The Multilingual Picture Database

Jon Andoni Duñabeitia^{1

2}, Ana Baciero³, Kyriakos Antoniou^{4

5}, Mark Antoniou⁶, Esra Ataman⁷, Cristina Baus⁸, Michal Ben-Shachar⁹, Ozan Can Çağlar¹⁰, Jan Chromý¹¹, Montserrat Comesaña¹², Maroš Filip¹³, Dušica Filipović Đurđević¹⁴, Margaret Gillon Dowens¹⁵, Anna Hatzidaki¹⁶, Jiří Januška¹⁷, Zuraini Jusoh¹⁸, Rama Kanj¹⁹, Say Young Kim²⁰, Bilal Kırkıcı¹⁰, Alina Leminen^{21

22}, Terje Lohndal^{23

24}, Ngee Thai Yap²⁵, Hanna Renvall^{26

27}, Jason Rothman^{1

24}, Phaedra Royle²⁸, Mikel Santesteban²⁹, Yamila Sevilla³⁰, Natalia Slioussar^{31

32}, Awel Vaughan-Evans³³, Zofia Wodniecka³⁴, Stefanie Wulff^{24

35}, Christos Pliatsikas³⁶

Affiliations

¹ Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain.
² UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
³ Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus.
⁵ Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece.
⁶ The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
⁷ School of Psychological Sciences and Centre for Reading, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
⁸ Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
⁹ Department of English Literature and Linguistics and The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel.
¹⁰ Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
¹¹ Institute of Czech Language and Theory of Communication, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹² Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
¹³ Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹⁴ Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, and Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Beograd, Serbia.
¹⁵ School of Education and English, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China.
¹⁶ School of Philosophy, Department of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
¹⁷ Department of Central European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹⁸ Malay Language Department, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
¹⁹ School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
²⁰ Department of English Language and Literature, and Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
²¹ C-unit, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vantaa, Finland.
²² Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
²³ Department of Language and Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
²⁴ AcqVA Aurora Center, Institute of Language and Culture, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
²⁵ Department of English, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
²⁶ Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
²⁷ BioMag Laboratory, HUS Diagnostic Center, Helsinki University Hospital, University of Helsinki and Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.
²⁸ School of Speech-language Pathology and Audiology, University of Montreal, Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), and Interdisciplinary Centre for Brain and Learning Research (CIRCA), Montréal, Québec, Canada.
²⁹ The Bilingual Mind Research Group, Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
³⁰ Instituto de Lingüística, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Conicet), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³¹ School of Linguistics, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
³² Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
³³ School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Prifysgol Bangor, Bangor, Wales, UK.
³⁴ Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
³⁵ University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
³⁶ School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK. c.pliatsikas@reading.ac.uk.

PMID: 35864133
PMCID: PMC9304413
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01552-7

The Multilingual Picture Database

Jon Andoni Duñabeitia et al. Sci Data. 2022.

. 2022 Jul 21;9(1):431.

doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01552-7.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain.
² UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
³ Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus.
⁵ Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece.
⁶ The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
⁷ School of Psychological Sciences and Centre for Reading, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
⁸ Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
⁹ Department of English Literature and Linguistics and The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel.
¹⁰ Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
¹¹ Institute of Czech Language and Theory of Communication, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹² Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
¹³ Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹⁴ Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, and Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Beograd, Serbia.
¹⁵ School of Education and English, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China.
¹⁶ School of Philosophy, Department of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
¹⁷ Department of Central European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic.
¹⁸ Malay Language Department, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
¹⁹ School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
²⁰ Department of English Language and Literature, and Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
²¹ C-unit, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vantaa, Finland.
²² Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
²³ Department of Language and Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
²⁴ AcqVA Aurora Center, Institute of Language and Culture, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
²⁵ Department of English, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
²⁶ Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
²⁷ BioMag Laboratory, HUS Diagnostic Center, Helsinki University Hospital, University of Helsinki and Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.
²⁸ School of Speech-language Pathology and Audiology, University of Montreal, Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), and Interdisciplinary Centre for Brain and Learning Research (CIRCA), Montréal, Québec, Canada.
²⁹ The Bilingual Mind Research Group, Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
³⁰ Instituto de Lingüística, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Conicet), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³¹ School of Linguistics, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
³² Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
³³ School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Prifysgol Bangor, Bangor, Wales, UK.
³⁴ Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
³⁵ University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
³⁶ School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK. c.pliatsikas@reading.ac.uk.

PMID: 35864133
PMCID: PMC9304413
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01552-7

Abstract

The growing interdisciplinary research field of psycholinguistics is in constant need of new and up-to-date tools which will allow researchers to answer complex questions, but also expand on languages other than English, which dominates the field. One type of such tools are picture datasets which provide naming norms for everyday objects. However, existing databases tend to be small in terms of the number of items they include, and have also been normed in a limited number of languages, despite the recent boom in multilingualism research. In this paper we present the Multilingual Picture (Multipic) database, containing naming norms and familiarity scores for 500 coloured pictures, in thirty-two languages or language varieties from around the world. The data was validated with standard methods that have been used for existing picture datasets. This is the first dataset to provide naming norms, and translation equivalents, for such a variety of languages; as such, it will be of particular value to psycholinguists and other interested researchers. The dataset has been made freely available.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
Density plots of the H Statistic and the Modal Response Percentage across items in each of the languages and varieties. Dots represent mean values for individual items and vertical black lines represent mean values across items.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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The Multilingual Picture Database

Affiliations

The Multilingual Picture Database

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

Figures

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources