{
  "abstract": "Whether word meanings partition reality uniformly across languages or reflect language-specific categorization remains debated. Universalist accounts assume shared conceptual repertoires whereas relativist accounts emphasize language-specific partitions of conceptual space. However, evidence has relied largely on a few semantic domains and behavioral measures, leaving unclear whether and how graded semantic overlap of translation-equivalents affect the neural dynamics of concept processing. Here we combined computational semantic alignment (SA), embedding-based representational similarity analysis, and electroencephalography to test whether graded SA predicts cross-language representational correspondence and neural correlates of implicit semantic processing. Thirty-five Chinese–English bilinguals completed a translation-recognition task involving 160 translation-pairs across 20 semantic domains and 160 unrelated controls. High-SA translations showed stronger cross-language representational correspondence than low-SA translations, whereas controls showed near-zero correspondence. High-SA translations elicited less negative N400 amplitudes and larger N400 translation-priming effects. Moreover, millisecond-by-millisecond comparisons across the 0–1,000 ms epoch detected high–low SA differences within the canonical N400 window for translation-pairs, but no corresponding differences for controls at any time point across the entire epoch, indicating that the N400 finding was detectable without restricting comparisons to a preselected time window and unique to concepts represented by translation-pairs rather than non-translation controls. The SA effects from translation-equivalents were further modulated by second-language proficiency. Overall, by linking cross-linguistic distributional semantic structure to model representational geometry and electrophysiological responses, this work convergingly supports a nuanced relativist account of word meanings, in which bilinguals are neurophysiologically sensitive to SA, with greater sensitivity at higher levels of second-language proficiency.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Yufeng Liu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Shifa Chen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yuqing Zhang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Xingyu Yang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Brent Wolter"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mh9kpdkxdsc4.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.31234/osf.io/s4qfr_v1",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "9mh9kpdkxdsc4",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/s4qfr_v1/",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "bepress",
      "Behavioral Neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "bepress",
      "Cognitive Neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "bepress",
      "Computational Neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "bepress",
      "Neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "bepress",
      "Social and Behavioral Sciences"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3205|Categorization, perception, and language"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7211875756",
  "pdf_url": "https://osf.io/s4qfr/download",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-07",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mh9kpdkxdsc4.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:25:48Z",
      "native_id": "s4qfr",
      "source": "osf",
      "url": "https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/s4qfr_v1/"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "bepress:Cognitive Neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Model representational geometry and brain potentials jointly reveal relativity in word meanings",
  "title_text": "Model representational geometry and brain potentials jointly reveal relativity in word meanings",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:25:48Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9mh9kpdkxdsc4",
  "venue": "PsyArXiv",
  "versions": []
}