Synesthetic Sound Iconicity

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• 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
• Keywords: 心理言語学 / Sound Iconicity

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.

Free Research Field

心理言語学