The sound of distance

Abstract

Human languages may be more than completely arbitrary symbolic systems. A growing literature supports sound symbolism, or the existence of consistent, intuitive relationships between speech sounds and specific concepts. Prior work establishes that these sound-to-meaning mappings can shape language-related judgments and decisions, but do their effects generalize beyond merely the linguistic and truly color how we navigate our environment? We examine this possibility, relating a predominant sound symbolic distinction (vowel frontness) to a novel associate (spatial proximity) in five studies. We show that changing one vowel in a label can influence estimations of distance, impacting judgment, perception, and action. The results (1) provide the first experimental support for a relationship between vowels and spatial distance and (2) demonstrate that sound-to-meaning mappings have outcomes that extend beyond just language and can - through a single sound - influence how we perceive and behave toward objects in the world.

Five mechanisms of sound symbolic association

“…12 A similar explanation has also been applied to the association between front (back) vowels and short (long) distances (Johansson & Zlatev, 2013;Rabaglia et al, 2016;Tanz, 1971). Johansson and Zlatev (2013) noted that lower frequencies are able to travel longer distances and are therefore more likely to be heard from far away.…”

“…These congruencies can have effects on language learning (e.g., Asano et al, 2015;Imai, Kita, Nagumo, & Okada, 2008;Perry, Perlman, & Lupyan, 2015; for a review, see Imai & Kita, 2014) and processing (e.g., Kanero, Imai, Okuda, Okada, & Matsuda, 2014;Lockwood & Tuomainen, 2015;Sučević, Savić, Popović, Styles, & Ković, 2015). Moreover, sound symbolic associations have also been shown to impact cognition more broadly, including effects on action (Parise & Pavani, 2011;Rabaglia, Maglio, Krehm, Seok, & Trope, 2016;Vainio, Schulman, Tiippana, & Vainio, 2013;Vainio, Tiainen, Tiippana, Rantala, & Vainio, 2016), memory (Lockwood, Hargoort, & Dingemanse, 2016;Nygaard, Cook, & Namy, 2009;Preziosi & Coane, 2017), and categorization (Ković, Plunkett, & Westermann, 2010;Lupyan & Casasanto, 2015; for a recent review of sound symbolism effects, see Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015).…”

Psychological distance in consumer psychology: Consequences and antecedents

“…Broadly, consumers assume that words named with back vowels lie at a greater psychological distance compared to words named with front vowels. City names containing a front vowel are intuited as being located spatially closer (Rabaglia, Maglio, Krehm, Seok, & Trope, ) and people with names containing a front vowel feel socially closer (Maglio & Feder, ). The latter investigation built from inference of social distance to downstream judgments and decisions (see also Maglio, Rabaglia, Feder, Krehm, & Trope, ), finding that vowel‐derived closeness benefits certain consumer interactions (tipping servers in a restaurant) but compromises others (therapists helping patients gain perspective on an emotionally disturbing event).…”

My username is IN! The influence of inward vs. outward wandering usernames on judgments of online seller trustworthiness

“…The research done in this area is based on the idea that the way a word sounds transmits specific features of the object it represents. For example, words or names with high‐pitch vowels (like the sound e in the word bean) suggest that the object is small, fast, light and/or spatially close, e.g., while names with low‐pitch vowels (like the sound ou in the word mountain ) suggest that the object is big, solid, heavy, slow and/or spatially distant (e.g., Coulter & Coulter, ; Klink, ; Rabaglia, Maglio, Krehm, Seok, & Trope, ; see also sound symbolism and gender of names; Slepian & Galinski, ). Congruently, in experiments testing fictional brand names for hammers and knifes, words with low‐pitch vowels were preferred as brand names for hammers, while words with high‐pitch vowels were preferred as brand names for knifes (Lowrey & Shrum; ; see also Shrum & Lowrey, ; Shrum, Lowrey, Luna, Lerman, & Liu, ).…”