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Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels

Previous studies have reported that verbal sounds are associated—non-arbitrarily—with specific meanings (e.g., sound symbolism and onomatopoeia), including visual forms of information such as facial expressions; however, it remains unclear how mouth shapes used to utter each vowel create our semanti...

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Autores principales: Namba, Shushi, Kambara, Toshimune
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7602070/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066229
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10100157
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author Namba, Shushi
Kambara, Toshimune
author_facet Namba, Shushi
Kambara, Toshimune
author_sort Namba, Shushi
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have reported that verbal sounds are associated—non-arbitrarily—with specific meanings (e.g., sound symbolism and onomatopoeia), including visual forms of information such as facial expressions; however, it remains unclear how mouth shapes used to utter each vowel create our semantic impressions. We asked 81 Japanese participants to evaluate mouth shapes associated with five Japanese vowels by using 10 five-item semantic differential scales. The results reveal that the physical characteristics of the facial expressions (mouth shapes) induced specific evaluations. For example, the mouth shape made to voice the vowel “a” was the one with the biggest, widest, and highest facial components compared to other mouth shapes, and people perceived words containing that vowel sound as bigger. The mouth shapes used to pronounce the vowel “i” were perceived as more likable than the other four vowels. These findings indicate that the mouth shapes producing vowels imply specific meanings. Our study provides clues about the meaning of verbal sounds and what the facial expressions in communication represent to the perceiver.
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spelling pubmed-76020702020-11-01 Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels Namba, Shushi Kambara, Toshimune Behav Sci (Basel) Article Previous studies have reported that verbal sounds are associated—non-arbitrarily—with specific meanings (e.g., sound symbolism and onomatopoeia), including visual forms of information such as facial expressions; however, it remains unclear how mouth shapes used to utter each vowel create our semantic impressions. We asked 81 Japanese participants to evaluate mouth shapes associated with five Japanese vowels by using 10 five-item semantic differential scales. The results reveal that the physical characteristics of the facial expressions (mouth shapes) induced specific evaluations. For example, the mouth shape made to voice the vowel “a” was the one with the biggest, widest, and highest facial components compared to other mouth shapes, and people perceived words containing that vowel sound as bigger. The mouth shapes used to pronounce the vowel “i” were perceived as more likable than the other four vowels. These findings indicate that the mouth shapes producing vowels imply specific meanings. Our study provides clues about the meaning of verbal sounds and what the facial expressions in communication represent to the perceiver. MDPI 2020-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7602070/ /pubmed/33066229 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10100157 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Namba, Shushi
Kambara, Toshimune
Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title_full Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title_fullStr Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title_full_unstemmed Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title_short Semantics Based on the Physical Characteristics of Facial Expressions Used to Produce Japanese Vowels
title_sort semantics based on the physical characteristics of facial expressions used to produce japanese vowels
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7602070/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066229
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10100157
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