Vowel-colour associations in non-synesthetes: a study with Spanish and Arabic participants

Abstract

The present paper aims at contributing to the field of sound symbolism and, more specifically, to the association between sounds and colours as established by nonsynesthetes. A study based on a forced-choice task performed by Spanish and Arabic speakers is presented. The study asks participants to listen to primary cardinal vowels and choose from a range of colours the one considered most suitable for the sound. The data gathered reinforce previous results that non-synesthetic participants are able to significantly associate vowel sounds and colours at a better than chance degree. However, results seem to go against the general idea that the associations are cross-linguistic, although the phenomenon itself seems to be.