Bright, unfriendly words Gestalt psychology and childrens word - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Bright, unfriendly words Gestalt psychology and children’s word perception Olivia Lima Psychology 250 April 3, 2005

Consider these figures…

Which is called “TAKETE”?

And which is “MALUMA”?

What did you say? • Maluma is the round one, and Takete pointy? • Nearly all adults identify this way • What about the figures makes us identify them so predictably? • What about our minds makes us identify them so predictably?

Gestalt Psychology • Kohler (1929) - Tendency to perceive wholes - Organization of perception according to patterns • Lindauer (1990) - Attribution of qualities to maluma & takete Kohler, W. (1929). Gestalt Psychology . New York: Liveright. Lindauer, M. S. (1990). The effects of the physiognomic stimuli taketa and maluma on the meanings of neutral stimuli. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society. Vol 28(2), 151-154.

Expansions • Cross cultural / linguistic - English 1 - Dutch (another Germanic) 2 - French (Romance) 3 - Serbian (Slavic) 4 1: Irwin, F.W. & Newland, E. (1940). A genetic study of the naming of visual figures. Journal of Psychology, 9 , 3-16. 2 & 3: Ammon, K. H., Moerman, C., Guleac, J. D. (1977) Aphasics' defective perception of connotative meaning of verbal items which have no denotative meaning. Cortex. Vol 13(4), 453-457. 4: Jankovic & Markovic (2000,2001)

Expansions • Production 4 - More m, a, l, o, n phonemes for Maluma - More t, z, r, c, k phonemes for Takete • Other populations - Aphasics: not present 5 - Children: present in grade school 6 . 4: Jankovic &* Markovic, 2000,2001 5: Ammon, Moerman & Guleac, 1977 6: Irwin & Newland, 1940

Our study • What about preschool children? • How early can this phenomenon be observed? • Are there developmental changes during the preschool period? • Requires some procedural modification

The teddy bear is in the MALUMA box. Can you find him?

Preliminary Results • 83% of preschoolers use names like adults • 2, 3, and 4-year-olds tested

Future Directions • Word specific? - Local phonemes, existing words • Phoneme classes - Voiced / unvoiced • Refugee population - African languages

Thanks to collaborators • Lise Dobrin • Lauren Malone • Vikram Jaswal • Keelah Andrews • Michael Kubovy • Sally Gustafson • Jon Backdash • Gillian Hatch • Michael Schutz • Brittany McLaughlin • Molly Wallace • Cristina Wilcox