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In studies of phonetic symbolism, the most commonly cited attribute of speech relevant to the phenomenon has been frequency. The present study was conducted in order to examine the relationship between pure tone frequencies and geometric figures. A pure tone oscillator was constructed which produced tones in a continuous sweep from 4-12,250 Hz. Six geometric shapes were employed and varied along three binary dimensions (size, complexity, and density) producing a total of 48 stimulus figures. Twelve male and twelve female subjects adjusted pure tone frequencies until they "best fit" the visually presented geometric figure in a complete within-subject, block-randomization design of 48 trials. There was consistency in the assignment of pure tone frequencies to the dimensions of the geometric figures. Round figures (circles and ellipses) generally received lower frequency assignments than other figures, and the shape by size interaction was also found to be statistically significant. The results are interpreted in light of recent research in psycholinguistics and in particular to the hypothesis of a "universal phonetic symbolism".

Three studies using adult native speakers of English are reported. Each study asked subjects to label elliptical or triangular figures of different size with a CVC trigram. It was the purpose of these studies to obtain evidence in support of the " phonetic symbolism " hypothesis. Subjects agreed about the relationship between vowel sounds and the size of figure regardless of shape. The sound /a/ was more often chosen for large figures while /i/ was more often chosen for small. A less striking but discernible trend was observed for the labelling of figures with vowel sounds. It was tentatively concluded that, for English speakers, there do exist unrecognized yet consistent bases for relating sounds and visual stimuli.

THE BECENT STUDIES OF KLEINSMITH AND KAPLAN (1963, 1964) point to arousal as a critical variable in the patterning of verbal recall over time. Learning under conditions of low arousal displays a typical forgetting pattern: immediate recall is excellent, but recall ability decreases rapidly with time. High arousal learning, on the other hand, shows a marked reminiscence effect: poor immediate recall, but strong permanent memory. These results were interpreted as supporting the theory of consolidation of neural traces. The poor immediate recall for high arousal learning is predictable on the basis of the relative unavailability of actively consolidating neural traces. On the other hand, the greater consolidation of high arousal learning also results in stronger permanent memory.In view of these results the question arises as to the generality of the inverted-U relationship between arousal and learning recently reported by Berry (1962). Berry used only a single short (6 minutes) recall interval. Since time of recall is apparently such a critical variable, it is possible that the inverted U is a temporary phenomenon and not indicative of long-term memory. If a longer recall interval were to be used to avoid the immediate confounding effects of active consolidation, a strong positive relationship between arousal and learning might be expected; this follows from the consideration that higher arousal (higher non-specific neural activity) would lead to more consolidation and thus stronger permanent memory.In order to insure direct comparability of results, Berry's experimental design was followed in the present studies. In addition to the 6-minute recall group a one-week recall group was also employed in order to determine the effect of arousal on long-term memory. METHOD SubjectsThe Ss were 64 University of Michigan undergraduates obtained from the introductory courses in psychology. They were divided into two equal groups with 16 males and 16 females in each.