Objective
Creating pictures is a unique human capacity, yet pictorial communication has received less focus in the study of cognition than other domains like language. Indeed, graphics are often viewed as reflecting perception alone with no complex representational properties like the hierarchic combinatoriality permeating throughout linguistic structures. Yet, various theories have argued that graphics also use hierarchic combinatoriality, both in individual pictures and visual narrative sequences, raising an overarching question of: Is there evidence of hierarchic combinatoriality in graphic expression, and what is its relationship with combinatoriality in language? The PICTREE project therefore targets this fundamental property of combinatoriality within substructures of pictorial communication, and aims to further probe its relationship to language. First, it will seek evidence for hierarchic structure within individual images (Theme 1), investigating the combinations of regions revealed within the drawing orders of pictorial objects (Theme 1.1) and the combinatoriality of visual affixes, like gears above the head to convey thinking (Theme 1.2). Second, it will examine the cognitive correlates of established syntactic phenomena from language that also occur in sequential images of visual narratives, including center- embedded clauses, serial conjunctions resulting in alternations, and ambiguous anaphoric relationships (Theme 2). Finally, since combinatorial structures have been argued across language, visual narratives, and musicand studies have observed similar neural responses to grammars in all of these domainsI will then ask (Theme 3): do these domains share a common processor for combinatoriality in the brain? Altogether, this project will challenge prevailing assumptions about the complexities of pictorial communication, while probing the relations between graphics and language, sponsoring greater focus on pictures within the linguistic and cognitive sciences.
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
5037 AB Tilburg
Netherlands