Semantic Associations Dominate Over Perceptual Associations in Vowel-Size Iconicity.

Hideyuki Hoshi,Kimi Akita,Nahyun Kwon,Jan Auracher

doi:10.1177/2041669519861981

Hideyuki Hoshi, Kimi Akita + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1177/2041669519861981

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Abstract

We tested the influence of perceptual features on semantic associations between the acoustic characteristics of vowels and the notion of size. To this end, we designed an experiment in which we manipulated size on two dissociable levels: the physical size of the pictures presented during the experiment (perceptual level) and the implied size of the objects depicted in the pictures (semantic level). Participants performed an Implicit Association Test in which the pictures of small objects were larger than those of large objects – that is, the actual size ratio on the semantic level was inverted on the perceptual level. Our results suggest that participants matched visual and acoustic stimuli in accordance with the content of the pictures (i.e., the inferred size of the depicted object), whereas directly perceivable features (i.e., the physical size of the picture) had only a marginal influence on participants’ performance. Moreover, as the experiment has been conducted at two different sites (Japan and Germany), the results also suggest that the participants’ cultural background or mother tongue had only a negligible influence on the effect. Our results, therefore, support the assumption that associations across sensory modalities can be motivated by the semantic interpretation of presemantic stimuli.

Highlights

While the relation between the form of a linguistic sign and its meaning is generally believed to be based on social conventions and to be arbitrary, there is solid evidence suggesting that the articulatory and acoustic properties of phonemes in human language are implicitly associated with nonacoustic characteristics such as shape, size, and taste
Based on the results reported by Auracher (2017), we hypothesised that cross-modal associations between visual and acoustic stimuli will be dominated by the semantic features of the visual stimuli, that is, the content of the pictures
We found that directly perceivable features – namely the physical size of the visual stimuli – had only a marginal influence on semantic cross-modal associations

Summary

Introduction

While the relation between the form of a linguistic sign and its meaning is generally believed to be based on social conventions and to be arbitrary, there is solid evidence suggesting that the articulatory and acoustic properties of phonemes in human language are implicitly associated with nonacoustic characteristics such as shape, size, and taste (for reviews, see Cuskley & Kirby, 2013; Hinton, Nichols, & Ohala, 1994; Nuckolls, 1999; Perniss, Thompson, & Vigliocco, 2010; Perniss & Vigliocco, 2014; Reay, 1994; Schmidtke, Conrad, & Jacobs, 2014; Svantesson, 2017). We use the term sound iconicity to refer to a perceived relation between the acoustic characteristics of a phoneme and nonacoustic features of sensory input that exist independently of a specific culture or language. Comparable definitions of sound iconicity have been introduced elsewhere (e.g., Dingemanse, Blasi, Lupyan, Christiansen, & Monaghan, 2015; Hinton et al, 1994); due to differences in research interests, the terminology has yet to be used consistently

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