Photograph or Clipart: Does Object Depiction Affect the Mapping of Language to Referents

Psycholinguistic studies using the "visual world" paradigm tend to employ either photographs or clipart as stimuli, with convenience or availability typically serving as the sole reason for choosing a particular image type. The present study examined how image type (clipart/photograph) affects the process of mapping language to visual referents. On each trial, participants viewed an array of objects and heard a recorded sentence containing either a semantically neutral verb (Experiment 1: Jamie will move the banana ) or a semantically restrictive verb (Experiment 2: Jamie will peel the banana). Image type (clipart/photograph) was manipulated across blocks. Eye movements were recorded as participants listened to the sentences and mouse-clicked on the last-mentioned object. Quite strikingly, image type did not appear to affect language-driven eye movements. However, it did sometimes influence the initial moments of visual processing, before the recorded sentence began. The results are described in terms of their implications for visual-world studies of language processing.