Analyzing visual metaphor and metonymy to understand creativity in fashion

The role of figurative language such as metaphor and metonymy in creativity has been studied in cognitive linguistics. These methods can also be applied to analyze non-linguistic data such as pictures and gestures. In this paper, we analyze fashion design by focusing on visual metaphor and metonymy. The nature of creativity in fashion design has not been fully studied from a cognitive perspective compared to other related fields such as art. We especially focus on fashion design as a communication tool between the designer and audience in conveying a designer’s image of human beings. Photos from two fashion shows were analyzed. We carried out an experiment to compare how human images in two shows are interpreted by those who are familiar with fashion and those who are not. We obtained three results: (1) As far as figurative (metaphorical and metonymic) interpretations of human images are concerned, two groups with different levels of familiarity with fashion had significantly different patterns of responses to two shows. (2) For the non-figurative interpretations (such as physical or personal attributes), no significant difference in the pattern of response to the show was observed between the two groups. However, the participants as a whole responded to the two shows differently. (3) In addition, for the non-figurative interpretations, the fashion experts found significantly more attributes in human images than the other group. The results show that the analysis of figurative interpretations is effective in understanding how familiarity with fashion affects the mode of seeing fashion shows

Confidence in expressing novel textures - an analysis of Japanese ideophones that describe visually-induced textures

Although a close relationship between the emergence of a new expression and that of either a new object or concept is presupposed in linguistic analysis, the correlation has not been pursued thoroughly. This paper investigates how people respond to different novel textures within language. We carried out an experiment using an application that displays visually-induced texture. Participants were presented with two types of novel texture: one had a time delay between touching and the texture’s response to this and the other did not. Participants were asked to describe the texture with ideophones (sound symbolic words) in Japanese. We observed what kinds of ideophones were used and the confidence with which they were expressed, which produced two results. First, there was a significant difference between the two texture types regarding confidence. For the texture with a delay, active touch was required for subjects to express it with a high level of confidence. Second, when the expressions were made with high confidence, the texture with a delay was expressed with significantly more unconventional ideophones than that without delay

研究会報告書「動的システムの情報論(7)」

2007.11.30-12.1, 統計数理研究

Exploring the Positional Effects in Sound Symbolism: The Case of Hardness Judgments by English and Japanese Speakers

Sound symbolism refers to the systematic and iconic relationships between sounds and meanings. While the research on this topic is growing rapidly, one issue that is understudied in the literature is whether segments in psycholinguistically salient positions (e.g., word-initial position) exhibit stronger sound–symbolic effects. We report two experiments that, together, show Japanese speakers are more sensitive to the sound–symbolic values of segments in initial syllables, whereas English speakers, rather surprisingly, are more sensitive to the sound–symbolic values of segments in final syllables. This cross-linguistic difference is intriguing, and we believe it opens up opportunities for future experimentation

Exploring the Positional Effects in Sound Symbolism: The Case of Hardness Judgments by English and Japanese Speakers

Sound symbolism refers to the systematic and iconic relationships between sounds and meanings. While the research on this topic is growing rapidly, one issue that is understudied in the literature is whether segments in psycholinguistically salient positions (e.g., word-initial position) exhibit stronger sound–symbolic effects. We report two experiments that, together, show Japanese speakers are more sensitive to the sound–symbolic values of segments in initial syllables, whereas English speakers, rather surprisingly, are more sensitive to the sound–symbolic values of segments in final syllables. This cross-linguistic difference is intriguing, and we believe it opens up opportunities for future experimentation

Emergence of proto-sentences in artificial communicating systems

This paper investigates the relationship between embodied interaction and symbolic communication. We report about an experiment in which simulated autonomous robotic agents, whose control systems were evolved through an artificial evolutionary process, use abstract communication signals to coordinate their behavior in a context independent way. This use of signals includes some fundamental aspects of sentences in natural languages which are discussed by using the concept of joint attention in relation to the grammatical structure of sentences

Effects of Wellness Conscious Buildings on the Well-being and Comfort of Workers

In recent years, Mental and physical health of office workers is regarded as a problem and the office buildings which improve workers’ wellness. The WELL Building Standard was announced with the aim of improving the health condition of building users in 2014. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the improvement of the health condition of the office workers who work at the office applying WELL Building Standard. To achieve this purpose, low-score office and high-score office for WELL Building Standard scores were created by changing the indoor environment and furniture in the office, and subject experiments in which we perform the work were conducted in each condition. From the experimental results, we propose environmental control and introduction furniture to verify changes in health condition of office workers, to improve the wellness of building users, and to bring synergy effects to health. It was confirmed that working at plural spaces which workers chose themselves