Sound-space symbolism: Associating articulatory front and back positions of the tongue with the spatial concepts offorward/front and backward/back

The study investigated whether the concepts of forward/front and backward/back are associated with the vocalizations requiring the front/back position of the tongue. In Experiment 1, the participants were visually presented with a forward or backward-directed movement. They were asked to vocalize the front () or back ([o]) vowel based on whether the stimulus moved forwards or backwards. Vocal responses were produced faster when the required response was hypothetically congruent with the movement direction (e.g., - forwarddirected movement) in comparison to incongruent conditions. In Experiment 2, the same effect was observed when these vocal responses were performed based on whether the target object was at the front of or back of the reference object. These observations present a novel sound-space symbolism phenomenon, which associates spatial concepts of forward/front and backward/back with particular speech sounds. We propose that this finding might contribute to an understanding of cognitive mechanisms in sound-space associations and more generally in sound symbolism.