Remembering that big things sound big: Sound symbolism and associative memory

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications

Table 1 Phonetic characteristics of nonwords used in Experiment 1

	Large nonwords		Small nonwords
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	p value
Number of vowels	1.76	0.62	2.10	0.79	0.02
Proportion “large” vowels	0.85	0.22	0.04	0.16	<0.001
Proportion “small” vowels	0.03	0.11	0.54	0.36	<0.001
Number of consonants	2.88	0.66	2.60	0.70	0.04
Total voiced consonants	0.63	0.29	0.62	0.29	0.86
Total unvoiced consonants	0.37	0.29	0.38	0.29	0.86
Total plosives	0.53	0.22	0.17	0.24	<0.001
Total fricatives	0.12	0.19	0.45	0.31	<0.001
Total affricates	0.03	0.10	0.01	0.05	0.09
Total nasals	0.12	0.21	0.07	0.17	0.20
Total approximants	0.20	0.20	0.27	0.24	0.11
Total consonant clusters	0.23	0.23	0.15	0.17	0.05
Total vowel clusters	0.11	0.20	0.08	0.21	0.47
Onset position voiced consonants	0.54	0.50	0.32	0.47	0.03
Onset position unvoiced consonants	0.32	0.47	0.24	0.43	0.38
Onset position plosives	0.56	0.50	0.08	0.27	<0.001
Onset position fricatives	0.20	0.40	0.34	0.48	0.12
Onset position affricates	0.06	0.24	0.00		0.08
Onset position nasals	0.06	0.24	0.06	0.24	>0.99
Onset position approximants	0.00		0.08	0.27	0.04
Onset position consonant clusters	0.36	0.49	0.20	0.40	0.08
Onset position vowel clusters	0.00		0.00		n.a.

Note: consonants were defined at the phonemic not orthographic level (e.g.,/ch/was counted as a single consonant) and dipthongs were counted as two vowels. Double letters were counted as a single occurrence. In calculating front and back vowels, final-position e (i.e., the silent e) was not counted. n.a. not applicable