Abstract
Several studies have shown cross-modal associations between sounds and vision or gustation by asking participants to match pre-defined sound-symbolic words (SSWs), such as “bouba” or “kiki,” with visual or gustatory materials. Here, we conducted an explorative study on cross-modal associations of tactile sensations using spontaneous production of Japanese SSWs and semantic ratings. The Japanese language was selected, because it has a large number of SSWs that can represent a wide range of tactile perceptual spaces with fine resolution, and it shows strong associations between sound and touch. In the experiment, we used 120 everyday materials to cover basic material categories that could be associated with fundamental dimensions of tactile perception. Upon contact with these materials, participants expressed their tactile sensations by using Japanese SSWs, and at the same time, evaluated the tactile sensations by semantic differential scales using adjective pairs. Thanks to the variety of testing materials, we were able to demonstrate the existence of systematic associations between sounds and tactile fundamental perceptual dimensions in a more detailed and comprehensive way than ever done so before. In particular, we found that for vowels, positive tactile ratings were associated with the back vowel (/u/), while negative ratings were associated with the front vowels (/i/ and /e/). The central vowels (/o/ and /a/) were mainly associated with rough, hard, and dry feelings. Consonants were categorized based on vocal features and articulation. The category of the voiced consonants (e.g., /dz/ and /g/) corresponded to feelings of roughness, while that of voiceless consonants (e.g., /ʦ/, and /s/) corresponded to feelings of smoothness. The categories of the bilabial plosive (/p/ and /b/) and voiced alveolar nasal (/n/) consonants were mainly related to soft, sticky and wet feelings, while that of voiceless alveolar affricate (/ʦ/) and voiceless velar plosive (/k/) consonants were related to hard, slippery and dry feelings.
Highlights
Contrary to traditional linguistic thought that relationships between speech sounds and word meanings are arbitrary, recent studies have suggested that iconicity rather plays some role in structuring vocabulary
Because the Japanese linguistic form has soundsymbolic meaning (Hamano, 1998), we used the first syllables of these 1,566 instances to examine sound symbolism in touch
We obtained 22 first syllables that occurred more than 16 times (1% of 1,566), and decided to use the 22 syllables to explore sound symbolism in touch
Summary
Contrary to traditional linguistic thought that relationships between speech sounds and word meanings are arbitrary, recent studies have suggested that iconicity (aspects of form resembling aspects of meaning) rather plays some role in structuring vocabulary (for a review, see Dingemanse et al, 2015). We explored sound symbolism in touch, especially the association between phonemes of Japanese soundsymbolic words (SSWs) expressing tactile sensations and evaluations of tactile materials. Sakamoto and Watanabe (2017) used SSWs to collect tactile materials in a comprehensive manner, and investigated basic dimensions of tactile perceptions using semantic differential scales of adjectives. “sara-sara” and “zara-zara,” which only differ in the first syllable of the repetition unit, denote totally different tactile sensations While the former is used for expressing smooth and pleasant touch, the latter is used for expressing rough and unpleasant touch. We obtained a vast number of combinations for the first syllable of Japanese SSWs and evaluations of tactile sensations, and examined features of sound symbolism in touch in terms of voiced/voiceless, location of articulation, and manner of articulation
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