COGNITIVE MECHANISMS OF VISUAL PERCEPTING COMMERCIAL NAMES IN THE URBAN SEMIOTIC LANDSCAPE
Author:
O.A. Prokudina
Affiliation:
Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after Kh.M. Berbekov
Abstract:
The paper is dedicated to the study of peculiarities of visual perception of commercial names in the urban semiotic landscape. Being presented to the eye- contact in the written form and reinforced by means of visual semiotics, these lexical units are analyzed from the point of view of their identification by human cognitive systems. The paper aims to trace whether the template matching theory (Neisser 1967; Crowder 1982) is applicable to these lexical units, thus bringing in more facts to the discussion of role of mental templates vs strings of letters in perceiving and identifying words.
We have used the method of network selection while collecting more than 1000 samples of commercial names in the urban landscape of Nal’chik city. We have viewed each sample as a mini-text and applied the method of evaluative reading (interpreting) the texts.
More than 10 per cent of the collected samples proved that letter-by-letter perception was relevant for the word identification and further correlation with the concept. As a result of the analyses, we propose to distinguish at least 6 ways of multimodal reinforcement of letter-by-letter perception of commercial names.
So, visual reinforcement of certain letters speaks in favor of letter-by letter perception in commercial names.
Keywords:
commercial name, visual perception, word pattern, string of letters
References:
Lotman, Yu.M. Aktual'nye problemy semiotiki kul'tury. Tartu, 1987.
Crowder, R. (1982). The psychology of reading: an introduction. Oxford University Press.
Danesi, M. (2006). Brands. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 353-361.
Lindstrom, M. (2005). Brand Sense: Build powerful brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight and Sound. N.Y.: Simon & Schuster.
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. N.Y.: Appleton Century Crofts.
Rayner, K. & Pollatsek, A. (1989). The Psychology of Reading. London, UK: Prentice-Hall International.
Pages:
79-82
