Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 9, 2025
07:31
Investigating the Effect of Visual Imagery and Learning Shape-Audio Regularities on Bouba and Kiki
Published on: September 13, 2019
10.4K
Stimulus Parameters Underlying Sound-Symbolic Mapping of Auditory Pseudowords to Visual Shapes
Simon Lacey1,2,3, Yaseen Jamal4, Sara M List3,4
1Department of Neurology, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine.
Cognitive Science
|September 10, 2020
Summary
Sound symbolism links word sounds to meanings. This study found that acoustic properties like vocal roughness in pseudowords influence their perceived shape, suggesting a basis for sound-to-shape mapping.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
- Auditory Perception
Background:
- Sound symbolism describes non-arbitrary links between word sounds and meanings.
- Previous research often uses auditory pseudowords (e.g., "maluma", "takete") paired with visual shapes (rounded/pointed) to study this phenomenon.
- The specific acoustic properties driving the perception of roundedness or pointedness in pseudowords remain unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the auditory properties of pseudowords that contribute to their perceived roundedness or pointedness.
- To explore the cross-modal relationship between auditory and visual shape perception.
- To apply representational similarity analysis (RSA) to large sets of auditory and visual stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Utilized representational similarity analysis (RSA) to compare perceptual ratings of pseudowords and shapes with their acoustic and visual properties.
- Generated representational dissimilarity matrices (RDMs) for auditory and visual roundedness/pointedness ratings.
- Analyzed correlations between auditory acoustic features (spectral tilt, temporal FFT, speech envelope, vocal roughness metrics) and visual shape indices.
Main Results:
- A significant cross-modal correlation was found between auditory and visual roundedness/pointedness RDMs.
- Auditory perception RDMs correlated significantly with spectral tilt, temporal FFT, and speech envelope.
- Pseudoword ratings shifted from rounded to pointed as vocal roughness increased; visual perception RDMs correlated with global shape indices.
Conclusions:
- Acoustic properties of pseudowords, particularly vocal roughness, are key drivers of sound-to-shape mapping in sound symbolism.
- Representational similarity analysis (RSA) is effective for studying large stimulus sets in cross-modal research.
- Audiovisual cross-modal correspondence likely underlies language users' sensitivity to sound symbolism.
