Emotion from the sound of a word: Statistical relationships between surface form and valence of English words influence lexical access and memory.

Abstract

It is generally accepted that a word's emotional valence (i.e., whether a word is perceived as positive, negative, or neutral) influences how it is accessed and remembered. There is also evidence that the affective content of some words is represented in nonarbitrary sound-meaning associations (i.e., emotional sound symbolism). We investigated whether more extensive statistical relationships exist between the surface form properties of English words and ratings of their emotional valence, that is, form typicality. We found significant form typicality for both valence and extremity of valence (the absolute distance from the midpoint of the rating scale, regardless of polarity). Next, using behavioral megastudy data sets, we show that measures of emotional form typicality are significant predictors of lexical access during written and auditory lexical decision and reading aloud tasks in addition to recognition memory performance. These findings show nonarbitrary form-valence mappings in English are accessed automatically during language and verbal memory processing. We discuss how these findings might be incorporated into theoretical accounts that implement Bayesian statistical inference. Public Significance StatementFor over a century, language researchers have generally assumed that the relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning is entirely arbitrary. Our study shows there are systematic associations between the emotional valence of English words and their sound features. We also show that these emotional sound-meaning associations influence language processing and memory.

Statistical relationships between surface form and sensory meanings of English words influence lexical processing.

“…Juhasz and Yap (2013) noted that words rated positive or negative in valence “may produce sensory simulations in the reader” while Winter (2016) noted that words associated with taste or smell tend to be more emotionally valenced than words associated with other senses. Emotional sound symbolism and systematicity have also been demonstrated in English and other languages (e.g., Adelman et al, 2018; de Zubicaray, McMahon, et al, 2023; Louwerse & Qu, 2017). Finally, we also included lexical category (part of speech; Brysbaert et al, 2012).…”

Statistical Relationships Between Phonological Form, Emotional Valence and Arousal of Spanish Words

“…In Hungarian, a non-Indo-European language, positive valence instead tends to be associated with more fricatives, palatals and sibilant sounds and negative valence with plosives (Benczes & Kovács, 2022). However, it should be acknowledged these statistical regularities explain a relatively small proportion of variance in affective ratings (i.e., a few percent; e.g., Benczes & Kovács, 2022;de Zubicaray et al, 2023).…”

“…This affective sound symbolism has been shown to manifest crosslinguistically through an over-representation of certain phonemes in words denoting positive or negative emotional valence (the hedonic tone/pleasantness of a word referent; e.g., Adelman et al, 2018;Louwerse & Qu, 2017). For example, the phoneme /i/ is more likely to be associated with positive valence across various languages while nasal (i.e., /n/ or /m/) phonemes are more likely to be associated with negative meanings (e.g., Adelman et al, 2018;Calvillo-Torres et al, 2024;de Zubicaray et al, 2023;Körner & Rummer, 2023;Louwerse & Qu, 2017). The former mapping has been interpreted as evidence for grounding of emotional meaning in bodily or interoceptive experience, following the observation that the muscle used for smiling is also involved in articulating the phoneme /i/ (e.g., Rummer et al, 2014;Sidhu & Pexman, 2018; but see Wagenmakers et al, 2016).…”

“…Beyond sound symbolic relationships, there are non-arbitrary relationships between sound and meaning that manifest as statistical regularities more extensively within languages, variously referred to as phonological form systematicity or typicality (see Dingemanse et al, 2015;Haslett & Cai, 2023). 1 These too have recently been investigated for emotional valence and arousal (the degree to which the activation or intensity of a word's referent is calming or exciting) at the level of phonetic features (e.g., place and manner of articulation, voicing; Adelman et al, 2018;Benczes & Kovács, 2022;Calvillo-Torres et al, 2024;de Zubicaray et al, 2023;Kambara & Umemura, 2021;Louwerse & Qu, 2017). In English, positively valenced words tend to have more bilabial and velar sounds in their initial phonemes and more labiodental final phonemes, while negatively valenced words are more likely to comprise more stops and fricatives and have a stressed syllable in addition to more nasal sounds in their initial phoneme (e.g., de Zubicaray et al, 2023;Louwerse & Qu, 2017).…”

“…1 These too have recently been investigated for emotional valence and arousal (the degree to which the activation or intensity of a word's referent is calming or exciting) at the level of phonetic features (e.g., place and manner of articulation, voicing; Adelman et al, 2018;Benczes & Kovács, 2022;Calvillo-Torres et al, 2024;de Zubicaray et al, 2023;Kambara & Umemura, 2021;Louwerse & Qu, 2017). In English, positively valenced words tend to have more bilabial and velar sounds in their initial phonemes and more labiodental final phonemes, while negatively valenced words are more likely to comprise more stops and fricatives and have a stressed syllable in addition to more nasal sounds in their initial phoneme (e.g., de Zubicaray et al, 2023;Louwerse & Qu, 2017). In Spanish, approximants tend to occur in positive and low arousing words, while fricatives are overrepresented in negative words and in those denoting high arousal, with the latter forms also tending to have more plosives (Calvillo-Torres et al, 2024).…”