Cuteness modulates size sound symbolism at its extremes

Abstract

Research on sound symbolism is concerned with the non-arbitrary connection between speech sounds and different types of sensory information, and has met increased interest during the last decades. However, despite the rapidly growing body of research, one issue that remains understudied is whether different types of sensory information interact with each other in regard to sound symbolic effects. The experimental study reported here focuses on two types of sensory information and their potential interaction: vowel quality and cuteness. With speakers of German as participants, we conducted a forced-choice task in which size ratings were elicited for auditory pseudoword stimuli with different vowel qualities. Pseudowords were introduced as names of alien creatures, which were used as visual stimuli in the experiment. For the same creatures, cuteness was assessed via a cuteness judgement task. Confirming previous research, /aː/ was associated with largeness and /iː/ was associated with smallness. Regarding the interaction of vowel quality and cuteness, we found that cuteness modulates size associations in /aː/, /iː/, and /yː/. For /aː/ size increased, while for /iː/ and /yː/ size decreased with increasing cuteness. Our findings call for taking into account all types of sensory information present when researching sound symbolism.