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Tidsskrift For Den Norske Laegeforening... Nov 2014
Topics: Humans; Language; Metaphor; Neoplasms; Terminology as Topic; Warfare
PubMed: 25423964
DOI: 10.4045/tidsskr.14.1432 -
Oncology Nursing Forum Mar 2014
Topics: Attitude to Health; Humans; Neoplasms; Semantics; Survivors; Symbolism
PubMed: 24578070
DOI: 10.1188/14.ONF.111 -
Scientific Reports Jul 2017Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary mappings that exist between phonetic properties of speech sounds and their meaning. Despite there being an extensive...
Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary mappings that exist between phonetic properties of speech sounds and their meaning. Despite there being an extensive literature on the topic, the acoustic features and psychological mechanisms that give rise to sound symbolism are not, as yet, altogether clear. The present study was designed to investigate whether different sets of acoustic cues predict size and shape symbolism, respectively. In two experiments, participants judged whether a given consonant-vowel speech sound was large or small, round or angular, using a size or shape scale. Visual size judgments were predicted by vowel formant F1 in combination with F2, and by vowel duration. Visual shape judgments were, however, predicted by formants F2 and F3. Size and shape symbolism were thus not induced by a common mechanism, but rather were distinctly affected by acoustic properties of speech sounds. These findings portray sound symbolism as a process that is not based merely on broad categorical contrasts, such as round/unround and front/back vowels. Rather, individuals seem to base their sound-symbolic judgments on specific sets of acoustic cues, extracted from speech sounds, which vary across judgment dimensions.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Female; Humans; Judgment; Nontherapeutic Human Experimentation; Photic Stimulation; Symbolism; Young Adult
PubMed: 28717151
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-05965-y -
The Journal of Frailty & Aging 2018Frailty affects 15% of non-institutionalized older adults in the United States, yet confusion remains in defining and, in turn, assessing frailty. Figurative language,... (Review)
Review
INTRODUCTION
Frailty affects 15% of non-institutionalized older adults in the United States, yet confusion remains in defining and, in turn, assessing frailty. Figurative language, such as metaphor, can help to explain difficult scientific concepts and to form new theories. We aimed to examine the use of figurative language to describe frailty and to identify themes in the way figurative expressions are used. Understanding how frailty is described figuratively may offer insights for developing useful communication approaches in research settings.
METHODS
We performed a comprehensive review of editorials in the scientific literature to explore figurative language used to describe frailty in older adults. We categorized themes among the figurative expressions, which may help to inform how to effectively communicate about frailty.
RESULTS
We found 24 editorials containing 32 figurative expressions. The figurative expressions conceptualized frailty in six ways: 1) a complex, multifaceted concept; 2) an important issue in health and medicine; 3) indicative of something that is failing or faulty; 4) indicative of fragility; 5) representative of vulnerable, ignored persons; and 6) an opportunity for self-awareness and reflection.
DISCUSSION
Our review highlights the heterogeneity in depictions of frailty, which is consonant with the lack of a standardized definition of frailty. We also found a novel aspect to the concept of frailty, which merits attention: frailty characterized as an opportunity for self-awareness and reflection. Figurative language, which often juxtaposes familiar with challenging, complex concepts, can offer insights on issues in frailty research and holds potential as a tool for researchers to improve communication about this important and debated medical condition.
Topics: Aged; Frailty; Humans; Language; Metaphor
PubMed: 29741198
DOI: 10.14283/jfa.2018.9 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Sep 2014Natural language--spoken and signed--is a multichannel phenomenon, involving facial and body expression, and voice and visual intonation that is often used in the... (Review)
Review
Natural language--spoken and signed--is a multichannel phenomenon, involving facial and body expression, and voice and visual intonation that is often used in the service of a social urge to communicate meaning. Given that iconicity seems easier and less abstract than making arbitrary connections between sound and meaning, iconicity and gesture have often been invoked in the origin of language alongside the urge to convey meaning. To get a fresh perspective, we critically distinguish the origin of a system capable of evolution from the subsequent evolution that system becomes capable of. Human language arose on a substrate of a system already capable of Darwinian evolution; the genetically supported uniquely human ability to learn a language reflects a key contact point between Darwinian evolution and language. Though implemented in brains generated by DNA symbols coding for protein meaning, the second higher-level symbol-using system of language now operates in a world mostly decoupled from Darwinian evolutionary constraints. Examination of Darwinian evolution of vocal learning in other animals suggests that the initial fixation of a key prerequisite to language into the human genome may actually have required initially side-stepping not only iconicity, but the urge to mean itself. If sign languages came later, they would not have faced this constraint.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Birds; Comprehension; Cultural Evolution; Humans; Language; Mating Preference, Animal; Semantics; Species Specificity; Speech; Symbolism; Vocalization, Animal
PubMed: 25092671
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0303 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Sep 2013How brain structures and neuronal circuits mechanistically underpin symbolic meaning has recently been elucidated by neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and... (Review)
Review
How brain structures and neuronal circuits mechanistically underpin symbolic meaning has recently been elucidated by neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and neurocomputational research. Modality-specific 'embodied' mechanisms anchored in sensorimotor systems appear to be relevant, as are 'disembodied' mechanisms in multimodal areas. In this paper, four semantic mechanisms are proposed and spelt out at the level of neuronal circuits: referential semantics, which establishes links between symbols and the objects and actions they are used to speak about; combinatorial semantics, which enables the learning of symbolic meaning from context; emotional-affective semantics, which establishes links between signs and internal states of the body; and abstraction mechanisms for generalizing over a range of instances of semantic meaning. Referential, combinatorial, emotional-affective, and abstract semantics are complementary mechanisms, each necessary for processing meaning in mind and brain.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Concept Formation; Humans; Learning; Neurons; Perception; Semantics; Symbolism
PubMed: 23932069
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.06.004 -
Schmerz (Berlin, Germany) Apr 2023The article provides an overview of the research project "Metaphor in end-of-life care", which was conducted at Lancaster University (UK) between 2011 and 2014. The... (Review)
Review
The article provides an overview of the research project "Metaphor in end-of-life care", which was conducted at Lancaster University (UK) between 2011 and 2014. The goals of the project were to show a) how patients, family members and healthcare professionals use metaphors to talk about their experiences with and expectations of end-of-life care, b) what experiences and needs are suggested by the use of metaphors by these groups and c) what contribution the results can make to communication in the healthcare system. A corpus consisting of interviews with the various groups of people and their postings in online fora were subject to both manual and semi-automated analyses. The results show that especially the online communications by patients and family members are characterized by violence and journey metaphors. The use of metaphors by these groups suggests a need for solidarity and community and reflects both positive and negative personal experiences. Resilience can be understood as resistance against illness or as acceptance of it.
Topics: Humans; Metaphor; Communication; Terminal Care; Hospice Care; Death
PubMed: 36917204
DOI: 10.1007/s00482-023-00702-z -
Canadian Family Physician Medecin de... Jan 2015
Topics: Canada; Humans; Metaphor; Paintings; Right to Die
PubMed: 25609535
DOI: No ID Found -
Integrative Psychological & Behavioral... Sep 2022The background of the article is an interest in theories of learning and the metaphors of learning they build on and propagate. The basic argument is that the discursive...
The background of the article is an interest in theories of learning and the metaphors of learning they build on and propagate. The basic argument is that the discursive construction of learning plays a central role in theoretical perspectives in research but also in discussions of societal issues in a wider sense. An initial observation is that current metaphors of learning oscillate between emphasizing socializing/reproductive dimensions and perspectives which foreground new-thinking transformations of existing collective knowledge; the culturally given. Hence, our aim is to explore conceptions of learning underpinning dominant theoretical perspectives as behaviorism, cognitivism, pragmatism, and various sociocultural traditions, in the light of this theoretical tension. Our conclusion is that the views of communication and learning inherent to the radical dialogic perspective on communication that stresses the unfinalizable nature of knowing, offered by Bakhtin, add to our understanding of how learning may be conceptualized in contemporary society. Such a dialogic perspective, emphasizing open-ended agency, plurality of voices, and performative potentials of creatively expressing opinions when learning from each other, offers a perspective on learning worth considering in times of diversity, unpredictable risks, and the need for critical self-reflexivity.
Topics: Communication; Humans; Metaphor; Socialization
PubMed: 34622419
DOI: 10.1007/s12124-021-09661-5 -
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 2008The Birkhoff aesthetic measure of an object is the ratio between order and complexity. Informational aesthetics describes the interpretation of this measure from an...
The Birkhoff aesthetic measure of an object is the ratio between order and complexity. Informational aesthetics describes the interpretation of this measure from an information-theoretic perspective. From these ideas, the authors define a set of ratios based on information theory and Kolmogorov complexity that can help to quantify the aesthetic experience.
Topics: Art; Cluster Analysis; Comprehension; Creativity; Entropy; Esthetics; Humans; Information Theory; Stochastic Processes; Symbolism; Visual Perception; Weights and Measures
PubMed: 18350930
DOI: 10.1109/mcg.2008.34