Nasal Sounds are Lighter and More Yellowish than Glottal Sounds: Cross-modal Associations between Consonant Sounds and Colors

• Published in: Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 85 - 99
• Main Authors: 김현웅, 김채연, 남호성
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국인지및생물심리학회 01.01.2020
• Subjects: 심리과학
• ISSN: 1226-9654; 2733-466X
• DOI: 10.22172/cogbio.2020.32.1.006

People share implicit cross-modal mappings for certain visual and auditory features such as pitch and human speech. The current study explored the role of phonetic features in intrinsic associations between consonant sounds and colors. For this purpose, we presented synthetic consonant sounds generated by parametrically manipulating oral and non-oral constriction gestures of speech organs, using an articulatory synthesizer. Participants were asked to choose a color after hearing each sound. Color-matching results showed that nasal sounds characterized by a velic gesture were associated with lighter and more yellowish colors than other sounds. The perceptual space of the consonant sounds from dissimilarity judgment ratings indicated that participants could capture the consonantal nature of the stimuli. These results imply the non-arbitrary association between phonetic features of consonants and colors. KCI Citation Count: 0