Cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5) : 1125-1131.

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PDF(1096 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5) : 1125-1131.

Cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type

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Abstract: Based on the Cross-modal mapping effect relationship between meaningless words and simple geometry, present study explored the relationship between name pronunciation and facial type in social perception. By controlling the lip shape of a person's name pronunciation and the contour of a person's facial outline, we used the simple matching paradigm to investigate whether there is a cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type. It turns out that the matching probability of the participants matched round lip names with round face and the flat-lipped personal names with pointed face, both were significantly greater than the random level. The results show that there is?a cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type. Up to now, previous studies on sound-shape cross-modal mapping effect have still been focused on the relationship between sound and object geometry. However, people expect the personal specificity of their names to see if it is possible to find a basis for the relationship between the personal name pronunciation characteristics and their faces, this is the question to be discussed in this study. The facial type is a particularly prominent feature in personal appearance. Therefore, the specific exploration of this study is whether there exists a cross-modal mapping between the names pronunciation and facial shapes. Present study used the face synthesis software (PsychoMorph Version 5) to control the facial type without changing other facial features, from the GB2312-80 Chinese character location coding table?to select the unfamiliar and unrecognizable second-level Chinese characters, through the vowel components of Chinese pronunciation to control the Chinese character?pronunciation, so that to control the names?pronunciation. The study adopted the simple matching paradigm using E-prime 2.0 to compile the experimental program. Each trial starts by presenting the fixations, and then presents the personal name pronunciation information, finally shows the two left and right faces, and asks the subjects to determine which names belong to the faces. The restults turn out that the matching probability of the participants matched round lip names with round face and the flat-lipped personal names with pointed face, both were significantly greater than the random level. The results show that there is?a cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type. People tend to match names pronounced with round lips and round faces as well as match the name of the flat lip with the pointed faces. The results not only support the theoretical hypothesis of the personal name?pronunciation and facial type?share perceptual attributes, and support us from the perspective of psychological processing to put forward a new theoretical hypothesis, i.e., the fluency of cognition might also contribute to the matching effect between pronuciation and shape. Present study revealed that people have cognitive stereotype of the pronunciation of a specific name with its specific facial type. This is not only broadens the research scope of sound-shape cross-modal mapping, but also has a certain guiding significance for people to choose their names.

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Cross-modal mapping effect between personal name pronunciation and facial type[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2020, 43(5): 1125-1131
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