"sounds like a Rainbow" - Sound-colour Mappings in Vowel Perception

Abstract

The paper reports on an experiment conducted to investigate the nature of speech sound perception in terms of cross-modal mappings between vowel sound stimuli and colour spectrum associations. The study is based on the assumptions stemming from research on synaesthesia, sound symbolism and non-modularity of human perception. The findings indicate that vowel-sound mappings appear non-arbitrary in non-synaesthetic perception and follow the general tendencies in which bright colours are associated with prominent high-pitched sounds, whereas dark colours are attributed to lower-pitched tones. The results may have implications for L2 pronunciation pedagogy in that they may enhance the effectiveness of L2 phonological acquisition.