This is how we understand emoji

Date:
November 11, 2021
Source:
Ruhr-University Bochum
Summary:
Even when emoji are used to substitute for words, we still
understand the sentence. But how does that work? Do we interpret
an emoji primarily as an image or as a word? To find out,
a research team asked volunteers to read texts with emoji and
measured the reading time precisely. It turns out that it takes a
little longer to comprehend a sentence that includes emoji than
one that doesn't. If the emoji does not directly represent the
intended meaning, but another word with the same pronunciation,
we need yet a little more time. Based on these results, the team
concludes that emoji comprehension consists of two steps: first
the image is interpreted, then the word is inferred.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The study was carried out in a collaboration between Prof. Dr. Tatjana Scheffler, assistant professor for Digital Forensic Linguistics at the
German Studies Institute at Ruhr-Universita"t Bochum (RUB), and colleagues
from the University of Potsdam and Charite' - Universita"tsmedizin Berlin.


==========================================================================
A knight in the night Emoji are small image icons that originated in
Japan: Japanese "e" means picture, "moji" means word. "We set out to
explore to what extent reading emoji is more similar to reading words
or interpreting pictures," explains Tatjana Scheffler. To this end, the researchers conducted an online study where participants read sentences
in which some words were replaced by emoji, and measured the reading
time for each word. Subsequently, they asked questions to test whether
the participants understood the sentences.

"As we had suspected and as other studies suggest, our participants
easily understood sentences with emoji instead of nouns," the researcher
points out.

The comprehension questions were even answered correctly slightly more
often - but not significantly so - following the sentences containing
emoji than following the same sentences without any emoji.

Normal words, however, do not only lead to the meaning while they are
being processed; they also have other properties that are activated during reading: for example their pronunciation. And words can be homophones:
when two words have the same pronunciation but different meanings, for
example like the knight and the night. The researchers wanted to find
out if emoji can also trigger this phenomenon. "Therefore, we had our
test participants read sentences in which the emoji doesn't show the
intended object but its homophone," Tatjana Scheffler explains.

"We showed that the sentences were almost always understood correctly,
even when homophones were used," points out Tatjana Scheffler. "This
indicates that an emoji can be broken down into a complete `lexicon
entry' that contains information about its pronunciation. Based on
this information, the participants then derive the other, homophonic
meaning." Still, the team also showed that the reading times differed considerably. The average reading time for a written-out word is
approximately 450 milliseconds, for a corresponding emoji approx. 800 milliseconds and for an emoji depicting a homophone more than 900
milliseconds.

A detour via the image takes time This leads the researchers to conclude
that the image must be interpreted first when reading emoji. Emoji
are generally less recognisable and more unusual, and therefore not
as easy to read as written words. "This is also supported by the fact
that those test participants who self-assessed as using emoji often,
read matching emoji more quickly," Tatjana Scheffler explains. Since
readers can also derive a pronunciation for emoji just like for words, homophone emoji are also readily understood. This takes longer, however, because the visual information has to be suppressed and the meaning of
the homophonic word has to be recalled. "In this case, the fact that
someone is used to emoji is no longer helpful. Participants who use
emoji more often read the homophone emoji just as slowly as the others," Tatjana Scheffler concludes.

Together with the team at Charite', she plans to conduct a similar
study with people living with schizophrenia. Since some of them have
difficulty identifying non-literal meanings, a comparison with a control
group should provide additional insight into language processing, the linguistic structure of non-literal meaning and the linguistic effects
of schizophrenia.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Ruhr-University_Bochum. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Tatjana Scheffler, Lasse Brandt, Marie de la Fuente, Ivan
Nenchev. The
processing of emoji-word substitutions: A self-paced-reading study.

Computers in Human Behavior, 2022; 127: 107076 DOI: 10.1016/
j.chb.2021.107076 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211111130259.htm

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