Studying Emotive Effects in Poetry by Quantifying Open-Ended Impressions

Poems, as aesthetic objects, generate a subjective experience, which can be different for different readers. In this paper, we propose a method to quantify these subjective experiences. We gave participants three parallel excerpts and asked them to describe, in free text, the perceived emotive qualities of these excerpts. The descriptions were analysed quantitatively according to the dimensions of the Valence-Arousal-Dominance model of emotion. With the help of additional rating tasks and a structural theory of phonetic symbolism, we attribute the perceived emotive qualities to an interaction between the meaning of words, patterns of alliteration, and metric deviation.

Some experimental evidence for sound–emotion interaction

This paper describes a structural account of phonetic symbolism and submits it to empirical investigation. To enable testing for possible iconic sound–emotion relations, participants compared pairs of syllables (e.g., ma – ba) as well as pairs of emotional states (e.g., joyful – sad) on various perceptual scales (e.g., softness). In addition, we replicated the classic ‘bouba/kiki’ experiment to investigate sound-shape symbolism. In accordance with the theoretical model, the results of the experimental tasks suggest that participants can detect abstract similarities between speech sounds and emotions as well as geometrical shapes. We discuss the theoretical model and the experimental results in relation to previous empirical findings and conflicting evidence from the study of affective iconicity in poetry.

Methodological issues in the study of phonetic symbolism

There is a growing research literature on phonetic symbolism in poetry, sometimes with incongruent results. Through a theoretical structural analysis we show that, (a) individual speech sounds have (sometimes conflicting) potentials to suggest elementary percepts, such as abruptness, hardness, smoothness; and (b) from these elementary percepts some general psychological atmosphere may be abstracted that may be individuated in specific emotions as ‘love,’ ‘joy,’ or ‘anger,’ by semantic feature-addition. This proposal can reconcile incongruous research results. Sound-symbolic lexical entries are governed by similar principles, but fossilized. Large-scale statistical investigation may reveal significant sound-symbolic effects only when the same phonemes repeat throughout the poem. They may, however, miss conspicuous local sound effects, revealed only by local analysis. Some sceptical conclusions in the research literature may be due to this phenomenon. The proposed method may account not only for statistical correlations, but also for the perception of a pervasive emotional atmosphere in a poem.

The Influence of the Phonetic Elements of a Name on Risk Assessment

The authors propose that the phonetic elements of a name affect risk perception. Specifically, they find that people prefer a name that evokes volatility when faced with a risky prospect, but prefer a name that evokes calmness when faced with a safe prospect. The authors posit that a volatile (vs. calm) prospect name results in more perceived fluctuations, and thus greater movement from, the given risk level. Therefore, a volatile prospect name results in a wider range of probabilities compared to a calm prospect name. The authors test the proposed effect and the role of the phonetic elements of a name using real-world data and controlled studies within diverse consumer domains (e.g., product evaluations, wagering, and branding). Findings contribute to the larger theoretical area of phonetic symbolism and provide guidance for practitioners trying to maximize preference for a given product, service, or policy.