provide support for the latter. In a verb generalization task, English‐speaking 3‐year‐olds were taught novel sound‐symbolic verbs, created based on Japanese sound‐symbolism, or novel nonsound‐symbolic verbs. English‐speaking children performed better with the sound‐symbolic verbs, just like Japanese‐speaking children. We concluded that children are sensitive to universal sound‐symbolism and can utilize it in word learning and generalization, regardless of their native language.     

Conceptual change in physics: children’s naive representations of sound

The organization of physics knowledge (degree of coherence and nature of conceptual change) was studied in 89 6–10-year-old children using the concept of sound. We attempted to determine whether children apply properties of objects to sound or if they consider sounds as a vibratory process. Three properties of physical objects were studied: substantiality, weight, and permanence. The younger children considered sound more like an object than the older children did. Substantiality was attributed to sound more often than were weight and permanence. Based on the substantiality data, four mental models were identified (sound cannot pass through other objects unless there are holes, sound can pass through solids if it is harder than they are, sound is immaterial, sound is a vibratory process). We concluded that conceptual change in knowledge about sound does not happen through the sudden transfer of the concept from the ontological category of matter to the ontological category of processes, but rather through a slow and gradual process of belief revision, in the course of which the various properties of matter are abandoned in a hierarchical order.     

Children as Earwitnesses: Memory for Emotional Auditory Events

We examined the influence of age and emotionality of auditory stimuli on long‐term memory for environmental sound events. Sixty children aged 7–11 years were presented with two environmental sound events: an emotional car crash and a neutral event, someone brushing their teeth. The sound events comprised six individual environmental sounds, and the participants passively listened to the sound events through a headset. After a two‐week delay, participants performed a cued recall task and a recognition task. Independent of age, children were notably poor at recalling the sound events. Children recalled and recognized significantly more sounds from the emotional sound event than the neutral sound event. Additionally, the older children performed the recall task better than the younger children. The present findings confirm and expand the previously reported superiority of emotional material in memory.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Symbouki: a meta‐analysis on the emergence of sound symbolism in early language acquisition

Adults and toddlers systematically associate pseudowords such as “bouba” and “kiki” with round and spiky shapes, respectively, a sound symbolic phenomenon known as the “bouba‐kiki effect”. To date, whether this sound symbolic effect is a property of the infant brain present at birth or is a learned aspect of language perception remains unknown. Yet, solving this question is fundamental for our understanding of early language acquisition. Indeed, an early sensitivity to such sound symbolic associations could provide a powerful mechanism for language learning, playing a bootstrapping role in the establishment of novel sound–meaning associations. The aim of the present meta‐analysis (SymBouKi) is to provide a quantitative overview of the emergence of the bouba‐kiki effect in infancy and early childhood. It allows a high‐powered assessment of the true sound symbolic effect size by pooling over the entire set of 11 extant studies (six published, five unpublished), entailing data from 425 participants between 4 and 38 months of age. The quantitative data provide statistical support for a moderate, but significant, sound symbolic effect. Further analysis found a greater sensitivity to sound symbolism for bouba‐type pseudowords (i.e., round sound‐shape correspondences) than for kiki‐type pseudowords (i.e., spiky sound‐shape correspondences). For the kiki‐type pseudowords, the effect emerged with age. Such discrepancy challenges the view that sensitivity to sound symbolism is an innate language mechanism rooted in an exuberant interconnected brain. We propose alternative hypotheses where both innate and learned mechanisms are at play in the emergence of sensitivity to sound symbolic relationships.     

The Emergence of Sound Art: Opening the Cages of Sound

This article discusses listening that is appropriate to sound art and the associated changes in the paradigms, or thought patterns, that occur so often when we move from visual to aural perception. The distinction between historically accepted and rejected sounds is used to show how putting sounds in cages has fashioned a form of listening and of life. Twentieth‐century experimental music and, especially, the music and the reflections of John Cage have opened these cages of sound and at the same time weakened the visual paradigm for intellectual knowledge. This article examines sound art as a place where artistic practices coincide with certain theoretical issues centered on sound. The centrality of sound is approached first, and music and sound art are discussed in relation to space. Second, the attention to sound in the reception of prominent examples of sound art focuses on site‐specific relationships with the city and with listening. The article concludes by affirming the need for an aesthetic reflection that takes into consideration the implications of these profound transformations. However, that is another cage yet to be opened.     

电影观看过程中的字幕偏好性：声音的影响作用

字幕作为电影和电视节目的重要组成部分,在视频观看过程中起到辅助加工的作用。先前的研究认为字幕是视频语言的直接转译,字幕与声音信息具有很高的重叠性,所以关闭视频的声音不影响被试对字幕的加工。研究以电影视频作为刺激材料,采用眼动技术探讨了声音对电影观看过程中字幕偏好性的影响作用。实验通过控制视频的声音信息,探讨声音对字幕偏好性加工的影响作用。结果发现：视频的声音信息会对字幕的加工产生影响,关闭声音后被试对字幕的加工时间和次数会增加,无声条件下对字幕的注视次数和注视时间占总注视的比例超过了50%,说明声音和字幕对视频的理解具有相互辅助的作用。     

What is Sound?

Our standard view about sound is incoherent. On the one hand, we suppose that sound is a quality, not of the object that makes the sound, but of the surrounding medium. This is the supposition of our ordinary language, modern science and a long philosophical tradition. On the other hand, we suppose that sound is the object of hearing. This too is the assumption of ordinary language, modern science and a long philosophical tradition. Yet these two assumptions cannot both be right – not unless we wish to concede that hearing is illusory and that we do not listen to the objects that make sounds. To avoid these consequences we must recognize and repair the inconsistencies contained in our standard view of what sound is. I offer an account that describes sound as a quality belonging, not to the medium, but to the object that makes the sound.
email : pasnau@sju.edu     

Sound sequence discrimination learning motivated by reward requires dopaminergic D2 receptor activation in the rat auditory cortex

We have previously reported that sound sequence discrimination learning requires cholinergic inputs to the auditory cortex (AC) in rats. In that study, reward was used for motivating discrimination behavior in rats. Therefore, dopaminergic inputs mediating reward signals may have an important role in the learning. We tested the possibility in the present study. Rats were trained to discriminate sequences of two sound components, and licking behavior in response to one of the two sequences was rewarded with water. To identify the dopaminergic inputs responsible for the learning, dopaminergic afferents to the AC were lesioned with local injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA). The injection attenuated sound sequence discrimination learning, while it had no effect on discrimination between the sound components of the sequence stimuli. Local injection of 6-OHDA into the nucleus accumbens attenuated sound discrimination learning. However, not only discrimination learning of sound sequence but also that of the sound components were impaired. SCH23390 (0.2 mg/kg, i.p.), a D1 receptor antagonist, had no effect on sound sequence discrimination learning, while it attenuated the licking behavior to unfamiliar stimuli. Haloperidol (0.5 mg/kg, i.p.), a D2 family antagonist, attenuated sound sequence discrimination learning, while it had no clear suppressive effect on discrimination of two different sound components and licking. These results suggest that D2 family receptors activated by dopaminergic inputs to the AC are required for sound sequence discrimination learning.     

Control of responding by sound location in monkeys: rapid acquisition in darkness.

Rapid control of responding by sound location is obtained in squirrel monkeys when sound stimuli are presented from one of two loudspeakers, each one adjacent to a response key. With this arrangement of loudspeakers and response keys, squirrel monkeys quickly learn to respond on the key near the source of the sound stimulus, and this pattern is the same whether or not responses near the sound source are differentially reinforcedmthis result may depend on a pre-experimental tendency in squirrel monkeys to orient head and eyes toward a sound, which would lead the animal to look at the response key in front of the loudspeaker producing the sound. The present experiment sought to determine whether visual stimuli are necessary for rapid control of responding by sound location. Two monkeys were trained in darkness in a sound-localization task similar to that described above. Results were similar to those obtained from animals trained in light, indicating that visual stimuli are not required for rapid acquisition of sound-localization behavior in monkeys.     

Sound as affect: Difference,power and spatiality

This article considers what happens when sound is understood as affect. It begins by recounting a minor event in which sound moved my body. I use this as a starting point for defining sonic affect as the vibrational movement of bodies of all kinds, moving away from anthropocentric notions of sound based on human perception. The vibration of bodies can be understood as a ‘base layer’ of sound, which may activate or accrue layers of feeling, significance and meaning, but which is not reducible to them. Developing this conceptualisation of sonic affect, I argue that: (i) there are repeating affective tendencies of sound, but these unfold differently in context; (ii) sonic affect exercises power over bodies, sometimes by combining with meaning; and (iii) sound propagates affect through space in distinctive ways, some of which I discuss. These arguments are grounded in numerous examples, reflecting the variety of both sound and affect.     

Irrelevant Sound Disrupts Order Information in Free Recall as in Serial Recall

The claim that the sensitivity of free recall to disruption by irrelevant sound is a function of the extent to which rote rehearsal is employed as a mnemonic strategy was investigated in two experiments. The degree of disruption by irrelevant sound in terms of both item and order information was contrasted under serial and free recall instructions. Irrelevant sound was found to disrupt order and item information equally in serial and free recall tasks (Experiment 1). Contrary to previous reports, an effect of irrelevant sound was also demonstrated on free recall of particularly long lists, and the interaction between list length and retention interval in the irrelevant sound effect was examined (Experiment 2). Generally, the results support the view that irrelevant sound disrupts the use of order cues.     

An Exception to Mental Simulation: No Evidence for Embodied Odor Language

Do we mentally simulate olfactory information? We investigated mental simulation of odors and sounds in two experiments. Participants retained a word while they smelled an odor or heard a sound, then rated odor/sound intensity and recalled the word. Later odor/sound recognition was also tested, and pleasantness and familiarity judgments were collected. Word recall was slower when the sound and sound‐word mismatched (e.g., bee sound with the word typhoon). Sound recognition was higher when sounds were paired with a match or near‐match word (e.g., bee sound with bee or buzzer). This indicates sound‐words are mentally simulated. However, using the same paradigm no memory effects were observed for odor. Instead it appears odor‐words only affect lexical‐semantic representations, demonstrated by higher ratings of odor intensity and pleasantness when an odor was paired with a match or near‐match word (e.g., peach odor with peach or mango). These results suggest fundamental differences in how odor and sound‐words are represented.     

The irrelevant sound effect: does speech play a special role?

Memory for order is markedly impaired by the presence of irrelevant sound, even though participants are instructed to ignore the sound. Although a great deal of research has disclosed some features of the task and of the sound that augment or reduce the degree of interference, one important issue of the irrelevant sound effect not yet resolved is whether speech has a special status. This study revealed, within a design of adequate power, that the same physical stimulus (sine wave speech), whether perceived as speech or as nonspeech sound, produces similar degrees of disruption and is less disruptive of serial recall than natural speech. This outcome suggests that the acoustic constituents of sound rather than its source are most influential in determining the impact of irrelevant material.     

听觉中脑声定位的机制

人和动物对声源方位的感知和心理确定建立在神经生理基础之上,得到了大量来自神经细胞电生理研究证据的支持。听中枢神经元可通过比较到达两耳声信号的不同特征和参量来体现其精确的声源定位能力。研究表明,声源定位过程是听觉系统复杂综合作用的结果,听觉中脑核团-下丘在这一过程中起着重要作用,下丘中大量双耳听觉反应神经元可编码声音(源)方位信息,甚至双侧下丘间的联合投射也有可能参与双耳听觉反应的调制。     

Spatial and identity negative priming in audition: Evidence of feature binding in auditory spatial memory

Two experiments are reported with identical auditory stimulation in three-dimensional space but with different instructions. Participants localized a cued sound (Experiment 1) or identified a sound at a cued location (Experiment 2). A distractor sound at another location had to be ignored. The prime distractor and the probe target sound were manipulated with respect to sound identity (repeated vs. changed) and location (repeated vs. changed). The localization task revealed a symmetric pattern of partial repetition costs: Participants were impaired on trials with identity-location mismatches between the prime distractor and probe target-that is, when either the sound was repeated but not the location or vice versa. The identification task revealed an asymmetric pattern of partial repetition costs: Responding was slowed down when the prime distractor sound was repeated as the probe target, but at another location; identity changes at the same location were not impaired. Additionally, there was evidence of retrieval of incompatible prime responses in the identification task. It is concluded that feature binding of auditory prime distractor information takes place regardless of whether the task is to identify or locate a sound. Instructions determine the kind of identity-location mismatch that is detected. Identity information predominates over location information in auditory memory.     

The Specificity of Sound Symbolic Correspondences in Spoken Language

Although language has long been regarded as a primarily arbitrary system, sound symbolism, or non‐arbitrary correspondences between the sound of a word and its meaning, also exists in natural language. Previous research suggests that listeners are sensitive to sound symbolism. However, little is known about the specificity of these mappings. This study investigated whether sound symbolic properties correspond to specific meanings, or whether these properties generalize across semantic dimensions. In three experiments, native English‐speaking adults heard sound symbolic foreign words for dimensional adjective pairs (big/small, round/pointy, fast/slow, moving/still) and for each foreign word, selected a translation among English antonyms that either matched or mismatched with the correct meaning dimension. Listeners agreed more reliably on the English translation for matched relative to mismatched dimensions, though reliable cross‐dimensional mappings did occur. These findings suggest that although sound symbolic properties generalize to meanings that may share overlapping semantic features, sound symbolic mappings offer semantic specificity.     

Shrinkage of perceived tonal duration produced by extra sounds: effects of spectral density, temporal position, and transition direction

To investigate the mental mechanism that estimates the duration of sounds, the subjective duration of a tone was measured. In the first experiment a portion of the target sound was replaced with another sound. In the second and third experiments another sound either started or ended in the middle of the target sound. Ten or eleven undergraduates participated as listeners in each of the experiments. In the first experiment, effects of spectral spacing and those of temporal position of the replacing sound were tested. Compared with the intact case, the subjective duration of the replaced target shrunk, and the degree of shrinkage increased as the spectral spacing became wider. The temporal position of the replacing sound did not affect the degree of shrinkage. In the second experiment, effects produced by the start (ON) of the concurrent sound and those by the end (OFF) were compared. The ON case was more effective than the OFF case. In the third experiment, effects of the rise time and fall time of the concurrent sound were tested. A long rise and fall time reduced the difference between the ON and OFF cases. These results are discussed from two viewpoints, one assuming an interaction between the time markers, the other assuming continuous gate control in a neural-counting model for duration.