title: The sound of distance.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Cristina D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Rabaglia
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: sam.maglio@utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Sam J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Maglio
authors.affiliation: New York University, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: Madelaine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krehm
authors.affiliation: University of Missouri Columbia, Columbia, MO, United States.
authors.forename: Jin H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Seok
authors.affiliation: New York University, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: Yaacov
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Trope
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D010700:Phonetics; D013028:Space Perception; D065855:Spatial Processing; D013067:Speech Perception; D013561:Symbolism
keywords: Distance; Language; Sound symbolism; Spatial cognition