It's already the last talk of #CCLS2025 😱
Yuri Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social, Kristoffer L. Nielbo: Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary Imageability, Visuality and Concreteness via Multimodal Word Embeddings (doi.org/10.26083/tup...)
#Measuring #LiteraryImageability #WordEmbeddings
Yuri Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social, Kristoffer L. Nielbo: Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary Imageability, Visuality and Concreteness via Multimodal Word Embeddings (doi.org/10.26083/tup...)
#Measuring #LiteraryImageability #WordEmbeddings
July 4, 2025 at 10:19 AM
It's already the last talk of #CCLS2025 😱
Yuri Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social, Kristoffer L. Nielbo: Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary Imageability, Visuality and Concreteness via Multimodal Word Embeddings (doi.org/10.26083/tup...)
#Measuring #LiteraryImageability #WordEmbeddings
Yuri Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social, Kristoffer L. Nielbo: Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary Imageability, Visuality and Concreteness via Multimodal Word Embeddings (doi.org/10.26083/tup...)
#Measuring #LiteraryImageability #WordEmbeddings
🆕 New issue, new article!
We’re excited to open JCLS 2026, 5(1) with its very first publication:
“Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary #Imageability, #Visuality and #Concreteness via Multimodal Word #Embeddings” by Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social & Nielbo. 📖✨
#JCLS #CCLS2025 #LiteraryStudies
We’re excited to open JCLS 2026, 5(1) with its very first publication:
“Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary #Imageability, #Visuality and #Concreteness via Multimodal Word #Embeddings” by Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social & Nielbo. 📖✨
#JCLS #CCLS2025 #LiteraryStudies
January 12, 2026 at 8:44 PM
🆕 New issue, new article!
We’re excited to open JCLS 2026, 5(1) with its very first publication:
“Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary #Imageability, #Visuality and #Concreteness via Multimodal Word #Embeddings” by Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social & Nielbo. 📖✨
#JCLS #CCLS2025 #LiteraryStudies
We’re excited to open JCLS 2026, 5(1) with its very first publication:
“Encoding Imagism? Measuring Literary #Imageability, #Visuality and #Concreteness via Multimodal Word #Embeddings” by Bizzoni, @pascaleispunk.bsky.social & Nielbo. 📖✨
#JCLS #CCLS2025 #LiteraryStudies
“Environments with high imageability are correlated with better cognitive and psychological health, high emotional engagement, and enhanced social connectivity.”
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Impacts of imageability of architecture on brain health: A systematic literature review
Imageability is a component of urban design and planning that has been recognized for its potential to enhance people’s perceptual and emotional engag…
www.sciencedirect.com
January 22, 2025 at 1:31 AM
“Environments with high imageability are correlated with better cognitive and psychological health, high emotional engagement, and enhanced social connectivity.”
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
English Verbs Semantic Norms Database: Concreteness, Embodiment, Imageability, Valence and Arousal Ratings for 2,900 Verbs: http://osf.io/wqsjc/
April 1, 2024 at 2:52 PM
English Verbs Semantic Norms Database: Concreteness, Embodiment, Imageability, Valence and Arousal Ratings for 2,900 Verbs: http://osf.io/wqsjc/
Exciting new paper with Johannes Gerwien and Maroš Filip on word imageability and introspective sensory decisions. Applying Kosslyn-style internal imagery tasks with word imageability questions, parallel in German and Czech! Cool work, coll collaborators!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
November 14, 2023 at 10:23 AM
Exciting new paper with Johannes Gerwien and Maroš Filip on word imageability and introspective sensory decisions. Applying Kosslyn-style internal imagery tasks with word imageability questions, parallel in German and Czech! Cool work, coll collaborators!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
No time like the present to build cooling parks filled w/ trees for shade & native plants for pollinators. Parks enhance the imageability of cities, beautifying them plus other ecosystem services. A focus on the equity of where we build parks must ensure access in hotter, poorer neighborhoods
.
Every $1 a city spends on parks returns $3
The greenest neighborhoods are also the coolest.
We need to take urgent #ClimateAction right now to avoid the worst of Climate Change!
Read on: www.goodgoodgood.co/article...
.
Every $1 a city spends on parks returns $3
The greenest neighborhoods are also the coolest.
We need to take urgent #ClimateAction right now to avoid the worst of Climate Change!
Read on: www.goodgoodgood.co/article...
.
The greenest neighborhoods are also the coolest. Scientists want to fix that
Researchers are calling for cities to double down on one of the simplest yet most powerful solutions to many problems - planting more trees.
www.goodgoodgood.co
July 30, 2026 at 3:09 PM
No time like the present to build cooling parks filled w/ trees for shade & native plants for pollinators. Parks enhance the imageability of cities, beautifying them plus other ecosystem services. A focus on the equity of where we build parks must ensure access in hotter, poorer neighborhoods
project idea -- ask chatGPT to generate Likert scale ratings for 100k English words on common psycholinguistic vars (concreteness, imageability, familiarity). Compare to existing norms and distribute as a fix for missing values in other normative datasets. Steal this idea or collaborate with me.
November 5, 2023 at 4:56 PM
project idea -- ask chatGPT to generate Likert scale ratings for 100k English words on common psycholinguistic vars (concreteness, imageability, familiarity). Compare to existing norms and distribute as a fix for missing values in other normative datasets. Steal this idea or collaborate with me.
Why might this dissociation exist?
We suggest that concrete words share additional properties beyond purely linguistic information, such as imageability, that stems from integrating visual information into their neural representations.
8/9
We suggest that concrete words share additional properties beyond purely linguistic information, such as imageability, that stems from integrating visual information into their neural representations.
8/9
September 15, 2023 at 3:58 PM
Why might this dissociation exist?
We suggest that concrete words share additional properties beyond purely linguistic information, such as imageability, that stems from integrating visual information into their neural representations.
8/9
We suggest that concrete words share additional properties beyond purely linguistic information, such as imageability, that stems from integrating visual information into their neural representations.
8/9
Further, there were different predictors of either kind of iconicity. For example, imageability and visual strength predicted higher orthographic iconicity but not phonological iconicity.
April 30, 2026 at 6:22 PM
Further, there were different predictors of either kind of iconicity. For example, imageability and visual strength predicted higher orthographic iconicity but not phonological iconicity.
10/ We find our measures diverge from related psycholinguistic norms (concreteness and imageability), but this divergence is largely due to our measure's informativity dimension.
December 20, 2024 at 5:05 PM
10/ We find our measures diverge from related psycholinguistic norms (concreteness and imageability), but this divergence is largely due to our measure's informativity dimension.
– Early stage of syntax: flat combo of 1 V + 1 N
– 'Fossils' of stage w/o structure: compounds & small clauses
– V-N comps, typ. used for derogatory & (nick)naming: links metaphor, imageability, face recog
– Possibility last enhanced by naming strategy!
(doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1445192) 🐦🐦
– 'Fossils' of stage w/o structure: compounds & small clauses
– V-N comps, typ. used for derogatory & (nick)naming: links metaphor, imageability, face recog
– Possibility last enhanced by naming strategy!
(doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1445192) 🐦🐦
Frontiers | Syntax and the brain: language evolution as the missing link(ing theory)?
IntroductionThis paper provides proof of concept that neurolinguistic research on human language syntax would benefit greatly by expanding its scope to inclu...
doi.org
November 26, 2024 at 10:15 AM
– Early stage of syntax: flat combo of 1 V + 1 N
– 'Fossils' of stage w/o structure: compounds & small clauses
– V-N comps, typ. used for derogatory & (nick)naming: links metaphor, imageability, face recog
– Possibility last enhanced by naming strategy!
(doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1445192) 🐦🐦
– 'Fossils' of stage w/o structure: compounds & small clauses
– V-N comps, typ. used for derogatory & (nick)naming: links metaphor, imageability, face recog
– Possibility last enhanced by naming strategy!
(doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1445192) 🐦🐦
Orthographic iconicity predicted faster responding in several mega study datasets (ELP, ECP, BLP). This was after controlling for a suite of variables including orthographic distinctiveness, concreteness and imageability.
April 30, 2026 at 6:22 PM
Orthographic iconicity predicted faster responding in several mega study datasets (ELP, ECP, BLP). This was after controlling for a suite of variables including orthographic distinctiveness, concreteness and imageability.
Most interestingly, orthographic iconicity predicted faster responding in several mega study datasets (ELP, ECP, BLP). This was after controlling for a suite of variables including orthographic distinctiveness, concreteness and imageability.
April 28, 2026 at 2:22 PM
Most interestingly, orthographic iconicity predicted faster responding in several mega study datasets (ELP, ECP, BLP). This was after controlling for a suite of variables including orthographic distinctiveness, concreteness and imageability.
🧠📊 How can we measure imageability in literary texts?
The authors approach how words evoke sensory experience and test whether multimodal #WordEmbeddings can better capture #imageability, #visuality, and #concreteness than text-only models, from words to sentences to poems.
#CCLS2025 #JCLS #CLS
The authors approach how words evoke sensory experience and test whether multimodal #WordEmbeddings can better capture #imageability, #visuality, and #concreteness than text-only models, from words to sentences to poems.
#CCLS2025 #JCLS #CLS
January 13, 2026 at 12:33 AM
🧠📊 How can we measure imageability in literary texts?
The authors approach how words evoke sensory experience and test whether multimodal #WordEmbeddings can better capture #imageability, #visuality, and #concreteness than text-only models, from words to sentences to poems.
#CCLS2025 #JCLS #CLS
The authors approach how words evoke sensory experience and test whether multimodal #WordEmbeddings can better capture #imageability, #visuality, and #concreteness than text-only models, from words to sentences to poems.
#CCLS2025 #JCLS #CLS
Go for it. You could easily left_join databases spanning different languages as long as they have a translation equivalent (e.g., dog) to compare freq, imageability. I did this for Italian/English. You would think imageability for nouns like beach would be similar but NO www.reilly-coglab.com/data
Psycholinguistic Databases, Stimuli, Utilities — Concepts & Cognition Laboratory
www.reilly-coglab.com
May 3, 2024 at 5:35 PM
Go for it. You could easily left_join databases spanning different languages as long as they have a translation equivalent (e.g., dog) to compare freq, imageability. I did this for Italian/English. You would think imageability for nouns like beach would be similar but NO www.reilly-coglab.com/data
Yes! My first published paper ever was on how english abstract snd concrete words are phonologically distinctive. Paivio emailed a very sweet note of congratulations. It was all very uplifting to me. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Formal Distinctiveness of High‐ and Low‐Imageability Nouns: Analyses and Theoretical Implications
Words associated with perceptually salient, highly imageable concepts are learned earlier in life, more accurately recalled, and more rapidly named than abstract words (R. W. Brown, 1976; Walker & Hu...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 1, 2026 at 1:16 PM
Yes! My first published paper ever was on how english abstract snd concrete words are phonologically distinctive. Paivio emailed a very sweet note of congratulations. It was all very uplifting to me. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
If I need to look up frequency, age of acquisition and preferably imageability and familiarity ratings for a large set of English words, which database should I use? Preferably US English.
April 6, 2024 at 8:09 AM
If I need to look up frequency, age of acquisition and preferably imageability and familiarity ratings for a large set of English words, which database should I use? Preferably US English.
I hate to say this, but GPT4 seems really good at producing rational lexical and semantic word ratings (familiarity, vis complexity, imageability). How do people feel about using this tool to populate missing values in psycholing databases?
October 11, 2024 at 9:55 PM
I hate to say this, but GPT4 seems really good at producing rational lexical and semantic word ratings (familiarity, vis complexity, imageability). How do people feel about using this tool to populate missing values in psycholing databases?
⚙️ Refined Metric Design: SciGisPy improves on GIS (Gist Inference Score) by:
- Removing indices unsuitable for biomedical contexts (e.g., word imageability).
- Adding metrics for sentence length & cohesion.
- Revising WordNet-based hypernym paths with domain-specific IC measures.
- Removing indices unsuitable for biomedical contexts (e.g., word imageability).
- Adding metrics for sentence length & cohesion.
- Revising WordNet-based hypernym paths with domain-specific IC measures.
November 28, 2024 at 6:35 PM
⚙️ Refined Metric Design: SciGisPy improves on GIS (Gist Inference Score) by:
- Removing indices unsuitable for biomedical contexts (e.g., word imageability).
- Adding metrics for sentence length & cohesion.
- Revising WordNet-based hypernym paths with domain-specific IC measures.
- Removing indices unsuitable for biomedical contexts (e.g., word imageability).
- Adding metrics for sentence length & cohesion.
- Revising WordNet-based hypernym paths with domain-specific IC measures.
Mason, C. J., Hameau, S., & Nickels, L. (2025). What can emotion and abstract words tell us about context availability ratings? The Mental Lexicon. Advance online publication. doi.org/10.1075/ml.2...
What can emotion and abstract words tell us about context availability ratings? | John Benjamins
Abstract
Semantic dimensions such as context availability, imageability and valence, form core components of many
theoretical accounts of lexical processing. Typically, normative data for such semanti...
doi.org
January 28, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Mason, C. J., Hameau, S., & Nickels, L. (2025). What can emotion and abstract words tell us about context availability ratings? The Mental Lexicon. Advance online publication. doi.org/10.1075/ml.2...
Free study idea for @Simazhi @gingerlinguist: explore the relation between iconicity and imageability by looking at the intersection of CHIDEOD and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03404-4" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03404-4 (a new paper w/ imageability ratings for 10k Mandarin Chinese words)
Imageability ratings for 10,426 Chinese two-character words and their contribution to lexical processing - Current Psychology
Imageability has been shown to be one of the critical psycholinguistic variables that help us understand lexical processing across many languages, but it is a less studied variable in non-alphabetic Chinese with a large population of native speakers. The present study sought to build up the first large-scale imageability database for Chinese by collecting imageability ratings for 10,426 Chinese two-character words from the Common Lexical Database for Compulsory Education in China. A total of 415 native Mandarin speakers from mainland China participated in the ratings, with an average of 22 participants rating the imageability of each word on a 7-point scale. The results supported the high reliability and validity of the present imageability ratings. Furthermore, the current work examined the contribution of the imageability ratings to Chinese lexical processing while controlling for existing psycholinguistic variables, including concreteness, age of acquisition (AoA), valence, and arousal, as well as other lexical variables such as word frequency. The results suggest the additional explanatory power of imageability to Chinese lexical processing after controlling for the aforementioned variables. Interestingly, further analysis revealed that concreteness, which is thought to be similar to imageability, explained a smaller amount of variance in Chinese lexical processing compared to imageability. Therefore, the findings point to the important contribution of imageability to Chinese lexical processing and its advantage over concreteness. The current imageability database is downloadable in the supplemental materials, thus open to all researchers and practitioners.
doi.org
November 4, 2024 at 5:48 AM
Free study idea for @Simazhi @gingerlinguist: explore the relation between iconicity and imageability by looking at the intersection of CHIDEOD and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03404-4" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03404-4 (a new paper w/ imageability ratings for 10k Mandarin Chinese words)
3. Specificity shows quadratic relation with age of acquisition (medium spec acquired earlier, high/low spec acquired later), negative correlation with frequency (more specific - less freq), low positive cor with imageability & low negative cor with familiarity and valence.
🧵⬇️
🧵⬇️
November 21, 2024 at 9:39 PM
3. Specificity shows quadratic relation with age of acquisition (medium spec acquired earlier, high/low spec acquired later), negative correlation with frequency (more specific - less freq), low positive cor with imageability & low negative cor with familiarity and valence.
🧵⬇️
🧵⬇️
Publisher Correction: Chinese Onomatopoeia Database (COD): Concreteness, imageability, context availability, age of acquisition, familiarity, semantic transparency, emotional valence, and emotional arousal for Chinese onomatopoeic words BehResM
Publisher Correction: Chinese Onomatopoeia Database (COD): Concreteness, imageability, context availability, age of acquisition, familiarity, semantic transparency, emotional valence, and emotional arousal for Chinese onomatopoeic words - Behavior Research Methods
dlvr.it
December 3, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Publisher Correction: Chinese Onomatopoeia Database (COD): Concreteness, imageability, context availability, age of acquisition, familiarity, semantic transparency, emotional valence, and emotional arousal for Chinese onomatopoeic words BehResM