The sound of distance.

Human languages may be more than completely arbitrary symbolic systems. A growing literature supports sound symbolism, or the existence of consistent, intuitive relationships between speech sounds and specific concepts. Prior work establishes that these sound-to-meaning mappings can shape language-related judgments and decisions, but do their effects generalize beyond merely the linguistic and truly color how we navigate our environment? We examine this possibility, relating a predominant sound symbolic distinction (vowel frontness) to a novel associate (spatial proximity) in five studies. We show that changing one vowel in a label can influence estimations of distance, impacting judgment, perception, and action. The results (1) provide the first experimental support for a relationship between vowels and spatial distance and (2) demonstrate that sound-to-meaning mappings have outcomes that extend beyond just language and can - through a single sound - influence how we perceive and behave toward objects in the world.

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

A long tradition in sound symbolism describes a host of sound-meaning linkages, or associations between individual speech sounds and concepts or object properties. Might sound symbolism extend beyond sound-meaning relationships to linkages between sounds and modes of thinking? Integrating sound symbolism with construal level theory, we investigate whether vowel sounds influence the mental level at which people represent and evaluate targets. We propose that back vowels evoke abstract, high-level construal, while front vowels induce concrete, low-level construal. Two initial studies link front vowels to the use of greater visual and conceptual precision, consistent with a construal account. Three subsequent studies explore construal-dependent tradeoffs as a function of vowel sound contained in the target's name. Evaluation of objects named with back vowels was driven by their high- over low-level features; front vowels reduced or reversed this differentiation. Thus, subtle linguistic cues appear capable of influencing the very nature of mental representation.

Sound symbolism in infancy: evidence for sound-shape cross-modal correspondences in 4-month-olds.

Perceptual experiences in one modality are often dependent on activity from other sensory modalities. These cross-modal correspondences are also evident in language. Adults and toddlers spontaneously and consistently map particular words (e.g., 'kiki') to particular shapes (e.g., angular shapes). However, the origins of these systematic mappings are unknown. Because adults and toddlers have had significant experience with the language mappings that exist in their environment, it is unclear whether the pairings are the result of language exposure or the product of an initial proclivity. We examined whether 4-month-old infants make the same sound-shape mappings as adults and toddlers. Four month-olds consistently distinguished between congruent and incongruent sound-shape mappings in a looking time task (Experiment 1). Furthermore, mapping was based on the combination of consonants and vowels in the words given that neither consonants (Experiment 2) nor vowels (Experiment 3) alone sufficed for mapping. Finally, we confirmed that adults also made systematic sound-shape mappings (Experiment 4); however, for adults, vowels or consonants alone sufficed. These results suggest that some sound-shape mappings precede language learning, and may in fact aid in language learning by establishing a basis for matching labels to referents and narrowing the hypothesis space for young infants.

The first steps in word learning are easier when the shoes fit: comparing monolingual and bilingual infants.

English, French, and bilingual English-French 17-month-old infants were compared for their performance on a word learning task using the Switch task. Object names presented a /b/ vs. /g/ contrast that is phonemic in both English and French, and auditory strings comprised English and French pronunciations by an adult bilingual. Infants were habituated to two novel objects labeled 'bowce' or 'gowce' and were then presented with a switch trial where a familiar word and familiar object were paired in a novel combination, and a same trial with a familiar word-object pairing. Bilingual infants looked significantly longer to switch vs. same trials, but English and French monolinguals did not, suggesting that bilingual infants can learn word-object associations when the phonetic conditions favor their input. Monolingual infants likely failed because the bilingual mode of presentation increased phonetic variability and did not match their real-world input. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis by presenting monolingual infants with nonce word tokens restricted to native language pronunciations. Monolinguals succeeded in this case. Experiment 3 revealed that the presence of unfamiliar pronunciations in Experiment 2, rather than a reduction in overall phonetic variability was the key factor to success, as French infants failed when tested with English pronunciations of the nonce words. Thus phonetic variability impacts how infants perform in the switch task in ways that contribute to differences in monolingual and bilingual performance. Moreover, both monolinguals and bilinguals are developing adaptive speech processing skills that are specific to the language(s) they are learning.