Semantic Associations Dominate Over Perceptual Associations in Vowel–Size Iconicity

Abstract

We tested the influence of perceptual features on semantic associations between the acoustic characteristics of vowels and the notion of size. To this end, we designed an experiment in which we manipulated size on two dissociable levels: the physical size of the pictures presented during the experiment (perceptual level) and the implied size of the objects depicted in the pictures (semantic level). Participants performed an Implicit Association Test in which the pictures of small objects were larger than those of large objects – that is, the actual size ratio on the semantic level was inverted on the perceptual level. Our results suggest that participants matched visual and acoustic stimuli in accordance with the content of the pictures (i.e., the inferred size of the depicted object), whereas directly perceivable features (i.e., the physical size of the picture) had only a marginal influence on participants’ performance. Moreover, as the experiment has been conducted at two different sites (Japan and Germany), the results also suggest that the participants’ cultural background or mother tongue had only a negligible influence on the effect. Our results, therefore, support the assumption that associations across sensory modalities can be motivated by the semantic interpretation of presemantic stimuli.

Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels

“…A dictionary of Japanese sound-symbolic words includes more than 4500 sound-symbolic words [27]. Although recent studies have investigated the evaluation, comprehension, and learning of Japanese symbolic words [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], studies associated with Japanese were inconclusive when compared to studies on Western languages [4,5,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Affective Arousal Links Sound to Meaning

“…Accordingly, emotional states need to connect with different types of stimuli across different modalities, suggesting a possible role for emotion in cross-modal associations. The mediating role of affective meaning has already been observed in cross-sensory correspondences: among auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli (Marks, 1975;Walker, Walker, & Francis, 2012); between music and color (Isbilen & Krumhansl, 2016); and even between more abstract concepts such as vowels and size (Auracher, 2017;Hoshi, Kwon, Akita, & Auracher, 2019). Furthermore, when participants are asked to rate the meaning of concepts using scales between bipolar adjectives, such as rounded-angular and soft-hard, most of the variance in ratings could be accounted for by the affective dimensions of valence and arousal (Osgood, 1952).…”

The Effects of Mandarin Chinese Lexical Tones in Sound–Shape and Sound–Size Correspondences

“…Sound-size mappings suggest that people tend to match pseudowords containing the vowel /i/ (e.g., 'mil', 'ibib') to smaller objects and tend to match pseudowords containing the vowel /a/ (e.g., 'mal', 'abab') to larger objects (Ohtake and Haryu, 2013;Sapir, 1929;Shinohara and Kawahara, 2010). The sound-size association is insensitive to cultural background or mother tongue, suggesting a universal phenomenon across cultures and languages (Hoshi et al, 2019;Shinohara and Kawahara, 2010).…”