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Is tuba masculine or feminine? The timing of grammatical gender
Author(s) -
Incera Sara,
McLennan Conor T.,
Stronsick Lisa M.,
Zetzer Emily E.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12223
Subject(s) - psychology , grammar , grammatical gender , musical , linguistics , cognitive psychology , social psychology , art , philosophy , noun , visual arts
We used computer mouse tracking to investigate gender ratings of musical instruments in monolingual Spanish and English speakers. Musical instruments are tied to conceptual representations of gender. Consistent with previous research, English speakers rated the instruments male and female following these relatively stable conceptual representations, while Spanish speakers used grammar—in addition to their conceptual representations of gender—to perform their ratings. Interestingly, the responses of the Spanish speakers were influenced first by the grammatical information and 60 ms later by the conceptual representations. Measuring how participants' responses unfold over time provides novel information regarding the timing of grammatical gender.