Knoeferle, K;
Li, J;
Maggioni, E;
Spence, C;
(2017)
What drives sound symbolism? Different acoustic cues underlie sound-size and sound-shape mappings.
Scientific Reports
, 7
, Article 5562. 10.1038/s41598-017-05965-y.
Preview |
Text
s41598-017-05965-y.pdf - Published Version Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
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.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | What drives sound symbolism? Different acoustic cues underlie sound-size and sound-shape mappings |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-017-05965-y |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05965-y |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Human behaviour, Sensory processing |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10112520 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
