The Semantics of Biological Forms

This study analyses how certain qualitative perceptual appearances of biological forms are correlated with expressions of natural language. Making use of the Osgood semantic differential, we presented the subjects with 32 drawings of biological forms and a list of 10 pairs of connotative adjectives...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPerception (London) Vol. 43; no. 12; pp. 1365 - 1376
Main Authors Albertazzi, Liliana, Canal, Luisa, Dadam, James, Micciolo, Rocco
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.01.2014
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Animals
Color Perception
Female
Form Perception
Humans
Judgment
Male
Nature
Paired-Associate Learning
Physiognomy
Semantics
Young Adult
naturally biased associations
semantics of biological appearances
affordances
adjectives
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This study analyses how certain qualitative perceptual appearances of biological forms are correlated with expressions of natural language. Making use of the Osgood semantic differential, we presented the subjects with 32 drawings of biological forms and a list of 10 pairs of connotative adjectives to be put in correlations with them merely by subjective judgments. The principal components analysis made it possible to group the semantics of forms according to two distinct axes of variability: Harmony and dynamicity. Specifically, the nonspiculed, nonholed, and flat forms were perceived as harmonic and static; the rounded ones were harmonic and dynamic. The elongated forms were somewhat disharmonious and somewhat static. The results suggest the existence in the general population of a correspondence between perceptual and semantic processes, and of a nonsymbolic relation between visual forms and their adjectival expressions in natural language.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0301-0066
1468-4233
DOI:10.1068/p7794