TY - GEN
T1 - A tripartite trans-modal relationship among sounds, shapes and emotions
T2 - 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World, CogSci 2012
AU - Kawahara, Shigeto
AU - Shinohara, Kazuko
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the research assistants at the Rutgers Phonetics Laboratory for their assistance with this project. For comments on earlier draft of this paper, we thank Kimi Akita, Young Ah Do, Shinsuke Nakajima, Seunghun Lee and two anonymous reviewers.
Publisher Copyright:
© CogSci 2012.All rights reserved.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - The current project is a case study–and an extension–of the traditional investigation into sound symbolism (Hinton et al., 1994). Several studies have shown that certain sounds evoke images of particular shapes; for example, oral stop consonants are often associated with angular shapes, whereas sonorants (nasals, liquids, and glides) are associated with round shapes (Berlin, 2006; Köhler, 1947). Berlin (2006) attributes these associations to the similarities between abrupt acoustic amplitude modulation of stop consonants and abrupt change of the directions of lines, i.e., abrupt visual changes. In this study, we extend the stop-angular sound symbolic relation to the domain of emotions. Stops not only evoke the images of angular shapes, but are also associated with emotions that involve abrupt onsets. We further show that angular shapes themselves are associated with such emotions. Our three experiments thus establish a tripartite trans-modal symbolic relationship among three domains of cognition (sounds, shapes, and emotions). As an additional general implication, we argue that our experimental results support acoustic, rather than articulatory, bases of sound symbolism.
AB - The current project is a case study–and an extension–of the traditional investigation into sound symbolism (Hinton et al., 1994). Several studies have shown that certain sounds evoke images of particular shapes; for example, oral stop consonants are often associated with angular shapes, whereas sonorants (nasals, liquids, and glides) are associated with round shapes (Berlin, 2006; Köhler, 1947). Berlin (2006) attributes these associations to the similarities between abrupt acoustic amplitude modulation of stop consonants and abrupt change of the directions of lines, i.e., abrupt visual changes. In this study, we extend the stop-angular sound symbolic relation to the domain of emotions. Stops not only evoke the images of angular shapes, but are also associated with emotions that involve abrupt onsets. We further show that angular shapes themselves are associated with such emotions. Our three experiments thus establish a tripartite trans-modal symbolic relationship among three domains of cognition (sounds, shapes, and emotions). As an additional general implication, we argue that our experimental results support acoustic, rather than articulatory, bases of sound symbolism.
KW - abrupt modulations
KW - angularity
KW - emotions
KW - modularity
KW - sonorants
KW - sound symbolism
KW - stop consonants
KW - synesthesia
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84991651124
T3 - Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2012
SP - 569
EP - 574
BT - Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2012
A2 - Miyake, Naomi
A2 - Peebles, David
A2 - Cooper, Richard P.
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
Y2 - 1 August 2012 through 4 August 2012
ER -