Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Good vibes : the sounds of a word predict its valence

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Estes, Zachary, Adelman, James S. and Barry, T. (2009) Good vibes : the sounds of a word predict its valence. In: CogSci 2009: 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 29 Jul - 1 Aug 2009

Research output not available from this repository, contact author.

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Language evolved in a dangerous environment with limited resources. Under such conditions, an effective language should exhibit two key properties: (1) it should have distinct sounds indicating dangers and opportunities, and (2) those sounds should be evident immediately. We report a large-scale regression study suggesting that current languages exhibit these two properties. Among 2000 unique English words we found that (1) the phonemes of a word significantly predict its valence, and (2) the initial phoneme fully accounts for this effect. Manner and place of articulation both contribute to this effect, with voiced consonants (e.g., /g/ as in “good”) and dental consonants (e.g., /t/ as in “top”) predicting word valence. We also found significant phonetic regularities among 1034 Spanish affective words. Notably, however, the two languages mark valence with different phonemes. These findings indicate that individual phonemes convey affective information, and that the specific affective phonemes vary across languages.

Item Type: Conference Item (Poster)
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions: Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): English language -- Phonemics, Spanish language -- Phonemics, Affect (Psychology), Cognition, Cognitive science
Official Date: 2009
Dates:
DateEvent
2009Completion
Status: Not Peer Reviewed
Conference Paper Type: Poster
Title of Event: CogSci 2009: 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Type of Event: Conference
Location of Event: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date(s) of Event: 29 Jul - 1 Aug 2009

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us