Categorization of sound, onomatopoeia and name of objects:

Integration of human PET and chimpanzee language studies

Shozo Kojima, Ryuta Kawashima, Kengo Ito, Motoaki Sugiura, Takashi Kato, Akinori Nakamura, Kentaro Hatano, Sumiharu Nagumo, Kayo Asakawa, Hiroshi Fukuda, and Shigeru Kiritani

Kyoto University, Japan

We report here on an attempt to integrate human PET and chimpanzee language studies to understand the biological basis of language. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured while human subjects categorized the sound, onomatopoeia or name of objects. We found that onomatopoeias activated a wide area of the temporal cortex, which included areas specifically activated by the sound or name of objects. We also examined a chimpanzee who had difficulties in understanding name, although she recognized the sound of objects. Because the human PET results suggest that onomatopoeias may have a function to bridge the gap between sounds and names, we examined her understanding of onomatopoeias, and found that she could match onomatopoeias with photographs of the object.

Kojima, Shozo

Section of Cognition and Learning,

Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University

Inuyama, Aichi 484-8506, Japan

kojima@pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp