Vowel sounds in words affect mental construal and shift preferences for targets

Sound-meaning associations allow listeners to infer the meaning of foreign language words

An attribute of human language is the seemingly arbitrary association between a word's form and meaning. We provide evidence that the meaning of foreign words can be partially deduced from phonological form. Monolingual English speakers listened to 45 antonym word pairs in nine foreign languages and judged which English words corresponded to these words' respective meanings. Despite no proficiency in the foreign language tested, participants' accuracy was higher than chance in each language. Words that shared meaning across languages were more likely to share phonological form. Accuracy in judging meaning from form was associated with participants' verbal working memory and with how consistently phonological and semantic features of words covaried across unrelated languages. A follow-up study with native Spanish speakers replicated the results. We conclude that sound maps to meaning in natural languages with some regularity, and sensitivity to form-meaning mappings indexes broader cognitive functions.

Creating effective brand names with sound symbolic mappings

Background: The present study was designed to investigate the use of sound symbolic mappings in fictitious brand names. Sound symbolic mappings refer to the existence of a nonarbitrary relationship between individual sounds and associations of different attributes and concepts. Given that sounds have inherent meaning in them, brand names in line with the established symbolic effects could communicate tailored messages that are congruent with consumer expectations of a product. Purpose: As perceived congruency between a product and its label is highly desirable in marketing, the study sets out to test the noted effects in brand names. It was aimed to confirm the strength of sound symbolic effects through greater preference for names with a symbolic fit with the product. Study design/methodology/approach: Two product categories were chosen, and a set of fictitious brand names were created. The names differed only on the sounds purported to convey targeted symbolic associations of salient product characteristics. The participants were presented with a forced choice task consisting of paired name samples and a stated product category for each pair. Finding/conclusions: The results confirmed the presence of sound symbolic effects as participants favoured the names with embedded symbolism. This leads to a conclusion that sound symbolism may be used to affect consumer choices based on brand name preference. Limitations/future research: Even though the study included only two products and used forced choice tasks limited on name pairs, the findings clearly imply the potential of sound symbolic mappings in creating efficient brand names. Broadening the research to other products and the service sector would surely deliver intriguing results.

Gotta Name'em All: an Experimental Study on the Sound Symbolism of Pokémon Names in Brazilian Portuguese

Sound-symbolic patterns which relate to the perception of size were found to motivate the behavior of English and Japanese speakers in the naming of pre- and post-evolution Pokémon. The current study builds from this finding and investigates which sound-symbolic association speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) employ to name Pokémon characters. Results from 3 experiments show that vowel quality, phonological length and voiced obstruents, usually used to signal differences in size, are used to signal differences in evolution; however, the effects of voiced obstruents are not identical to what was previously observed in the behavior of Japanese speakers. We argue that although there is a universal sound symbolism associated with these sounds and the perception of largeness, its manifestation differs cross-linguistically. To the best of our knowledge, this is one the first experimental research to investigate sound symbolism and the perception of size in BP.

The Voice of Cognition: Active and Passive Voice Influence Distance and Construal

English passages can be in either the active or passive voice. Relative to the active voice, the passive voice provides a sense of objectivity regarding the events being described. This leads to our hypothesis that passages in the passive voice can increase readers' psychological distance from the content of the passage, triggering an abstract construal. In five studies with American, Australian, British, and Canadian participants, we find evidence for our propositions, with both paragraphs and sentences in the passive voice increasing readers' felt temporal, hypothetical, and spatial distance from activities described in the text, which increases their abstraction in a manner that generalizes to unrelated tasks. As such, prose colors how people process information, with the active and passive voice influencing the reader in ways beyond what is stated in the written word.

Exploring the temporal boundary conditions of the articulatory in-out preference effect

Earlier research has documented a preference for words with consonantal articulation patterns that move from the front to the back of the mouth (e.g., MENIKA) over words with reversely wandering consonantal articulation spots (e.g., KENIMA). The present experiments explored the temporal dynamics of the reading process in this in-out preference effect. In three experiments (total N = 344), we gradually reduced the presentation durations of inward and outward wandering words from 1000 ms down to 25 ms to approximate the minimum length of visual stimulus presentation required to trigger the effect. The in-out effect was reliably observed for exposure timings down to 50 ms, but vanished for 25 ms timings, which is line with previous evidence on phonological encoding. Thus, impressively, 50 ms of word presentation is sufficient to evoke the in-out effect. These findings suggest phonological activation to be a prerequisite and thus a driving mechanism of the in-out effect.

Language is more abstract than you think, or, why aren't languages more iconic?

How abstract is language? We show that abstractness pervades every corner of language, going far beyond the usual examples of freedom and justice In the light of the ubiquity of abstract words, the need to understand where abstract meanings come from becomes ever more acute. We argue that the best source of knowledge about abstract meanings may be language itself. We then consider a seemingly unrelated question: Why isn't language more iconic? Iconicity-a resemblance between the form of words and their meanings-can be immensely useful in language learning and communication. Languages could be much more iconic than they currently are. So why aren't they? We suggest that one reason is that iconicity is inimical to abstraction because iconic forms are too connected to specific contexts and sensory depictions. Form-meaning arbitrariness may allow language to better convey abstract meanings.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Sequential Approach-Avoidance Movements

Abstract. The affective consequences of sequential approach-avoidance movements in the mouth were investigated. Participants (total N = 872) received words for which consonantal stricture spots either wandered first-inward-then-outward (e.g., FOLOKOLOF; approach-avoidance) or first-outward-then-inward (e.g., KOLOFOLOK; avoidance-approach) in the mouth. In a pilot study, it was established that first-inward-then-outward (first-outward-then-inward) is associated with negative disgust (positive ingestion) reactions (Experiment 1). Approach-avoidance sequences were preferred less than avoidance-approach sequences (Experiments 2a–3b); and this effect disappeared under oral motor-interference (Experiment 4). Experiment 5 provides evidence that a mere recency effect is an unlikely explanation for these effects. Thus, sequentially executed oral approach and avoidance movements do not cancel each other out but jointly influence resulting affective responses.

Iconicity in the lab: a review of behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging research into sound-symbolism

This review covers experimental approaches to sound-symbolism—from infants to adults, and from Sapir’s foundational studies to twenty-first century product naming. It synthesizes recent behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging work into a systematic overview of the cross-modal correspondences that underpin iconic links between form and meaning. It also identifies open questions and opportunities, showing how the future course of experimental iconicity research can benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary perspective. Combining insights from psychology and neuroscience with evidence from natural languages provides us with opportunities for the experimental investigation of the role of sound-symbolism in language learning, language processing, and communication. The review finishes by describing how hypothesis-testing and model-building will help contribute to a cumulative science of sound-symbolism in human language.