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- All Subjects: psychology
- All Subjects: Sound Symbolism
- Status: Published
Recent studies indicate that words containing /ӕ/ and /u/ vowel phonemes can be mapped onto the emotional dimension of arousal. Specifically, the wham-womb effect describes the inclination to associate words with /ӕ/ vowel-sounds (as in “wham”) with high-arousal emotions and words with /u/ vowel-sounds (as in “womb”) with low-arousal emotions. The objective of this study was to replicate the wham-womb effect using nonsense pseudowords and to test if findings extend with use of a novel methodology that includes verbal auditory and visual pictorial stimuli, which can eventually be used to test young children. We collected data from 99 undergraduate participants through an online survey. Participants heard pre-recorded pairs of monosyllabic pseudowords containing /ӕ/ or /u/ vowel phonemes and then matched individual pseudowords to illustrations portraying high or low arousal emotions. Two t-tests were conducted to analyze the size of the wham-womb effect across pseudowords and across participants, specifically the likelihood that /ӕ/ sounds are paired with high arousal images and /u/ sounds with low arousal images. Our findings robustly confirmed the wham-womb effect. Participants paired /ӕ/ words with high arousal emotion pictures and /u/ words with low arousal ones at a 73.2% rate with a large effect size. The wham-womb effect supports the idea that verbal acoustic signals tend to be tied to embodied facial musculature that is related to human emotions, which supports the adaptive value of sound symbolism in language evolution and development.
This study investigates the effects of familiarity and the size of a novel object on perception of depth. Familiar size is a visual depth cue that provides information about the distance of an object. This project explores if the familiar size illusion is a result of an automatic perceptual process or an intellectual thought process. This data was collected in two phases, a familiarization phase and a testing phase. The experimental participants were familiarized for 30 seconds with a novel object, while the control group was not shown any objects prior to presentation of test objects. The novel test stimuli were constructed in 5 sizes and participants in the familiar group were familiarized with the medium size object. Participants were then asked to indicate the perceived distance of different sized objects by moving a rod with a pointer at the end to match the distance. The smaller comparison objects subtended visual angles that participants had not previously experienced, while larger comparison objects produced a larger visual angle than the participants had seen during the familiarization phase. The testing phase was identical for both familiar and unfamiliar control groups. Apparent distance was influenced by the size of the objects. Larger objects were judged to be closer than the smaller objects. Participants not familiarized showed smaller effects of stimulus size than the familiarized group. The effect of familiarity was not significant for the smaller stimuli but was very significant for the larger stimuli. The results were not consistent with the cognitive theory which argues that familiar size is a result of a conscious thought process. These outcomes are predicted under the model of familiar size being an automatic perceptual process.