Magnitude sound symbolism influences vowel production

Sound-Action Symbolism

“…For instance, small animals have small vocal apparatuses, resulting in the production of higher frequencies compared to larger animals ( Ohala, 1994 ). In addition to f 0 , empirical evidence shows that the sound-magnitude effect is also linked with the formants F1 , which reflects tongue lowering, and F2 , which reflects tongue fronting ( Fant, 1960 ), so that larger objects are linked with increased F1 and decreased F2 ( Knoeferle et al, 2017 ; Vainio, 2021 ). Furthermore, Fitch (2000) has proposed that F1 and F2 , and their differential spacing (formant dispersion), which is tied to vocal tract length and body size and decreases from high-front vowels to low-front vowels, might be a better indicator of body size than pitch.…”

“…Firstly, it has been demonstrated that when participants are required to articulate the vowel [i] or [u] according to the size of the round or sharp shapes, the articulation of [i] is facilitated by sharp shapes while [u] is facilitated by round shapes ( Vainio et al, 2017b ). Correspondingly, the articulation of unround-closed-front vowels is facilitated by processing small spatial and temporal aspects of stimuli, while articulation of round, open, and back vowels is facilitated by processing large spatial and temporal aspects of stimuli ( Vainio, 2021 ). This evidence suggests that articulatory processes are associated with the bouba-kiki effect as well as the sound-magnitude effect .…”

“…Sound symbolism research has similarly shown that the concept of smallness is associated with the same vowels irrespective of the magnitude dimension. Front-close vowels are sound symbolically associated with quick movement, small size, short spatial, and temporal length as well as near distance, while back-open vowels are associated with slow movement, large size, long spatial, and temporal length as well as far distance ( Sapir, 1929 ; Tanz, 1971 ; Cuskley, 2013 ; Rabaglia et al, 2016 ; Bross, 2018 ; Vainio, 2021 ). In addition, just as the ATOM theory grounds generalized magnitude representations in manual actions, in the context of sound symbolism, small magnitudes are linked not only to front-close vowels, but also to precision grasping ( Vainio et al, 2013 , 2017a , 2019a ).…”

“…Thus, given that mouth gestures and manual gestures are programmed within a combined sensorimotor network (e.g., Arbib, 2005 ; Gentilucci and Corballis, 2006 ; Vainio, 2019 ), it could be assumed – in the light of the ATOM theory – that this mouth-hand network is involved in representing the concept of magnitude in abstracted and generalized from. Therefore, the sound-magnitude effect that associate particular vowels (e.g., [i]) with a particular magnitude (e.g., smallness ), might be at least partially based on grounding this magnitude concept in a shared network representing the precision grasp ( Vainio et al, 2013 ), a closed grasp aperture ( Gentilucci and Campione, 2011 ), and a front-close articulatory gesture ( Vainio, 2021 ).…”

Vowel Length Expands Perceptual and Emotional Evaluations in Written Japanese Sound-Symbolic Words

“…Klink (2000) reported that products associated with names which included front vowels were evaluated as lighter (relative to both darker and heavier), smaller, more feminine, colder, faster, softer, thinner, friendlier, weaker, prettier, more bitter, and milder than products associated with names which included back vowels [ 36 ]. Psycholinguistic research showed that a long distance between objects promoted speech production of u and æ , whereas a short distance between objects promoted speech production of i [ 37 ]. As another perspective of sound symbolism of vowels (vowel symbolism [ 32 ]), Hamano theoretically showed that vowel length was associated with temporal and spatial length of actions (i.e., speed and length [ 32 ]).…”