Correlation between Understanding of Lexical Units and Mental Images Represented by Them (Theoretical-Experimental Research)

This theoretical and experimental research paper focuses on the effect of both perception and memory images on word meaning of the image-verbalizing lexical unit. The research is aimed at solving the problem of speech act processing. Using such notions as perception, memory and representation images pave the way for better understanding of the non-verbal basis of thinking during analysis of thought verbalization, thus, setting the problem of dependence of understanding the same lexical unit that exteriorizes different mental images. To prove the hypothesis that there is a link between understanding and mental images verbalized by the same lexical unit, the authors conducted an experiment. Such a verification can be performed only using psychosemantic methods. Psychosemantic methods provide the researcher with the material for analysis of everyday consciousness, thus shedding light on the in-depth evaluation criteria of the objects in question. The basis for effective use of experimental psychosemantic methods was laid by a simple mathematical model of an individual consciousness called semantic space. The overall conclusion of this research is the following: characteristics of mental images lexical unit depend on the following factors: the type of the text, the type of formed mental images and also on the type of graphic images provided to respondents.