TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - How has COVID-19 impacted our language use?
JO  - International journal of environmental research and public health
A1  - Pisano, Francesca
A1  - Manfredini, Alessio
A1  - Brachi, Daniela
A1  - Landi, Luana
A1  - Sorrentino, Lucia
A1  - Bottone, Marianna
A1  - Incoccia, Chiara
A1  - Marangolo, Paola
SP  - e13836
EP  - e13836
VL  - 19
IS  - 21
N2  - The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe consequences for people's mental health. The pandemic has also influenced our language use, shaping our word formation habits. The overuse of new metaphorical meanings has received particular attention from the media. Here, we wanted to investigate whether these metaphors have led to the formation of new semantic associations in memory. A sample of 120 university students was asked to decide whether a target word was or was not related to a prime stimulus. Responses for pandemic pairs in which the target referred to the newly acquired metaphorical meaning of the prime (i.e., "trench"-"hospital") were compared to pre-existing semantically related pairs (i.e., "trench"-"soldier") and neutral pairs (i.e., "trench"-"response"). <br><br>RESULTS revealed greater accuracy and faster response times for pandemic pairs than for semantic pairs and for semantic pairs compared to neutral ones. These findings suggest that the newly learned pandemic associations have created stronger semantic links in our memory compared to the pre-existing ones. Thus, this work confirms the adaptive nature of human language, and it underlines how the overuse of metaphors evoking dramatic images has been, in part, responsible for many psychological disorders still reported among people nowadays.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1661-7827
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192113836
ID  - ref1
ER  -