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Welcome to the Modality-exclusivity-norms-747-Dutch-English-replication wiki!

Contains all data from this psycholinguistic study, including original surveys, compiled data, and analysis R code.

This study is a cross-linguistic, conceptual replication of Lynott and Connell’s (2009, 2013) modality exclusivity norms. Their English properties and concepts were translated into Dutch, then independently tested as follows. Forty-two respondents rated the auditory, haptic, and visual strength of those words. Mean ratings were then computed, with a high interrater reliability and interitem consistency. Based on the three modalities, each word also features a specific modality exclusivity, and a dominant modality. The norms also include external measures of word frequency, length, distinctiveness, age of acquisition, and known percentage.

Starting with the results, unimodal, bimodal, and tri-modal words appear. Visual and haptic experience are quite related, leaving a more independent auditory experience. These different relations are important because they may correlate with different levels of detail in word comprehension (Louwerse & Connell, 2011). Auditory and visual words tend towards unimodality, whereas haptic words tend towards multimodality. Likewise, properties are more unimodal than concepts. The form of words is not quite as arbitrary as we used to think. It is connected to their meaning. This 'sound symbolism' was tested by means of a regression: Auditory strength predicts lexical properties of the words (frequency, distinctiveness...) better than the other modalities do, or else with a different polarity.

The norms were used, and validated, in an experiment that implemented the conceptual modality switch. Data for that experiment may thus be found as a linked component of the present Project at https://osf.io/brkjw/