Cross-sensory correspondences and symbolism in spoken and written language.

Walker, Peter

doi:10.1037/xlm0000253

Cited by 17 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…Here, a weak disposition to map some sounds onto visual properties could be enough to scaffold the association of particular sounds to certain aspects of visual stimuli (e.g., shape), and repeated experience of this sort could develop into the insight that speech sounds have meanings (see Imai & Kita, , for such an hypothesis). In line with this idea, Walker () argues that visual properties (such as size) could be intrinsically coded with auditory information (such as acoustic frequencies), making the cross‐modal correspondence between these two dimensions obvious to the perceiver. For instance, formant frequencies are more spatially dispersed from the fundamental frequency in low‐ rather than in high‐frequency sounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, formant frequencies are more spatially dispersed from the fundamental frequency in low‐ rather than in high‐frequency sounds. This could explain another sensitivity to sound symbolism, that is the tendency to associate high‐frequency sounds—with small spatial dispersion—with small objects and low‐frequency sounds—with greater spatial dispersion—with larger objects (see, for instance, Walker, , for an overview of pitch‐size correspondences). If this hypothesis were true, this would mean that sensitivity to sound symbolism emerges from a direct perceptual association between visual and auditory dimensions, and that this association does not necessarily need to be learned.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Symbouki: a meta‐analysis on the emergence of sound symbolism in early language acquisition

Fort

Lammertink

Peperkamp

et al. 2018

Developmental Science

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Adults and toddlers systematically associate pseudowords such as "bouba" and "kiki" with round and spiky shapes, respectively, a sound symbolic phenomenon known as the "bouba-kiki effect". To date, whether this sound symbolic effect is a property of the infant brain present at birth or is a learned aspect of language perception remains unknown. Yet, solving this question is fundamental for our understanding of early language acquisition. Indeed, an early sensitivity to such sound symbolic associations could provide a powerful mechanism for language learning, playing a bootstrapping role in the establishment of novel sound-meaning associations. The aim of the present meta-analysis (SymBouKi) is to provide a quantitative overview of the emergence of the bouba-kiki effect in infancy and early childhood. It allows a high-powered assessment of the true sound symbolic effect size by pooling over the entire set of 11 extant studies (six published, five unpublished), entailing data from 425 participants between 4 and 38 months of age. The quantitative data provide statistical support for a moderate, but significant, sound symbolic effect. Further analysis found a greater sensitivity to sound symbolism for bouba-type pseudowords (i.e., round sound-shape correspondences) than for kiki-type pseudowords (i.e., spiky sound-shape correspondences). For the kiki-type pseudowords, the effect emerged with age. Such discrepancy challenges the view that sensitivity to sound symbolism is an innate language mechanism rooted in an exuberant interconnected brain. We propose alternative hypotheses where both innate and learned mechanisms are at play in the emergence of sensitivity to sound symbolic relationships.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbouki: a meta‐analysis on the emergence of sound symbolism in early language acquisition

Fort

Lammertink

Peperkamp

et al. 2018

Developmental Science

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“…However, fundamental acoustic features of speech sounds may well vary with regards to their sound-symbolic meaning, and thus affect size and shape ratings differently. Assessing the phonetic attributes of sound symbolism also provides a finer picture of what underpins individuals’ biases to link otherwise unrelated sounds and meanings to one another 26 . It has been shown in artificial language learning tasks that non-arbitrary word-meaning associations are easier to learn than arbitrary word-meaning associations 27 , but it remains unclear what exactly the participants are tracking during the perception of the artificial sounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What drives sound symbolism? Different acoustic cues underlie sound-size and sound-shape mappings

Knoeferle

Maggioni

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

101

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Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary mappings that exist between phonetic properties of speech sounds and their meaning. Despite there being an extensive literature on the topic, the acoustic features and psychological mechanisms that give rise to sound symbolism are not, as yet, altogether clear. The present study was designed to investigate whether different sets of acoustic cues predict size and shape symbolism, respectively. In two experiments, participants judged whether a given consonant-vowel speech sound was large or small, round or angular, using a size or shape scale. Visual size judgments were predicted by vowel formant F1 in combination with F2, and by vowel duration. Visual shape judgments were, however, predicted by formants F2 and F3. Size and shape symbolism were thus not induced by a common mechanism, but rather were distinctly affected by acoustic properties of speech sounds. These findings portray sound symbolism as a process that is not based merely on broad categorical contrasts, such as round/unround and front/back vowels. Rather, individuals seem to base their sound-symbolic judgments on specific sets of acoustic cues, extracted from speech sounds, which vary across judgment dimensions.

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“…This framework may extend to sound symbolic associations (see P. Walker, 2016). That is, some sound symbolic associations might arise due to phonemes and stimuli sharing connotations.…”

Section: Mechanisms For Associations Between Phonetic and Semantic Fementioning

confidence: 99%

“…If orthographic features were found to play a large role in sound symbolism, it might weaken the claims of some theories that rest on phonological and/or articulatory features (e.g., the frequency code hypothesis, double grasp neurons). Associations based in orthography would likely be due to shared low-level perceptual features among letters and associated stimuli (though for potential roles of connotation, see Koriat & Levy, 1977;P. Walker, 2016).…”

Section: Outstanding Issues and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Five mechanisms of sound symbolic association

2017

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Sound symbolism refers to an association between phonemes and stimuli containing particular perceptual and/or semantic elements (e.g., objects of a certain size or shape). Some of the best-known examples include the mil/mal effect (Sapir, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 225-239, 1929) and the maluma/takete effect (Köhler, 1929). Interest in this topic has been on the rise within psychology, and studies have demonstrated that sound symbolic effects are relevant for many facets of cognition, including language, action, memory, and categorization. Sound symbolism also provides a mechanism by which words' forms can have nonarbitrary, iconic relationships with their meanings. Although various proposals have been put forth for how phonetic features (both acoustic and articulatory) come to be associated with stimuli, there is as yet no generally agreed-upon explanation. We review five proposals: statistical co-occurrence between phonetic features and associated stimuli in the environment, a shared property among phonetic features and stimuli; neural factors; species-general, evolved associations; and patterns extracted from language. We identify a number of outstanding questions that need to be addressed on this topic and suggest next steps for the field.

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Cross-sensory correspondences and symbolism in spoken and written language.

Cited by 17 publications

References 109 publications

Symbouki: a meta‐analysis on the emergence of sound symbolism in early language acquisition

Symbouki: a meta‐analysis on the emergence of sound symbolism in early language acquisition

What drives sound symbolism? Different acoustic cues underlie sound-size and sound-shape mappings

Five mechanisms of sound symbolic association

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