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Abstract INTRODUCTION Patients with Alzheimer's disease present with difficulty in lexical retrieval and reversal of the concreteness effect in nouns. Little is known about the phenomena before the onset of symptoms. We anticipate early linguistic signs in the speech of people who suffer from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Here, we report the results of a corpus‐linguistic approach to the early detection of cognitive impairment. METHODS One hundred forty‐eight English‐speaking Singaporeans provided natural speech data, on topics of their choice; 74 were diagnosed with single‐domain MCI (38 amnestic, 36 non‐amnestic), 74 cognitively healthy. The recordings yield 267,310 words, which are tagged for parts of speech. We calculate the per‐minute word counts and concreteness scores of all tagged words, nouns, and verbs in the dataset. RESULTS Compared to controls, subjects with amnestic MCI produce fewer but more abstract nouns. Verbs are not affected. DISCUSSION Slower retrieval of nouns and the reversal of the concreteness effect in nouns are manifested in natural speech and can be detected early through corpus‐based analysis. Highlights Reversal of the concreteness effect is manifested in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and semantic dementia. The paper reports a corpus‐based analysis of natural speech by people with amnestic and non‐amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and cognitively healthy controls. People with amnestic MCI produce fewer and more abstract nouns than people with non‐amnestic MCI and healthy controls. Verbs appear to be unaffected. The imageability problem can be detected in natural everyday speech by people with amnestic MCI, which carries a higher risk of conversion to AD.

Despite its importance to everyday functioning, reasoning is underexplored in developmental dyslexia. The current study investigated verbal deductive reasoning on the Wason selection task, not previously used in dyslexia research despite its well-established pedigree. Reasoning rule was manipulated, with the conditional rules varying in the logical values presented. The word frequency and imageability of the word terms was also manipulated. Twenty-six adults with dyslexia and 31 adults without dyslexia completed Wason selection task problems. No group difference in reasoning accuracy or completion time was found. However, the participants were most accurate when reasoning with the rule type “If p, then not q” and least accurate with the rule type “If p then q”. More trials were also answered correctly when the word terms were highly imageable but of average word frequency. These findings are in line with the general reasoning literature. Dyslexia status did not interact with either rule type or word term type. The study expands upon previous research by testing verbal deductive reasoning in dyslexia, highlighting the role of imageability in facilitating reasoning performance for all, regardless of the presence or absence of dyslexia. Implications for the design of educational materials are considered.

Abstract Wakeful resting and listening to music are powerful means to modulate memory. How these activities affect memory when directly compared has not been tested so far. In two experiments, participants encoded and immediately recalled two word lists followed by either 6 min wakefully resting or 6 min listening to music. The results of Experiment 1 show that both post-encoding conditions have a similar effect on memory after 1 day. In Experiment 2, we explored the possibility that less concrete words, i.e. lower in imageability than in Experiment 1, are differently affected by the two post-encoding conditions. The results of Experiment 2 show that, when words are less concrete, more words are retained after 1 day when encoding is followed by wakeful resting rather than listening to music. These findings indicate that the effects of wakeful resting and listening to music on memory consolidation are moderated by the concreteness of the encoded material.

The strongest formulations of grounded cognition assume that perceptual intuitions about concepts involve the re-activation of sensorimotor experience we have made with their referents in the world. Within this framework, concreteness and imageability ratings are indeed of crucial importance by operationalising the amount of perceptual interaction we have made with objects. Here we tested such an assumption by asking whether visual intuitions about concepts are provided accurately even when direct visual experience is absent. To this aim, we considered concreteness and imageability intuitions in blind people and tested whether these judgments are predicted by Image-based Frequency (IF, i.e. a data-driven estimate approximating the availability of the word referent in the visual environment). Results indicated that IF predicts perceptual intuitions with a larger extent in sighted compared to blind individuals, thus suggesting a role of direct experience in shaping our judgements. However, the effect of IF was significant not only in sighted but also in blind individuals. This indicates that having direct visual experience with objects does not play a critical role in making them concrete and imageable in a person’s intuitions: people do not need visual experience to develop intuition about the availability of things in the external visual environment and use this intuition to inform concreteness/imageability judgments. Our findings fit closely the idea that perceptual judgments are the outcome of introspection/abstraction tasks invoking high-level conceptual knowledge that is not necessarily acquired via direct perceptual experience.

Folktales are increasingly recognized as potent enablers in evoking the 'genius loci' of cities and sustaining their cultural identity. 'The Thousand and One Nights' represents the most remarkable and memorable cross-cultural folktales, related to the Middle Eastern region in general, and the city of Baghdad in particular. Very limited research has been conducted on its impact on architecture and urban development. The current article aims to develop a conceptual framework for the notion of 'imageability', by which to explore the spatial characteristics and the physical and spiritual attributes of the depicted architecture and urban spaces of selected tales. Based on a conducted narrative-analysis approach, the article introduces an innovative theoretical-driven method to folktale interpretation and visualization. This method provides a new perspective in highlighting the perceptual and cognitive implications of the tales in defining the structure, identity and meaning of the urban context, thereby accentuating their potential role as ever-lasting resources that can revive the imageability of Baghdad city, maintain its essence, and sustain its cultural identity.

Abstract Can the shape of a city promote physical activity? The question of why individuals engage in physical activity has been widely researched, but that research has predominantly focused on socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, economic status) and coarse-grained spatial characteristics (e.g., population density), overlooking key urban characteristics of, say, whether a city is navigable or, as urban theorist Kevin Lynch put it, whether it is ‘imageable’ (whether its spatial configuration is economic of mental effort). That is mainly because, at scale, it is neither easy to model imageability nor feasible to measure physical activity. We modeled urban imageability with a single scalable metric of entropy, and then measured physical activity from 233K wearable devices over three years, and did so across 19 major cities in the developed world. We found that, after controlling for greenery, wealth, walkability, presence of landmarks, and weather conditions, the legibility hypothesis still holds: the more imageable a city, the more its dwellers engage in physical activity. Interestingly, wealth (GDP per capita) has a positive association with physical activity only in cities with inclement climate, effectively acting as a compensation mechanism for bad weather.

The concepts of imageability and legibility are important aspects of urban design. Many scholars use the terms “imageability” and “legibility” interchangeably, usually examining one concept and applying the implications to the other. This research explores the relationship between these two concepts by answering the research questions: 1. how do people perceive the saliency of landmarks (imageability) and 2. how does the spatial configuration facilitate the visibility level of landmarks (legibility)? The Galle Heritage City in Sri Lanka is considered as the case study. The first part of the empirical study is to assess the level of imageability of urban space users by completing 100 cognitive maps and producing a composite cognitive map that indicates the structural landmarks’ salience or the level of imageability. The second part is the level of legibility of the landmarks by employing the visibility assessment process and the third part compares the two results with a concurrence matrix. The findings highlight that there is a positive relationship between people’s perception (imageability) and level of visibility (legibility). Further, imageability mostly depends on semantic properties than legibility, but legibility predominantly depends on structural properties and visual properties are almost equally important to both concepts.

Relics of buildings with Dutch colonial architecture to this day can still be found in several road corridors, especially in Pesanggrahan Village, one of which is Jalan Hassanudin, Batu City. This study serves to measure and measure the community towards building units in forming the image of the area on the corridor of Jalan Hassanudin. This research uses the imageability factor which is used to see the character of the area consisting of impressions, past memories, unforgettable memories, uniqueness, attractiveness, clarity, enjoyment and uniqueness. The measuring instrument used is the semantic differential scale of previous research references. The results of the research regarding impressions are the most dominant variable based on people's impressions. impressiveness, uniqueeness, atractiveness, clarity, pleasantness, distinctiveness, recognizableness are significant variables to the image of the historical area in the corridor of Jalan Hassanudin. Meanwhile, variables such as unforgettable memory and remembrance of the past are variables that have a sig value. > 0.05 so that it does not affect the image of the area.

The present study investigates the relations between L2-English proficiency and L1-Turkish lexical property evaluations. We asked whether L2 proficiency affects lexical properties, including imageability and concreteness ratings of 600 Turkish words selected from the Word Frequency Dictionary of Written Turkish. Seventy-two participants (L1-Turkish - L2-English) provided ratings of concreteness and imageability for 600 words on a 7-point scale. In order to assess their L2 proficiency, we administered Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IV (PPVT-IV). We divided categories into two subcategories as high and low for the frequency, concreteness, imageability, and age of acquisition (AoA). The relationship between these subcategories and imageability-concreteness was examined by mixed effects linear regression analyses. We found that L2 proficiency and imageability ratings were positively correlated and specifically, this positive association was evident for low-frequency words and later acquired words. Results are in line with the interaction of bilingual representation under the dual-coding theory which suggests that bilinguals develop an interconnected imaginal representation for two languages as opposed to separate verbal representations. As L2 proficiency increased, the imageability also increased. These findings have implications for literature investigating the relationship between L2 proficiency and linguistic outcomes. Additionally, findings point to the importance of considering the L2 proficiency of participants when lexical tasks that involve cue words or word lists are used.

A window view affects a person’s well-being and comfort. The effect of visual contact with nature on people depends on the quality of the outside scenery, which in turn depends on parameters such as the number of visible layers, the distance to visual elements and environmental information (content) in the window view. Many studies have concluded that views of nature are preferable, while in urban environments a high-quality window view should include greenery. In our study, a survey was conducted among two groups of students at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, to find out how the respondents perceived urban imageability in a window view. Using the example of five neighborhoods in Ljubljana (Slovenia), which have different urban planning and design concepts and greeneries, we investigated whether respondents perceived the presence of greenery as an important element of visual comfort. They ranked the quality of window views using eight indicators. The analysis of the ranking of the answers showed that the responses were similar for the two survey approaches (with single-selection and with multiple-selection techniques), except for the perception of surface texture. This indicates a common understanding of the role of greenery and an ambiguity in the perception of what is meant by the term ‘texture’.

This study examines the factors affecting word recognition in a language with a consistent system to map letters into sounds; Spanish. The influence of semantics on the recognition of words in languages with inconsistent mappings, such as English, is well documented. Not much is known for other languages. A lexical decision task and two category verification tasks with varying levels of semantic complexity were used. In contrast to English, none of the semantic variables entered into the analyses had a significant impact on lexical decision latencies or errors. Imageability showed an influence on responses to both category verification tasks while the effect of connectivity was marginally significant in the category verification task with the greatest semantic complexity. Results indicate that word recognition decisions can be made without the involvement of central components of the semantic system. The role of semantics in word recognition in languages with consistent spelling systems will be discussed.

Most models of reading agree that visual word recognition is underpinned by a highly interactive network in which both bottom–up and top–down processes contribute. What remains unknown is whether evidence of top–down effects upon letter processing are restricted to word-form level information, or whether meaning-level information also plays a role. Here we sought to investigate top–down semantic influences upon letter detection using semantic manipulations of real word imageability and semantic priming, as well as a manipulation of nonword orthographic and phonological composition which varied degree of similarity to real words. A continuous adaptive staircase procedure was used, allowing us to assess the exposure duration needed for accurate letter perception in different stimulus types. Results revealed that in terms of both exposure duration and decision reaction times, words showed an advantage over pseudohomophones and pseudowords, which in turn showed advantages over consonant strings. High imageability words were processed more efficiently than low imageability words, both in terms of the exposure duration required for accurate letter identification and also decision reaction times. The presence of a related as opposed to unrelated semantic prime significantly shortened exposure duration, but also lengthened decision reaction times. This inhibitory semantic priming effect in reaction time was attributed to the interference at the decision stage by stronger activation of the prime letters in the case of related relative to unrelated trials. Taken together, the present results establish for the first time that the semantic dimensions of imageability and semantic priming exert significant effects on letter identification, indicating meaning-level influences on the very earliest stages of written word recognition.

When learning a foreign language, words that are the hardest to learn are often the easiest to forget. Yet, there is also evidence that more challenging learning contexts can lead to greater long-term retention. Here, we investigate the effect of language difficulty on vocabulary retention by teaching participants novel words that varied in both imageability and similarity to a known language over a period of four weeks. We found that easier words (high-imageability and familiar) were generally retained better than harder words (low-imageability and unfamiliar). However, when words were fully learned during training, the more difficult unfamiliar words were later recalled with higher accuracy than easier familiar words. The effect of language difficulty on vocabulary retention therefore varies depending on how well words were initially encoded. We conclude that greater challenges can reap greater long-term rewards so long as learners establish a strong foundation during initial acquisition.

Understandingimage of the center Semarang city can be doneby knowing thespatial cognition of observers. Spatial cognition of observerdescribes howobserversobtain, organize, store, and recallinformationaboutthe location, distanceandarrangementwithinthecityenvironment. Spatial cognition of observers have the basic concepts Imageability and legibility. This research used adescriptiveapproachisto describeandinterpretthe object of observationin accordancewith what it is. The objective of this researchwas to determinethe level ofspatial cognitionability ofobserversin understanding image of the city. The results ofthe researchsuggests that theimage ofthe center of Semarang citycan be understoodifthecityhas the clear character, clear shape, clear pattern, clear structure, and elements ofclear signs, because it is necessary to provide an understanding of the oriented and identification for the observer.

The construct of imageability refers to the extent to which a word evokes a tangible sensation. Previous research (Westbury, Shaoul, Hollis, Smithson, Briesemeister, Hofmann, & Jacobs, 2013) suggests that the behavioral effects attributed to a word’s imageability can be largely or wholly explained by two objective constructs, contextual density and estimated affect. Here, we extend these previous findings in two ways. First, we show that closely matched stimuli on the three measures of contextual density, estimated affect, and human-judged imageability show a three-way interaction in explaining variance in LD RTs, but that imagebility accounts for no additional variance after contextual density and estimated affect are entered first. Secondly, we demonstrate that the loci and functional connectivity (via graphical models) of the brain regions implicated in processing the three variables during that task are largely over-lapping and similar. These two lines of evidence support the conclusion that the effect usually attributed to human-judged imageability is largely or entirely due to the effects of other correlated measures that are directly computable.

Previous research showed an effect of words’ rated body-object interaction (BOI) in children’s visual word naming performance, but only in children 8 years of age or older (Wellsby & Pexman, 2014a). In that study, however, BOI was established using adult ratings. Here we collected ratings from a group of parents for children’s body-object interaction experience (child-BOI). We examined effects of words’ child-BOI and also words’ imageability on children’s responses in an auditory word naming task, which is suited to the lexical processing skills of younger children. We tested a group of 54 children aged 6-7 years and a comparison group of 25 adults. Results showed significant effects of both imageability and child-BOI on children’s auditory naming latencies. These results provide evidence that children younger than 8 years of age have richer semantic representations for high imageability and high child-BOI words, consistent with an embodied account of word meaning.

The concreteness effect (CE) describes a processing advantage for concrete over abstract words. Electrophysiologically, the CE manifests in higher N400 and N700 amplitudes for concrete words. The contribution of the stimulus-inherent imageability to the electrophysiological correlates of the CE is not yet fully unraveled. This EEG study focused on the role of imageability irrespective of concreteness by examining the effects of training-induced visual imageability on the processing of novel words. In two training sessions, 21 healthy participants learned to associate novel words with pictures of novel objects as well as electron-microscopical structures and were additionally familiarized with novel words without any picture association. During a post-training EEG session, participants categorized trained novel words with or without picture association, together with real concrete and abstract words. Novel words associated with novel object pictures during the training elicited a higher N700 than familiarized novel words without picture-association. Crucially, this training-induced N700 effect resembled the CE found for real words. However, a CE on the N400 was found for real words, but no effect of imageability in novel words. The results suggest that the N400 CE for real words depends on the integration of multiple semantic features, while mere visual imageability might contribute to the CE in the N700 time window.

While many links have been established between sensory-motor words used literally (kick the ball) and sensory-motor regions of the brain, it is less clear whether metaphorically used words (kick the habit) also show such signs of embodiment. Additionally, not much is known about the timing or nature of the connection between language and sensory-motor neural processing. We used stimuli divided into three figurativeness conditions – literal, metaphor, and anomalous – and two modality conditions – auditory (Her limousine was a privileged snort) and motion (The editorial was a brass-knuckle punch). The conditions were matched on a large number of potentially confounding factors including cloze probability. The electroencephalographic response to the final word of each sentence was measured at 64 electrode sites on the scalp of 22 participants and event-related potentials calculated. Analysis revealed greater amplitudes for metaphorical than literal sentences in both 350-500ms and 500-650ms timeframes. Results supported the possibility of different neural substrates for motion and auditory sentences. Greater differences for motion sentences were seen in the left posterior and left central electrode sites than elsewhere on the scalp. These findings are consistent with a sensory-motor neural categorization of language and with the integration of modal and amodal information during the N400 and P600 timeframes.

According to the traditional view, both imageability and concreteness ratings reflect the way word meanings rely on information mediated by the senses. As a consequence, the two measures should and do correlate. The link between these two indexes was already hypothesized and demonstrated by Paivio, Yuille & Madigan (1968) in a seminal article, where they introduced the idea of imageability ratings for the first time. However, in this first study, they also noted a contrasting pattern in the ratings for imageability and concreteness with some words that refer to affective attitudes or emotional states receiving high imageability but low concreteness ratings. Recent studies confirm this inconsistency (e.g., Altarriba & Bauer, 2004) leading to the claim that emotion words form a particular class of terms different from both concrete and abstract words. Here we use the MRC psycholinguistic database to show that the there are other classes of terms for which imageability and concreteness are uncorrelated. We show that the common feature of these word classes is that they directly or indirectly refer to proprioceptive, interoceptive, or affective states, i.e. to internal, body-related, sensory experiences. Thus, imageability and concreteness can no longer be considered interchangeable constructs; rather, imageability is a different, and perhaps more interesting, measure: it not only reflects the ease with which memories of external events come to mind, as previously hypothesized, but also reflects the ease with which memories of internal events come to mind.

Introduction. Characteristics of repetition in deep-phonological dysphasia include an inability to repeat nonwords, semantic errors in single word repetition (deep dysphasia) and in multiple word repetition (phonological dysphasia) and better repetition of highly imageable words (Wilshire & Fisher, 2004; Ablinger et al., 2008). Additionally, visual processing of words is often more accurate than auditory processing of words (Howard & Franklin, 1988). We report a case study of LT who incurred a LCVA on 10/3/2009. She initially presented with deep dysphasia and near normal word reading. When enrolled in this study, approximately 24 months post-onset, she presented with phonological dysphasia. We investigated the hypothesis that (1) reproduction of a word string would be more accurate when preceded by a visual presentation of the word string compared to two auditory presentations of the word string, and (2) that this facilitative boost would be observed only for strings of low image words, consistent with the imageability effect in repetition. Method. Three-word strings were created in four conditions which varied the frequency (F) and imageability (I) of words within a string: HiF-HiI, LoF-HiI, HiF-LoI, LoF-LoI. All strings were balanced for total syllable length and were unrelated semantically and phonologically. The dependent variable was as accuracy of repetition of each word within a string. We created six modality prime conditions each with 24 strings drawn equally from the four frequency-imageability types, randomized within modality condition: Auditory Once (AudOnce) – string presented auditorily one time; Auditory Twice (AudAud) – string presented auditorily two consecutive times; Visual Once (VisOnce) – string presented visually one time; Visual Twice (VisVis) – string presented visually two consecutive times; Auditory then Visual (AudVis) – string presented once auditorily, then a second time visually; Visual then Auditory (VisAud) – string presented once visually, then a second time auditorily. Strings were presented one word at a time via E-Prime software with a two-second delay between the two presentations of the string in the double-presentations. LT was cued with a picture and audio signal to reproduce the word string. She was given unlimited time to respond. Two replications of the experiment were completed. Results. We compared performance on the within and cross-modality presentation conditions for HiI, LoI, HiF and LoF word strings (Table 1). Reproduction of word strings in the Aud-Vis and Vis-Aud priming conditions was significantly more accurate than in the Aud-Aud priming conditions. This was observed for HiF word strings and LoI strings but not HiI strings. Additionally, the Vis-Vis prime and cross-modal prime conditions were not significantly different. Discussion. Using both auditory and visual presentation of word strings as primes (in either order) for reproduction of the word strings with low image words is more effective than an auditory prime presented twice. As predicted, this effect was not present for strings of high image words. We attribute this effect to increased support from the visual modality for low image words, which lack rich semantic representation and are more vulnerable to decay in the auditory form. Implications for improvement of auditory processing in deep-phonological dysphasia will be discussed.

Many studies have shown that behavioral measures are affected by manipulating the imageability of words. Though imageability is usually measured by human judgment, little is known about what factors underlie those judgments. We demonstrate that imageability judgments can be largely or entirely accounted for by two computable measures that have previously been associated with imageability, the size and density of a word’s context and the emotional associations of the word. We outline an algorithmic method for predicting imageability judgments using co-occurrence distances in a large corpus. Our computed judgments account for 58% of the variance in a set of nearly two thousand human imageability judgments, for words that span the entire range of imageability. The two factors account for 43% of the variance in lexical decision reaction times (LDRTs) that is attributable to imageability in a large database of 3697 LDRTs spanning the range of imageability. We document variances in the distribution of our measures across the range of imageability that suggest that they will account for more variance at the extremes, from which most imageability-manipulating stimulus sets are drawn. The two predictors account for 100% of the variance that is attributable to imageability in newly-collected LDRTs using a previously-published stimulus set of 100 items. We argue that our model of imageability is neurobiologically plausible by showing it is consistent with brain imaging data. The evidence we present suggests that behavioral effects in the lexical decision task that are usually attributed to the abstract/concrete distinction between words can be wholly explained by objective characteristics of the word that are not directly related to the semantic distinction. We provide computed imageability estimates for over 29,000 words.

Nissim, a 64 years old Hebrew-speaking man who sustained an ischemic infarct in the left occipital lobe, exhibited an intriguing pattern. He could hold a deep and fluent conversation about abstract and complex issues, such as the social risks in unemployment, but failed to retrieve imageable words such as ball, spoon, carrot, or giraffe. A detailed study of the words he could and could not retrieve, in tasks of picture naming, tactile naming, and naming to definition indicated that whereas he was able to retrieve abstract words, he had severe difficulties when trying to retrieve imageable words. The same dissociation also applied for proper names – he could retrieve names of people who have no visual image attached to their representation (such as the son of the biblical Abraham), but could not name people who had a visual image (such as his own son, or Barack Obama). When he tried to produce imageable words, he mainly produced perseverations and empty speech, and some semantic paraphasias. He did not produce perseverations when he tried to retrieve abstract words. This suggests that perseverations may occur when the phonological-production system produces a word without proper activation in the semantic lexicon. Nissim evinced a similar dissociation in comprehension – he could understand abstract words and sentences but failed to understand sentences with imageable words, and to match spoken imageable words to pictures or to semantically related imageable words. He was able to understand proverbs with imageable literal meaning but abstract figurative meaning. His comprehension was impaired also in tasks of semantic associations of pictures, pointing to a conceptual, rather than lexical source of the deficit. His visual perception as well as his phonological input and output lexicons and buffers (assessed by auditory lexical decision, word and sentence repetition, and writing to dictation) were intact, supporting a selective conceptual system impairment. He was abl

There is much empirical evidence that words’ relative imageability and body-object interaction (BOI) facilitate lexical processing for concrete nouns (e.g., Bennett, Burnett, Siakaluk, & Pexman, 2011). These findings are consistent with a grounded cognition framework (e.g., Barsalou, 2008), in which sensorimotor knowledge is integral to lexical processing. In the present study, we examined whether lexical processing is also sensitive to the dimension of emotional experience (i.e., the ease with which words evoke emotional experience), which is also derived from a grounded cognition framework. We examined the effects of emotional experience, imageability, and BOI in semantic categorization for concrete and abstract nouns. Our results indicate that for concrete nouns, emotional experience was associated with less accurate categorization, whereas imageability and BOI were associated with faster and more accurate categorization. For abstract nouns, emotional experience was associated with faster and more accurate categorization, whereas BOI was associated with slower and less accurate categorization. This pattern of results was observed even with many other lexical and semantic dimensions statistically controlled. These findings are consistent with Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta’s (2009) theory of semantic representation, which states that emotional knowledge underlies meanings for abstract concepts, whereas sensorimotor knowledge underlies meanings for concrete concepts.

There is considerable evidence (e.g., Pexman, Hargreaves, Siakaluk, Bodner, & Pope, 2008) that semantically rich words, which are associated with relatively more semantic information, are recognized faster across different lexical processing tasks. The present study extends this earlier work by providing the most comprehensive evaluation to date of semantic richness effects on visual word recognition performance. Specifically, using regression analyses to control for the influence of correlated lexical variables, we considered the impact of contextual dispersion, number of features, number of senses, semantic neighborhood density, imageability, and body-object interaction across five visual word recognition tasks: standard lexical decision, go/no-go lexical decision, speeded pronunciation, semantic classification, and progressive demasking. Semantic richness effects could be reliably detected in all tasks of lexical processing, indicating that semantic representations, particularly their imaginal and featural aspects, play a fundamental role in visual word recognition. However, there was also evidence that the strength of certain richness effects could be flexibly and adaptively modulated by task demands, consistent with an intriguing interplay between task-specific mechanisms and differentiated semantic processing.

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are ‘dis-embodied’ in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects.

One of expediences in trying to understand the image of urban environment can be conducted by the way of knowing the cognition map of human as the observer. Cognition maps discuss about the way the observer get, organize, store, and recall the information about location, distance and the structure of physical environment (urban). Cognition maps had a basic concept called imageability or the ability of inviting impression. Imageability has a very close correlation with legibility, or the ease of having understanding/image and can be organized into one coherent pattern. In order one city can easily understood with the image, so the city must have character because the character of a city is needed for giving understanding about the identify of city, in accordance with the exisiting potensial. In this case, the character is the soul, the realization of character, both physically and non-physically, giving some image and identity of city. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Salah satu upaya untuk mencoba memahami citra lingkungan perkotaan dapat dilakukan dengan cara mengetahui peta mental manusia sebagai pengamat. Peta mental mempersoalkan cara pengamat memperoleh, mengorganisasi, menyimpan, dan mengingat kembali informasi tentang lokasi, jarak dan susunan dalam lingkungan fisik (kota). Peta mental mempunyai konsep dasar yang disebut dengan imagibilitas atau kemampuan untuk mendatangkan kesan. Imagibilitas mempunyai hubungan yang sangat erat dengan legibilitas, atau kemudahan untuk dapat dipamahi / dibayangkan dan dapat diorganisir menjadi satu pola yang koheren. Agar suatu kota dapat dengan mudah dipahami citranya, maka kota tersebut harus mempunyai karakter, karena karakter kota diperlukan untuk memberikan pemahanan tentang identitas kota, sesuai dengan potensi yang ada. Dalam hal ini, karakter merupakan jiwa, perwujudan watak, baik secara fisik maupun non-fisik, yang memberikan citra dan identitas kota. Kata kunci: citra, peta mental, imagibilitas, legibilitas.