How Meaning Shapes Seeing

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 845-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mika Koivisto ◽  
Antti Revonsuo
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Inattentional Blindness ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Semantic Relation ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Attentional Set ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Unexpected Stimulus

Inattentional blindness refers to the failure to see an unexpected object that one may be looking at directly when one's attention is elsewhere. We studied whether a stimulus whose meaning is relevant to the attentional goals of the observer will capture attention and escape inattentional blindness. The results showed that an unexpected stimulus belonging to the attended semantic category but not sharing physical features with the attended stimuli was detected more often than a semantically unrelated stimulus. This effect was larger when the unexpected stimuli were words than when they were pictures. The results imply that the semantic relation between the observer's attentional set and the unexpected stimulus plays a crucial role in inattentional blindness: An unexpected stimulus semantically related to the observer's current interests is likely to be seen, whereas unrelated unexpected stimuli are unseen. Attentional selection may thus be driven by purely semantic features: Meaning may determine whether or not one sees a stimulus.

scholarly journals The Female and Male World in Croatian Proverbs

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-363
Author(s):  
Goranka Blagus Bartolec ◽  
Ivana Matas Ivanković
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Social Community ◽  
Female Relationships ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Human And Nature ◽  
Physical Features

Proverbs as concise textual structures are primarily defined as oral (folk) literary forms in which universal thoughts are expressed on the basis of individual experiences understandable to speakers of the language, i.e., of the social community in which they originated. In relation to, for example, idioms, the use of proverbs in today’s public discourse is much rarer, and proverbs in Croatian are most often recorded in printed form, while online edited lexicographic sources of proverbs are rare. Folk customs, human character and physical features, social and religious values, the relation of human and nature are the most common motives in proverbs. Male-female relationships are also the subject of numerous proverbs. Given the past times when they were created, they can be considered the source of a stereotypical image of the status of women and men in society that exists in human consciousness. Based on proverbs with the component woman, grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, girlfriend, widow, father, son, husband…, this paper will analyze proverbs with the topic of male-female relations, e.g. Ljubav daj ženi, ali tajnu odaj samo majci i sestri. (Give your love to your wife, but reveal the secret only to your mother and sister.), or proverbs referring to an individual feature attributed to a man or a woman, e.g., Kakvo drvo, takav klin, kakav otac takav sin. (Like tree, like wedge; like father, like son.)., Ženi sina kad hoćeš, a kćer kad možeš. (Marry a son when you want and a daughter when you can.). The analysis includes the following: 1. representation of proverbs in other lexicographic (printed and online sources), 2. representation of such proverbs in contemporary public discourse, 3. structural and semantic features of proverbs motivated by male-female relationships. In conclusion, the role of proverbs on the topic of male and female in the contemporary context is discussed – what is their perspective and whether the corpus has replaced traditional recorders and word of mouth today.

The Urban Environment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Hanawalt
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Ceremonial Life ◽  
The City

London’s civic world included the Thames and the city walls, the main market (Cheapside), the Guildhall, major churches, wards, and parishes, the physical features that had a role in the city’s ceremonial life. Social divisions played a crucial role in urban life. To be “free of the city” (citizens or freemen) was a franchise limited to those who completed apprenticeships or bought the right. The number of freemen was a small fraction of the population, and among them, the members of the elite who governed was even smaller. London’s society was hierarchical at every level, with elites taking leadership positions in government and in the gilds. Londoners were loyal and curious about their history. They kept books with stories of its creation and major events and documents. The proximity of the Tower on one side and Westminster on the other were influential in London’s relationship with the crown.

Polysemous Features of Words of Perception in English, Chinese and Korean—A Case Study of mouth, 嘴/口 and입

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 2002
Author(s):  
Chengyu Nan
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Physiological Phenomenon ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Physical Features

Typologically, English, Chinese and Korean belong to three different types of language. English is inflectional, Chinese is isolating and Korean is agglutinative. Therefore, words of perception in these three languages show some different semantic features. But due to similar physical features and physiological phenomenon, people speaking English, Chinese or Korean language use the same word of perception to express the same meaning or feeling. This paper makes a comparative case study of mouth, 嘴/口 and입, which have rich polysemous features. Their meanings are extended from “the part of human body” to the concrete “entrance” or “person” and then to the abstract “speech act” or “way of speaking”. The meaning extension shows semantic symmetry and asymmetry both interlingually and intralingually in the expressions not only with mouth, 嘴/口 and입 and other words of perception in three languages.

The Semantics of Technical Graphics

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan D. Manning
Keyword(s):  
Logical Structure ◽  
Semantic Relation ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Property A ◽  
Object A ◽  
Reference Relation

Common technical graphics terms table, graph, chart, and diagram share a parallel logical structure with the four common types of technical graphics that the terms typically refer to. In the system of terminology as in the system of graphics types, four logical categories result from the possible permutations of two features. The abstract semantic features which underlie the meanings of the terms are in this discussion labeled as [UNITS] and [PROPERTIES]; likewise the significant features which distinguish the graphics types are here labeled as “units” and “properties.” These proposed semantic features reflect a fundamental semantic relation common to all meaningful statements, the attribution of a property (a predicate) to an object (a subject). The connection between term-features ([UNITS] and [PROPERTIES]) and type-features (“units” and “properties”) is a variable but systematic sense-reference relation. Consequently the terminology used to refer to the various graphics types varies systematically according to the markedness relationships among the terms. Principled explanations of the best uses for each graphics type follow from the proposed logical relations between them.

scholarly journals Odmianki znaczeniowe czasowników w opisie semantyczno‑syntaktycznym i w praktyce leksykograficznej (na przykładzie języka bułgarskiego)

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Korytkowska
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Category ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Double Object

The exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness and a certain type of expressive expressions in Bulgarian and PolishThe paper focuses on the functions of the pronoun exponents of the semantic category of definiteness / indefiniteness in Bulgarian examples of the following type: Свършихме я. Тънко я преда. Свърши се вашата, etc. Their reference to sentences such as Свършихме я тази работа. allows interpreting the function of the phrase as thematic. This type of sentences was confronted with examples such as Тя му я изтърси една… И ти ми ги говориш едни… The features of intonation and the semantic features of the double object phrase indicate its rhematic nature. Specific formal traits of such sentences, including the usage of the exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness, are related with their expressive markedness.

Alternations of classificatory verb stems in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì: a cognitive semantic account

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Al-Bataineh
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Category ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
Cognitive Semantic ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs’, i.e. a set of motion and positional verbs that show stem alternations depending on the semantic features of one of their arguments in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), based on field notes and documentary sources of the language. The paper shows that Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbal categories belong to four semantic subclasses which have inconsistent stem inventories caused by the presence or absence of some semantic features. Stem inventories of locative verb systems vary depending on the scalar [effort] feature, and those of motion verbs correlate with the scalar [agentive] feature. The paper explains why other semantically related verbs do not show stem alternations and proposes contrastive hierarchies to represent variations in stem inventories intra- and cross-linguistically assuming that the selection of a stem for a particular semantic category follows a series of binary choices that characterize the opposition’s active in the language.

scholarly journals Evidence of serial processing in visual word recognition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex L. White ◽  
John Palmer ◽  
Geoffrey M. Boynton
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Processing ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
The Other ◽  
Task Condition ◽  
Dual Task Condition ◽  
Serial Processing ◽  
Switching Model ◽  
Text Color ◽  
Physical Features

To test the limits of parallel processing in vision, we investigated whether observers can recognize two words at once. Observers viewed brief, masked pairs of words and were instructed in advance to judge both of the words (dual-task condition), or just one of the words (single-task condition). For judgments of semantic category, the dual-task deficit was so large that it supported serial processing: observers could only recognize one word and had to guess about the other. Moreover, observers were more likely to be correct about one word if they were incorrect than correct about the other, which supports a serial switching model. In contrast, judgments of text color with identical stimuli were consistent with unlimited-capacity parallel processing. Thus, under these conditions, serial processing is necessary to judge the meaning of words but not their physical features. Further investigation must address the implications of this result for natural reading.

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