Onomatokinesis: Affective and semantic consequences of pronunciation simulations during reading

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sascha Topolinski
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 221847982

Psychological research from a large variety of domains has shown so far that nonverbal motor representations (e.g., contracting the smiling muscle, making a fist) can trigger affective and semantic representations (e.g., feeling of funniness, the idea of „power“; i.e., the so-called embodiment) - independently of propositional-conceptual mechanisms. Such merely sensorimotor inductions of affective and semantic memory content have been demonstrated for several effectors (e.g., facial muscles, hands) and dependent measures (e.g., preference, activation of semantic categories, motivational orientations) and have stimulated the notion of „embodied metaphors“.The present project goes beyond this established embodiment evidence by predicting that also oral motor-effectors (e.g., the tongue) can elicit embodiment effects by respective movements, and that such oral movements can be induced simply by articulation dynamics during the reading of words. For instance, the articulation dynamics in reading the word ROGOLOP resemble an expectoration movement (e.g., spitting), because the articulatory movements required for the consonants in that word move from the back of the mouth (R and G) to the front (L and P). Consequently, this word should trigger an expectoration-related avoidance motivation. In contrast, the articulatory actions in reading the word POLOGOR resemble a deglutition movement (e.g., swallowing, moving from the front to the back of the mouth) and may thus trigger an approach motivation.Thus, the articulatory act itself -independent of the meaning of the pronounced word- can trigger affective and semantic meaning. The pronunciation movement makes the name: onomatokinesis. The proposed experiments shall demonstrate several of such orally embodied metaphors both in basic and applied contexts. Specifically, besides articulatorily induced expectoration and deglutition metaphors also matching-effects with the semantically denoted object shall be investigated (e.g., expectoration-related names for edible vs. toxic mushrooms) as well as with the associated consumatory reaction (e.g., licking movements of the tongue during the pronunciation of the alveolars T, D, L and N and denoted names of ice cream). Furthermore, the specific operating mechanism of such effects shall be identified by implementing selective motor-interference and comparing overt speech with silent reading.The aimed-at evidence concerning this not yet considered psychological phenomenon has substantial implications not only for basic research (embodiment), but also for applied issues, particularly in marketing, by allowing future intentional design of brand names according to systematic scientific knowledge. Finally, the present notion of onomatokinesis introduces a yet not considered functional dimension of human speech (oral proprioception as additional semantic level) and may thus stimulate linguistics and aesthetics strongly.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Piotr Winkielman