How does sensory experience affect the way people use and understand synaesthetic metaphor?

通感是一种罕见的神经系统疾病，其中一种感觉不自觉地刺激另一种感觉，例如听到声音时看到颜色。然而，通感隐喻，通过一种感官通道描述另一种感官通道的体验，通常用于跨通道表达，如锋利的奶酪，响亮的衬衫和甜美的旋律。现有的通感隐喻研究（Ullman，1945;威廉姆斯，1976; Evans和Wilkins，2000; Littlemore，2019; Winter，2019）主要集中在视力正常、听力正常和神经正常的人的语言上。然而，由于感官语言是人们分享经验的最直接方式之一，因此使用非规范参与者进行研究非常重要。这个项目将调查盲人、聋人或通感者的感官体验如何影响他们理解和使用感官语言的方式。它将解决感官语言学新兴领域中最重要的假设之一：一个人感官体验的差异是否反映在语言使用的差异上？一个人的感觉和身体经历如何影响他们的交流方式？虽然以前的研究已经研究了盲人对感官语言的理解（Bedny等人，2019; Lenci等人，二〇一三年; Vidali，2010），以及聋人对隐喻的使用（Kaneko and Sutton-Spence，2016; Siqueira and Gibbs，2016; Wilcox，2000），我的重点将是通感隐喻。我还将建立在现有的研究跨通道协会在联觉（Cuskley等人，2019; Moos等人，2014），特别是Littlemore（2019）的工作，发现联觉者更有可能使用跨感官语言，报告增强的同理心，感官之间更强的联系，以及对隐喻语言的更多身体反应。我将通过使用Lynott和Connell（2009，2013）建立的模态评级范式来扩展这项工作。这些研究收集了大量的“模态规范”，要求参与者通过五种常识中的每一种来评估他们对一个词的感知程度，从而得出每种感觉的感知评级强度（Lynott和Connell，2009，2013; Winter，2016）。例如，黄色这个词是非常单一的，只在视觉上得到很高的评价，而刺耳的是更多的多感官，在所有感官上都得到很高的评价。在这个项目中，我将把这种方法应用于那些有不同感官体验的人，并比较结果。在项目的第一部分，我将收集参与者的模态规范。这将支持有关通感隐喻的字面量的问卷调查。第三部分是基于语料库对视觉正常人、听觉正常人、盲人、聋人和联觉者的感觉语言进行比较。关键的研究问题是：-联觉者使用和理解跨模态语言不同的非联觉者？因为他们通过一种感觉体验另一种感觉，他们对通感隐喻有更字面的理解吗？- 先天性失明或失聪的人使用和理解跨模态语言与正常人或正常人不同吗？他们的感官障碍是否要求他们通过其他感官来理解一些感官形容词？

Synaesthesia is a rare neurological condition where one sense involuntarily stimulates another, e.g. seeing colours when hearing sounds. However, synaesthetic metaphors, which describe experience in one sensory modality through another, are commonly used in cross-modal expressions like sharp cheese, loud shirt, and sweet melody. Existing research on synaesthetic metaphor (Ullman, 1945; Williams, 1976; Evans and Wilkins, 2000; Littlemore, 2019; Winter, 2019) mainly focuses on language in sighted, hearing, neurotypical people. However, as sensory language is one of the most direct ways in which people share their experiences, it is important to conduct research using non-normative participants. This project will investigate how the sensory experience of blind, deaf, or synaesthetic individuals affects the way they understand and use sensory language. It will tackle one of the most important hypotheses within the emerging field of sensory linguistics: are differences in a person's sensory experience reflected in differences in language use? How does a person's felt, physical experience influence the way they communicate?Although previous research has studied blind individuals' understanding of sensory language (Bedny et al., 2019; Lenci et al., 2013; Vidali, 2010), and deaf individuals' use of metaphor (Kaneko and Sutton-Spence, 2016; Siqueira and Gibbs, 2016; Wilcox, 2000), my focus will be on synaesthetic metaphor. I will also build on existing research into cross-modal associations in synaesthetes (Cuskley et al., 2019; Moos et al., 2014), particularly Littlemore's (2019) work, which found that synaesthetes were more likely to use cross-sensory language, reporting enhanced empathy, stronger connections between the senses, and more physical responses to metaphorical language. I will extend this work by using the modality rating paradigm established by Lynott and Connell (2009, 2013). These studies collected a large set of "modality norms" by asking participants to rate how much they perceive a word through each of the five common senses, resulting in a perceptual rating strength for each sense (Lynott and Connell, 2009, 2013; Winter, 2016). For instance, the word yellow is very unisensory, receiving high ratings for sight only, while harsh is more multisensory, receiving high ratings for all senses. In this project I will apply this method to those with different sensory experiences and compare the results.In the first part of the project I will collect modality norms across the participants. This will be supported by questionnaires regarding the literalness of synaesthetic metaphor. The third part of the project will be a corpus-based comparison of sensory language used by sighted and hearing neurotypical people, blind individuals, deaf individuals, and synaesthetes respectively. The key research questions are: - Do synaesthetes use and understand cross-modal language differently to non-synaesthetes? Because they experience one sense through another, do they have a more literal understanding of synaesthetic metaphor? - Do congenitally blind or deaf people use and understand cross-modal language differently to sighted or hearing people? Does their sensory impairment require them to comprehend some sensory adjectives through other senses?