je m'appelle l'amour.

Geia.



Does cheese taste more maluma or takete?

How about cranberries?


From last Thursday's article from BBC News: People May Be Able to Taste Words (Redirected from Lingformant).


According to a study, apparently, people thought brie tasted more round and "maluma" and that cranberries tasted more sharp and "takete."

It kind of makes sense.




"The concept of sharp- and soft-sounding words was introduced in 1929, when Estonian psychologist Wolfgang Kohler designed an experiment that asked people to choose which of two shapes was named 'bouba' and which was 'kiki'."

Which do you think is which?

"The vast majority of people choose kiki for the orange angular shape and bouba for the purple rounded shape."


That's why they (they the scientists) applied this concept to taste, as well.

Funny; in a frank conversation at a dining hall once, I commented on how food product names with "O" are frequent and looks tasty for some reason.

Froot Loops. Eggo. Oreos. Cheerios. Chow mein noodles?

Maybe there's something appetizing about a nicely rounded shape. Donuts?


And in earlier in the article, they mention a study about sound vs. shape as well. The experiment participants associated big dots with a low pitch, and small dots with a high pitch.

I guess small things tend to be squeaky.

In relevance to that: I saw UP the new Pixar movie today (it was very good, by the way). In it, a big, mean-looking Doberman has a collar that allows him to talk. The collar (how ever it works...) is originally set for this large dog to have an appropriate low and heavy voice. However, partially in the movie, the wiring of the collar breaks, and it gives him a squeaky, chipmunk voice. It was pretty funny.

I think this humor comes from the visual-audio association we naturally possess as humans, as indicated in the study.


So perhaps we can hear shapes and taste words. I wonder how much cultural deviation exists in this sort of study... How would the French respond: le fromage, c'est maluma ou takete?

Moi.

And to make up for the omission last time:
Garmardjobat.


So.

If the left brain controls most language functions,

and if the left brain controls the right half of your body,

I wonder if it's best to put your phone against your right ear, instead of the left?

Meaning, would the right ear, which is controlled by the linguistic portion of the brain, be more inclined to take "sounds" as linguistic input rather than merely sonic input?

"Auditory stimulation (listening to nature sounds, clicks of a metronome, or Mozart in a major key) in the left ear comes up through the brain stem over to the right brain and vice versa for the right ear." (Ezine @rticles)

Yeah yeah? So what kind of auditory stimulation comes in from the right ear? Linguistic, as I speculate?-- like a news conversation coming from a TV channel? Or is it "auditory stimulation" period for both ears?

Or is linguistic input not considered a sound at all? I think it's gotta be. We can produce language because of our vocal anatomy. We can't have language without sound (Unless we're talking of deaf ASL speakers. I wonder how their ears function. Or don't function. But ASL DOES have "phonology" and "phonetics," mind you).

Don't you ever hear someone's comment as jibberish--and then when he says it again, it sounds like a coherent sentence? In such a case, is the speaker or the hearer at fault?






So I wonder further, if you plug up only your right ear only when you're reading/studying, you could block out sounds and conversations better, as opposed to when your ear(s) isn't/aren't plugged at all.

So could I read The Language Instinct and watch Japanese game shows about noun classifiers on TV at the same time, if I keep my right ear plugged (to keep 'linguistic input' out)?


I bet it's not that simple, but just a thought.



Has any linguist or psychologist tried this? Can I be the first?


Ai's Right Ear Theory?