The Relationships Between Initial Consonants in Japanese Sound Symbolic Words and Familiarity, Multi-Sensory Imageability, Emotional Valence, and Arousal

Kambara, Tomihito; Umemura, Tomotaka

doi:10.1007/s10936-020-09749-w

Cited by 12 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In addition, although previous findings have shown that both vowels or consonants in sound symbolic words and pseudowords associate with referential features (e.g., Klink, 2000;Cuskley et al, 2017;Kambara and Umemura, 2021), current findings focus on how an isolated written vowel associates with subjective evaluations of physical and emotional features. From here, vowels occurring in words or pseudowords could be further investigated.…”

Section: Subjective Evaluation Of Physical Featuresmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Therefore, we decided to use katakana, not hiragana and kanji. The 10 semantic differential scales were based on previous studies in theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics (Osgood et al, 1957;Hamano, 1998;Klink, 2000;Kambara et al, 2020;Namba and Kambara, 2020;Kambara and Umemura, 2021). These scales were associated with size (1: small; 5: big), closeness (1: far; 5: close), thickness (1: thin; 5: thick), width (1: narrow; 5: wide), weight (1: light; 5: heavy), height (1: low; 5: high), depth (1: shallow; 5: deep), affection (1: dislike; 5: like), excitement (1: calm; 5: excited) and familiarity (1: unfamiliar; 5: familiar).…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A previous study reported that a group, who implicitly learned congruently sound-symbolic relationships between pseudowords and meaningless figures, performed matching pseudowords with meaningless figures better than another group, who explicitly learned incongruently sound-symbolic relationships between pseudowords and meaningless figures (Nielsen and Rendall, 2012). The voicing of consonants in sound-symbolic words affects subjective evaluations of the words (Kambara and Umemura, 2021). Vowels influence perception of objects and faces (Sapir, 1929;Newman, 1933;Perfors, 2004) and brand names/brand personalities (Klink, 2000;Yorkston and Menon, 2004;Wu et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These findings suggest that while sound symbolism is not an illusion that would actually be explained by purely visual phenomena involving the shape of letters (especially since sound symbolism occurs in human communities who do not have a written system for their languages), the visual shape of written stimuli might lead to additional effects that might partially blur sound symbolic associations. Sound symbolism has been examined in behavioral experiments for word evaluation (Kambara and Umemura, 2021) and word learning (Imai et al, 2008;Kantartzis et al, 2011), and neuroscientific experiments for word comprehension (Osaka, 2011) and word learning (Asano et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2019). For instance, mismatched relationships between words (e.g., kipi) and referents (e.g., a round figure) increase mismatch negativity of eventrelated brain potentials around 400 ms after stimulus onset (N400) for 11-month-old infants compared to matched relationships between words (e.g., moma) and referents (e.g., a round figure; see Asano et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The purpose of this study was to investigate differences among subjective evaluations of Japanese vowels. Many researchers have examined Japanese sound symbolism in terms of word evaluation, word comprehension and word learning (e.g., Hamano, 1986;Hamano, 1998;Imai et al, 2008;Shinohara and Kawahara, 2010;Osaka, 2011;Imai and Kita, 2014;Asano et al, 2015;Hoshi et al, 2019;Kawahara, 2020;Motoki et al, 2020;Kambara and Umemura, 2021), while many other researchers have also examined sound symbolism in other languages, especially in European languages (e.g., Sapir, 1929;Newman, 1933;Klink, 2000;Perfors, 2004;Yorkston and Menon, 2004;Myers-Schultz et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2013;Adelman et al, 2018;Aryani and Jacobs, 2018;Aryani et al, 2018a;Ariyani et al, 2018b;Aryani et al, 2019). One of the reasons why sound symbolism researchers have focused on Japanese is the large number of sound-symbolic words in Japanese (Hamano, 1986;Hamano, 1998;Imai and Kita, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sound-Symbolic Semantics of Written Japanese Vowels in a Paper-Based Survey Study

et al. 2021

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Verbal sounds can be associated with specific meanings, a phenomenon called sound symbolism. Previous findings of sound symbolism have shown that words including specific consonants or vowels or mouth shapes to pronounce specific vowels associate with specific and subjective physical and emotional evaluations. The purpose of this study was to examine whether each written vowel in a given language was individually associated with specific subjective evaluations. Six hundred and thirteen participants used five-point semantic differential scales for 10 features (size, closeness, thickness, width, weight, height, depth, affection, excitement and familiarity) to rate written Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e, and o). The results showed that the size, closeness, thickness and width of a, u and o were significantly higher than those of i and e, whereas the affection and familiarity of a were higher than the others. These results were consistent with previous findings in which vowels in sound-symbolic words have been associated with physical (i.e., size, closeness, thickness and width) and emotional (i.e., affection) evaluations. Our findings suggest that each written Japanese vowel itself, with its individual characteristics, could individually contribute to specific and subjective physical and emotional evaluations. These findings provide insights on how we could better use letters for communicative relationships among writers and readers.

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Section: Subjective Evaluation Of Physical Featuresmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sound-Symbolic Semantics of Written Japanese Vowels in a Paper-Based Survey Study

et al. 2021

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Japanese written pseudowords can be conditioned to Japanese spoken words with positive, negative, and active emotions

Ando

Kambara

2023

Cogn Process

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This study aimed to examine whether Japanese participants condition spoken words’ meanings to written pseudowords. In Survey 1, we selected spoken words associated with negative (α = .91) and positive (α = .79) features for Experiment 1 and passive (α = .90) and active (α = .80) features for Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated four written pseudowords’ emotional valence using a 7-point semantic differential scale (1: negative; 7: positive) before and after conditioning spoken words with negative, neutral, or positive features to each pseudoword. In the conditioning phase, participants read each pseudoword, listened to a spoken word, and verbally repeated each spoken word. The results showed that a pseudoword was conditioned to spoken words with positive and negative features. In Experiment 2, participants evaluated four pseudowords’ activeness using a 7-point semantic differential scale (1: passive; 7: active) before and after conditioning spoken words of passive, neutral, and active features to each written pseudoword. In the conditioning phase, the participants read each written pseudoword, listened to a spoken word, and repeated the spoken word. The results showed that the activeness evaluations were more increased for pseudowords conditioned to spoken words of active and neutral features after conditioning than before conditioning but were unchanged for a pseudoword conditioned to those with passive features before and after conditioning. Additonally, Survey 2’s results showed that although the positiveness and activeness responses of the words used in Experiments 1 and 2 were controlled well, the lack of significant differences among positiveness responses of words may influence the evaluative conditioning in Experiment 2. That is, when participants condition passive (low arousal) words’ activeness (arousal) ratings to those of pseudowords, words’ positiveness (valence) ratings would be important in the evaluative conditioning. Our findings suggest that participants can condition spoken word meanings of preference and activeness to those of written pseudowords. It also indicates that linguistically evaluative conditioning’s effects are robust in a non-alphabetic language.

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Valence sound symbolism across language families: a comparison between Japanese and German

Körner

Rummer²

2022

Lang. cogn.

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Vowels are associated with valence, so that words containing /i/ (as in English meet) compared with /o/ (as in French rose) are typically judged to match positively valenced persons and objects. As yet, valence sound symbolism has been mainly observed for Indo-European languages. The present research extends this to a comparison of Japanese-speaking and German-speaking participants. Participants invented pseudo-words as names for faces with different emotional expressions (happy vs. neutral vs. sad vs. angry). For both Japanese-speaking and German-speaking participants, vowel usage depended on emotional valence. The vowel I was used more for positive (vs. other) expressions, whereas O and U were used less for positive (vs. other) expressions. A was associated with positive emotional valence for Japanese-speaking but not German-speaking participants. In sum, emotional valence associations of I (vs. rounded vowels) were similar in German and Japanese, suggesting that sound symbolism for emotional valence is not language specific.

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The Relationships Between Initial Consonants in Japanese Sound Symbolic Words and Familiarity, Multi-Sensory Imageability, Emotional Valence, and Arousal

Cited by 12 publications

References 25 publications

Sound-Symbolic Semantics of Written Japanese Vowels in a Paper-Based Survey Study

Sound-Symbolic Semantics of Written Japanese Vowels in a Paper-Based Survey Study

Japanese written pseudowords can be conditioned to Japanese spoken words with positive, negative, and active emotions

Valence sound symbolism across language families: a comparison between Japanese and German

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