# A Cognitive Account of the Puzzle of Ideography

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.00296 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.00296/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 216 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [EmojiNet: An Open Service and API for Emoji Sense Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.04652/) (2017)
- [On the Context-Free Ambiguity of Emoji](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06302/) (2022)
- [I wanna draw like you: Inter-and intra-individual differences in orang-utan drawings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.06544/) (2021)
- [Making drawings speak through mathematical metrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02276/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this commentary article to 'The Puzzle of Ideography' by Morin, we put forth a new cognitive account of the puzzle of ideography, that complements the standardization account of Morin. Efficient standardization of spoken language is phenomenologically attributed to a modality effect coupled with chunking of cognitive representations, further aided by multi-sensory integration and the serialized nature of attention. These cognitive mechanisms are crucial for explaining why languages dominate graphic codes for general-purpose human communication.