Assessing sound symbolism: Investigating phonetic forms, visual shapes and letter fonts in an implicit bouba-kiki experimental paradigm.

ABSTRACT: Classically, in the bouba-kiki association task, a subject is asked to find the best association between one of two shapes-a round one and a spiky one-and one of two pseudowords-bouba and kiki. Numerous studies report that spiky shapes are associated with kiki, and round shapes with bouba. This task is likely the most prevalent in the study of non-conventional relationships between linguistic forms and meanings, also known as sound symbolism. However, associative tasks are explicit in the sense that they highlight phonetic and visual contrasts and require subjects to establish a crossmodal link between stimuli of different natures. Additionally, recent studies have raised the question whether visual resemblances between the target shapes and the letters explain the pattern of association,

SUBMITTER: De Carolis L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6303039 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature