Height-pitch associations are claimed to be universal and independent of language, but this claim remains controversial. The present study sheds new light on this debate with a multimodal analysis of individual sound and melody descriptions obtained in an interactive communication paradigm with speakers of Dutch and Farsi. The findings reveal that, in contrast to Dutch speakers, Farsi speakers do not use a height-pitch metaphor consistently in speech. Both Dutch and Farsi speakers’ co-speech gestures did reveal a mapping of higher pitches (...) to higher space and lower pitches to lower space, and this gesture space-pitch mapping tended to co-occur with corresponding spatial words (high-low). However, this mapping was much weaker in Farsi speakers than Dutch speakers. This suggests that cross-linguistic differences shape the conceptualization of pitch and further calls into question the universality of height-pitch associations. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Odor naming is enhanced in communities where communication about odors is a central part of daily life (e.g., wine experts, flavorists, and some hunter‐gatherer groups). In this study, we investigated how expert knowledge and daily experience affect the ability to name odors in a group of experts that has not previously been investigated in this context—Iranian herbalists; also called attars—as well as cooks and laypeople. We assessed naming accuracy and consistency for 16 herb and spice odors, collected judgments of odor (...) perception, and evaluated participants' odor meta‐awareness. Participants' responses were overall more consistent and accurate for more frequent and familiar odors. Moreover, attars were more accurate than both cooks and laypeople at naming odors, although cooks did not perform significantly better than laypeople. Attars' perceptual ratings of odors and their overall odor meta‐awareness suggest they are also more attuned to odors than the other two groups. To conclude, Iranian attars—but not cooks—are better odor namers than laypeople. They also have greater meta‐awareness and differential perceptual responses to odors. These findings further highlight the critical role that expertise and type of experience have on olfactory functions. (shrink)

Many studies of structure in present-day Western news texts have shown that the dominant structure is the inverted pyramid, even if the use of a chronological narrative structure is acknowledged. However, the relevant literature has exclusively investigated Western news texts. In this study, we challenge the dominance of the inverted news structure by including a non-Western and less-investigated culture and ask whether textual structure of news texts can differ between cultural contexts. In total, 100 crime news texts from national Iranian (...) and Dutch newspapers were analyzed for both the overall text and the journalists’ statements. Those texts that showed a hybrid structure were subsequently studied qualitatively to understand how chronology is applied in them. News texts from the two cultures were significantly different in their structure. Qualitative analysis of the journalistic statements uncovered a quotation-based structure, a way of news writing in Iranian journalistic statements in which the journalist mainly narrates reporting eventualities that are new to Western eyes. The study offers implications for further ethnography of news and communication, suggesting that the role, pattern and effects of communication can be culture-specific. (shrink)