The Cognitive Process of Adjective Production and its Cultural Differences: An Eye-Tracking Study

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13159
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Osaka University (2021); Mie University (2019-2020)
• Principal Investigator: Sugaya Yusuke 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科(言語文化専攻), 助教 (50826625)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 視線計測 / 視覚世界パラダイム / 認知プロセス / 形容詞 / スケール表現 / 文化比較 / 主観性 / 評価

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research conducted visual-world eye-tracking experiments to investigate the cognitive process of producing adjective expressions said to be context-dependent and to reveal how it can be affected by cultural, linguistic differences. The results indicated that participants paid attention not only to targets of expression but also to various implicit elements not expressed linguistically, such as competitors, standards, and the judge. The experiments thus revealed how an evaluation with adjectives is basically formed based on the interpretation of pragmatic components. Moreover, in terms of comparison, the survey demonstrated that Japanese i-adjectives took on the feature mentioned above much more than other Japanese scalar expressions and those of other languages.

Free Research Field

心理言語学、言語認知科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

言語は日常的に人間が行う思考や判断の反映である。「良い/悪い」はじめ様々な主観的評価は形容詞によって言語化されることが多い。我々は一日の間でそのような判断を無数に行い行動に移す。しかし、それらは直感的で自動化しており、どのような思考により判断に至ったか、脳内でどのような認知処理がなされ出力に至ったかに関して不明なことは多い。本研究は、その思考や認知処理の内実を可視的かつ実証的に明らかにし、人が普段行う評価がどのように主観的であるかを解明することに貢献した。