A study on crossmodal correspondence in sensory pathways through forced choice task and frequency based correlation in sound-symbolism

Abstract

The crossmodal correspondence in sensory pathways of human can get revealed by subjecting them to forced choice task as in sound-symbolism. Sound–symbolism is a term used for a hypothetical systematic relationship between word and meaning. A well known case in sound symbolism is the Kiki-Bouba phenomenon in which a subject labels a jagged figure as Kiki and rounded figure as Bouba when presented with both figures and words and asked to label the figure with the words. In the current experiment the words for cotton and sword were chosen from foreign languages and the subjects were asked to label the figure with that pair. Majority of subjects labeled the pointed figure with the word for sword for most of the languages. The word for sword had higher frequency components in most languages. The subjects may be associating words with higher frequency components to the jagged figure which implies possible crossmodal correspondence between visual and auditory pathways as was also indicated by neuropsychologists for natural language understanding.