A Study of the Semantic Memory Access by Perceptual Modalities with a Semantic Priming Experiment

Abstract

Our study is based on the linguistic distinction signified (signifiés) / signifier (signifiants) instituted by F. De Saussure. In our investigation, we want to study the modalities of access to meaning (or semantic repertory) and the relationships with the signifiers (or perceptual sign repertory). The aim of this research is to examine futher the basis of picture and word priming on a lexical decision task by assessing the role of the modalities of access. The perception and the integration of visual or acoustical informations into the semantic memory is important to understand language comprehension. To study the nature of the semantic repertory and his relationships with the signifiers repertory, we used the priming technique with cross-modal lexical decision task. This study shows that access to the semantic repertory by pictures or by words is not equivalent.

On the basis of this result, the study of speechreading could be done with knowledge that visual informations and speech informations are not equivalent to reach the meaning.