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Faculty of Linguistics
and Literature
Faculty of Technology
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Bielefeld University Faculty of Linguistics and Literature Faculty of Technology |
Proper names belong to the class of concrete nouns which is divided in nomina propria (names) and nomina appellativa (common nouns). Since more than 2000 years proper names seem to play a special role in language philosophy for theoretical reasons (4). Furthermore, there is neurolinguistical and neuropsychological evidence from aphasic patients, showing that proper names are recepted and produced differently from common nouns (1, 2, 3).
To investigate potential processing differences of proper names based on phonological or articulatory features, 40 participants (20 male, 20 female) listened to 80 first names (656 ± 91 ms) and 80 common nouns (603 ± 87 ms) in randomised order while measuring their electrodermal activity. The experiment was split into two tests: 1. Participants listened to names and nouns presented completely to test the correlation between emotive content and EDR. 2. Participants listened to the words first 100 ms (gating paradigm), using the EDR to test a preconscious word recognition point. The affective content of the stimuli was measured by questionnaire.
Electrodermal reactions in both tests occurred more often for proper names than for common nouns, because of the emotive content of certain proper names. An EDR to stimuli is elicited after hearing only the first 100 ms of certain names and nouns - long before the subjects are aware of the specific word.
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Last Change: 2003-12-12 gk256www@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de |
