Synesthetic Sound Iconicity

• Project/Area Number: 24520481
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Konan University (2014); Doshisha University (2012-2013)
• Principal Investigator: AURACHER Jan 甲南大学, 国際言語文化センター, 講師 (10548035)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): RIKIMARU Hiroshi 同志社大学, 生命医科学部, 教授 (90260207)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000); Fiscal Year 2012: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
• Keywords: 心理言語学 / Sound Iconicity / 国際情報交換ドイツ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research it was investigated whether associations between phonemes and emotional states can be predicted on the basis of articulatory-acoustic properties of these phonemes. The research applied the Implicit-Association-Test (Greenwald et al, 1998), a speeded categorization paradigm specifically suited to detect implicit associations between stimuli of different sensory modalities. Participants were asked to categorize pseudo-words, consisting of specific combinations of phonemes, and pictures, depicting emotional body postures by pressing either a left or a right button. It was predicted that participants perform the task faster and with less mistakes when stimuli that are associated across sensory modalities (i.e., acoustic and visual) are allocated to the same response behavior (left or right button). Results of these experiments suggest that there is an implicit tendency to associate specific acoustic characteristics of phonemes with emotional states.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Synaesthetic Sound Iconicity: Phonosemantic associations between acoustic features of phonemes and emotional behavior (2015)
  • Author(s): Auracher, Jan
  • Journal Title: Iconicity in Language and Literature Volume: 14 Pages: 93-108
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Presentation] Implicit associations between acoustic characteristics of phonemes and emotions. (2014)
  • Author(s): Auracher, Jan
  • Organizer: International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media
  • Place of Presentation: Turino, Italy
  • Year and Date: 2014-07-21 – 2014-07-25
• [Presentation] Implicit associations between acoustic characteristics of phonemes and emotions (2014)
  • Author(s): Jan Auracher
  • Organizer: 14th Conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media
  • Place of Presentation: トリノ、イタリア
• [Presentation] Synaesthetic Sound Iconicity: Cross-modal integration of acoustic aspects of speech with non-acoustic aspects of meaning (2013)
  • Author(s): Jan Auracher
  • Organizer: 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discorse
  • Place of Presentation: Valencia, Spain
• [Presentation] Synesthetic Sound Iconicity and its potential for automatic text analysis (2013)
  • Author(s): Jan Auracher
  • Organizer: 9th International Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature
  • Place of Presentation: 東京
• [Presentation] Synaesthetic Sound Iconicity: Cross-modal integration of acoustic aspects of speech with non-acoustic aspects of meaning (2013)
  • Author(s): Jan Auracher
  • Organizer: 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse
  • Place of Presentation: Valencia, Spain