Häuser, Katja; Kray, Jutta
Uninvited and unwanted: False memories for words predicted but not seen
Culbertson, Jennifer; Perfors, Andrew; Rabagliati, Hugh; Ramenzoni, Veronica; (Ed.): Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Toronto, Canada (27 Jul 2022 - 30 Jul 2022), 44, pp. 2401-2408, 2022.
Semantic extension plays a key role in language change and grammaticalisation. Here we use a dyadic interaction paradigm to study semantic extension of novel labels in controlled circumstances. We ask whether participants will be able to (i) use highly accessible associations in the perceptual environment (colour-shape associations) to converge on a meaning for the novel labels, and (ii) extend these meanings to apply to both concrete targets (objects) and abstract targets (emotions). Further, given the argument that both metonymy and metaphor are important drivers of language change, we investigate whether participants will be able to draw on relations of contiguity (‘metonymic’ associations, e.g. colour-shape or object-colour) and relations of similarity (‘metaphorical’ associations, e.g. emotion-colour) to extend the meaning of labels.