Visual and Proprioceptive Perceptions Evoke Motion-Sound Symbolism: Different Acceleration Profiles Are Associated With Different Types of Consonants

Abstract

A growing body of literature has shown that one perceptual modality can be systematically associated with sensation in another. However, the cross-modal relationship between linguistic sounds and motions (i.e., motion-sound symbolism) is an extremely understudied area of research. Against this background, this paper examines the cross-modal correspondences between categories of consonants on one hand and different acceleration profiles of motion stimuli on the other. In the two experiments that we conducted, we mechanically manipulated the acceleration profiles of the stimuli while holding the trajectory paths constant, thus distinguishing the effect of acceleration profiles from that of motion path shapes. The results show that different acceleration profiles can be associated with different types of consonants; in particular, movements with acceleration and deceleration tend to be associated with a class of sounds called obstruents, whereas movements without much acceleration tend to be associated with a class of sounds called sonorants. Moreover, the current experiments show that this sort of cross-modal correspondence arises even when the stimuli are not presented visually, namely, when the participants’ hands were moved passively by a manipulandum. In conclusion, the present study adds an additional piece of evidence demonstrating that bodily action-based information, i.e., proprioception as a very feasible candidate, could lead to sound symbolic patterns.

Differences in arousal and valence on the Korean phoneme of artificial voice between Korean and Chinese women

“…However, when considering the practical use of language, ignoring the influence of consonants, and focusing only on the transformation of vowels may act as a limit in perceiving emotional meaning. Research results suggest that the impression perceived by the listener is different depending on the consonants, which supports this claim [8]. Therefore, in this study, we tried to measure the emotional value of consonants through the classification according to the consonant by fully utilizing the consonants that have been neglected in sound symbolism.…”

“…From a psychological point of view, sound symbolism has been conducting research on the sensory information recognized and perceived by people through specific sounds and their emotional meaning. Researchers have attempted to find emotional meanings by linking hearing with perception areas for various senses, such as sight [3,4], taste [5], smell [6], touch [7], and motion [8]. One of the most famous examples in the visual field, the "bouba/kiki effect" is a phenomenon in which people associate a round shape when they hear "bouba" and a pointed shape when they hear "kiki" [1].…”

Interaction between grasping and articulation: How vowel and consonant pronunciation influences precision and power grip responses

“…This oral action simultaneously provides a sensorimotor (proprioceptive) and somatosensory percept of a narrowing oral cavity at the front of the mouth, which from its side boosts associating these speech units with precision grip. Indeed, previous research suggests that in addition to perceptual cues related to hand movements [ 66 ], proprioception linked to hand movements might also contribute to sound symbolism [ 67 ].…”

What's next for size-sound symbolism?

“…Considered overall, however, the contribution of f 0 to size estimates is limited, with one meta-analysis finding that only 2% of men's height and 0.5% of women's height were explained by f 0 (Pisanski et al, 2014), though f 0 may still convey semantic information. For example, pitch has been shown to correspond perceptually to spatial elevation in research on music perception (Shintel et al, 2006;Küssner et al, 2014), prosody (Ekström et al, 2022), and speech more generally (Shinohara et al, 2020). Due to the spurious and complicated nature of the evidence, however, much work has instead concentrated on other aspects of speech signals as suggestive of size.…”