Food Quality and Preference 22 (2011) 290295

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Food Quality and Preference

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Tasting shapes and words

Charles Spence a,, Alberto Gallace b
a
b

Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 29 August 2010
Received in revised form 16 November 2010
Accepted 16 November 2010
Available online 20 November 2010
Keywords:
Sound symbolism
Flavour
Taste
Crossmodal correspondences
Synaesthesia

a b s t r a c t
We report a series of quick and simple paper-and-pencil demonstrations illustrating the reliable crossmodal correspondences that people have between commercially-available food and drink items and both
visually-presented shapes and nonsense words. The foodstuffs tested in this study included still and sparkling water, Brie cheese and cranberry juice, and two kinds of chocolate. Participants were given paperbased line scales, anchored at either end with a nonsense word or simple outline shape. They were
instructed to taste the foodstuffs and to indicate whether their perception of the avour matched more
one or other of the items anchoring the scales, and then mark the appropriate point on the scale. The
results highlight the fact that certain of these foodstuffs (sparkling water, cranberry juice, and Maltesers
chocolate-covered malt honeycomb) were better associated with angular shapes and high-pitched
meaningless words, such as kiki and takete, whose pronunciation requires sharp inection of the
mouth. By contrast, still water, Brie, and Caramel Nibbles (chocolate-covered caramel) were all more
strongly associated with rounded shapes and softer sounding, lower-pitched pseudo-words, such as bouba and maluma. These results, which build on the classic literature on sound symbolism, have both
theoretical and applied implications: On the one hand, they demonstrate that the phenomenon of sound
symbolism extends beyond the visual modality, by showing that speech sounds carry meaning in the
domain of avour, and in terms of the oral-somatosensory attributes of foodstuffs as well. As a consequence, these results may also be useful on an applied level in terms of helping companies to design
novel brand names and graphics for the packaging of their food and drink items that best connote the
likely attributes of the product within.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Can speech sounds connote the tastes, textures, or avours of
food and drink? There have certainly been numerous reports over
the years of synaesthetes for whom the sounds of particular words
elicited specic tastes and oral-textural experiences (e.g., Ferrari,
1907, 1910; Gendle, 2007; Pierce, 1907; Simner & Haywood,
2009; Ward & Simner, 2003; Ward, Simner, & Auyeung, 2005).
The word synaesthesia (from ancient Greek syn = together, and
aisthesis = sensation) has been used to describe individuals who,
when presented with a specic stimulus in one sensory modality,
report an additional sensory experience (in either the same or a
different sensory modality) that is not experienced by non-synaesthetes (e.g., Cytowic & Eagleman, 2009; Marks, 1975). Take, for
example, the young lady tested by Pierce more than a century
ago. She reported the vivid sensation of tasting ketchup whenever
she heard the experimenter pronounce the word Amy. That said,
Corresponding author. Address: Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department
of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1
3UD, UK. Tel.: +44 1865 271364; fax: +44 1865 310447.
E-mail address: charles.spence@psy.ox.ac.uk (C. Spence).
0950-3293/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.11.005

more recent laboratory-based research from Simner and Ward

(2006) on six lexical-gustatory synaesthetes has shown that it
may be the meaning of the words themselves, rather than their
sound or spelling, that actually elicit the taste (or avour) sensations in many of these individuals. Simner and Ward found that
when these synaesthetes were encouraged to think of an unfamiliar word that induced a tip-of-the-tongue state (i.e., where the
meaning of the word, but not its phonological word-form was
available for processing), the concurrent taste normally associated
with that word was often still experienced.
Note, though, that what is called lexical-gustatory synaesthesia would often seem more appropriately called lexical-avour
synaesthesia. Given that gustation only tells us about sweetness,
sourness, bitterness, saltiness, etc., while avour refers to the sensations we have that rely on the combination of taste (gustatory)
and olfactory stimuli, as is the case with most everyday foodstuffs.
The only possible exception comes from Pierces (1907) original
report of a synaesthetic lady who claimed to be anosmic (i.e., she
claimed not to be able to perceive odours). Curiously, though,
many of the concurrents she experienced that were induced by
hearing particular words bear more resemble to fairly complex
avours than to basic tastes (e.g., asparagus in milk, catnip, apple

C. Spence, A. Gallace / Food Quality and Preference 22 (2011) 290295

sauce). That said, it remains just possible that this synaesthete was
able to discriminate between the foods on the basis of their oralsomatosensory attributes.
Independently of this research on synaesthesia, an extensive literature has emerged over the last 80 years or so on the topic of
sound (or phonetic) symbolism (see Khler, 1929; Sapir, 1929,
for early research on this topic). Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala
(1994) dene sound symbolism as the direct linkage between sound
and meaning. Numerous studies have highlighted the fact that
people will spontaneously associate certain speech sounds with
specic shapes (e.g., Boyle & Tarte, 1980; Ramachandran &
Hubbard, 2001). So, for example, nonsense words such as takete
and kiki tend to be associated with angular shapes while nonsense words such as maluma or bouba tend to be associated with
rounded cloudlike shapes instead (see Spence, submitted for
publication, for a review). Interestingly, people all over the world,
appear to exhibit the same crossmodal correspondences (see
Hinton et al., 1994, for a review). What is more, it turns out that
crossmodal correspondences emerge very early in human development (i.e., within a few months of birth; e.g., Maurer, Pathman, &
Mondloch, 2006; Walker et al., 2010). In terms of information
processing, they also emerge prior to semantic access (i.e., within
200 ms of stimulus onset according to the latest EEG data; Kovic,
Plunkett, & Westermann, 2009). It is worth noting that while this
may be insufcient time for semantic access, it is not too early
for phonological processing of the stimulus to have taken place
(see Diaz & Swaab, 2007).
The majority of the research on sound symbolism published to
date has tended to focus almost exclusively on the nature of the
crossmodal correspondences that exist between speech sounds
and the visual attributes of objects or stimuli (see Hinton et al.,
1994, p. 4). We are aware of no research that has specically attempted to investigate whether certain phonological soundbites
also bear a non-arbitrary relationship to non-visual stimulus attributes, be they modality-nonspecic (i.e., amodal or multisensory),
such as shape, size, or duration, or modality-specic (i.e., modal),
such as sweetness (see Spence, submitted for publication, for a review). In fact, the only example of sound symbolism that we have
come across in the domain of food was mentioned in passing by
Vickers (1984), when she noted that the foods that we classify as
crunchy tend to make a lower-pitched sound when we bite into
them than those foods we describe as crispy. Is it mere coincidence, one might ask, that the English word crunchy, when pronounced, has a lower pitch than the word crisp? As Vickers
(1984, p. 162) puts it: The very descriptors crisp and crunchy
differ in pitch. The vowel sound of the i in crisp is higher pitched than
the sound of the u in crunch (Marks, 1975). The sp ending of crisp
is also higher pitched than the ch ending to the term crunch. Perhaps, the sounds of the words themselves convey part of their
meaning.
Fnagy (1963) also suggested that there might be a crossmodal
correspondence between foods on the bittersweet continuum and
front/back vowel sounds (e.g., an example of a frontal vowel sound
is the i sound in hit whereas a back vowel sound would be the o
in home). However, as far as we are aware, no empirical research
has been conducted to follow-up on these intuitions. One of the
questions to be addressed in the present study is whether certain
meaningless speech sounds are associated with certain tastes or
avours in foods.
To date, the only evidence that specic speech sounds may signify (or be associated with) specic tastes/textures comes from
Yorkston and Menon (2004). They demonstrated that peoples
impressions about a new product could be shaped by the vowel
sounds that happened to be contained within the products name.
In particular, people were more likely to think that an ice cream
would taste creamy if it happened to be called Frosch than if it

291

were called Frisch instead. Importantly, however, the participants

in Yorkston and Menons study never actually tasted anything
(they only read a short textual description about the product). Elsewhere, Klink (2000; Experiment 1) asked participants to think
about a range of products, including three food items (beer, ketchup, and lemonade), and then choose which of a pair of words
(whose sounds were based on the ndings of previous sound symbolism research; e.g., Hinton et al., 1994; Nuckolls, 2003) presented visually, was most appropriate. So, for example, the
participants might be asked Which brand of ketchup seems thicker?
Nidax or Nodax. Once again, though, no products or foodstuffs
were actually presented to the participants in this study. Therefore
once again in this case, the participants answers could simply be
based on peoples beliefs or prior experience rather than on any
possible natural association between avour/taste and word
sounds.
More recently, Gallace, Boschin, and Spence (in press) demonstrated that people reliably associate nonsense words (e.g., maluma and takete, as originally popularized by Khler (1947); and
bouba and kiki, as popularized by Ramachandran and Hubbard
(2001), as well as Lula and Ruki) with real foodstuffs. The participants in their study were given a range of up to ten different foods,
including jam, chocolate, crisps, and yoghurt. They had to rate each
foodstuff on 24 different visual linear scales with a pair of words
such as good/bad, salty/sweet, etc., at the end-points. Amongst
these computerized scales were three scales designed to test for
the existence of sound symbolism in the food domain, namely:
bouba/kiki, takete/maluma, decter/bobolo. The results showed that
people consistently rated salt and vinegar crisps (potato chips) as
much more kiki (or takete) than cheddar cheese, yoghurt, or blueberry jam, and chocolate with mint chips and crisps as signicantly
more kiki/takete than regular chocolate.
Gallace et al.s (in press) results therefore demonstrate the existence of robust crossmodal associations between word sounds and
certain avour/oral-somatosensory attributes of foodstuffs. That is,
certain speech sounds appear to be associated in a non-arbitrary
way with particular tastes/avours. On the basis of their ndings,
it would appear that sound symbolism might provide a useful
means of giving rise to certain expectations with regard to foodstuffs. However, one potential limitation with the methodology
used by Gallace et al. relates to the fact their participants had to
ll-in 24 analog scales for each of the food items that they tasted.
The participants may not, therefore, have paid particular attention
to the sound symbolism scales embedded within the extensive
range of scales that they had to respond to (cf. Gardner, Cummings,
Dunham, & Pierce, 1998). Would people still show such robust
crossmodal correspondences between speech sounds and avours
if this was the only thing that they were asked to do? Under such
conditions, the participants will presumably process the stimuli
much more deeply (i.e., less supercially). We wondered whether
such effects could be demonstrated by means of a simple and easy
to administer paper and pencil task.
In the present study, we also wanted to go beyond Gallace
et al.s (in press) research by addressing the question of whether
people would also match visual shapes to tastes/avours. Anecdotal evidence from chefs such as Bertolli (2003) suggests that
some may actively design their meals around the shapes that certain foods evoke. Once again, there have also been a few case reports of synaesthetes who reliably experience certain geometric
shapes in response to specic tastes/avours. For example, Richard
Cytowic described the case of Michael, a synaesthete who experienced geometric shape taste synaesthesia. To illustrate this phenomenon, take the following description from Cytowics book
The man who tasted shapes: It was not surprising that he liked
to cook and that he cooked by feel. He never followed a recipe but liked
to create a dish with an interesting shape. Sugar made things taste

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C. Spence, A. Gallace / Food Quality and Preference 22 (2011) 290295

rounder, while citrus added points to the food. He adjusted other

seasonings to make the lines steeper, to sharpen up the corners,
or to make the surface stretch further. (Cytowic, 1993, p. 66). The
following quote from Cytowics (1993, p. 34) book gives further
insight into the peculiarity of Michaels condition: I sat nearby
while he whisked the sauce he had made for the roast chickens. Oh,
dear, he said, slurping a spoonful, there arent enough points on
the chicken.. . .I know it sounds crazy, but I have this thing, see, where
I taste by shape. He looked away. How can I explain? he asked himself. Flavors have shape, he started, frowning into the depths of the
roasting pan. I wanted the taste of this chicken to be a pointed shape,
but it came out all round. He looked up at me, still blushing. Well, I
mean its nearly spherical, he emphasized, trying to keep the volume
down. I cant serve this if it doesnt have points. Note that these tactile-shape sensations (or concurrents in the language of synaesthesia researchers) were usually localized to one of Michaels
shoulders or hands.
Cytowic and Wood (1982) conducted a psychophysical study in
which they compared the reliability of Michaels taste-shape correspondences with those of four non-synaesthetic control participants (though one of the controls dropped out of the study early
on saying that the task didnt make any sense!). The remaining
participants were given a choice of 23 different shapes from
spheres through to spears to match to each of a range of solutions
that varied from 0.2 M sucrose solution through to 0.2 M citric acid
solution (with the middle solution a 50/50 mix of sweet and sour).
Various combinations of these 13 solutions were then squirted
repeatedly into the participants mouth in each of three experiments. The results suggested that the synaesthete used a more
restricted range of shapes when responding, as compared to the
controls, and that his responses were more asymmetrical. That is,
there was some evidence that he could reliably match tastes to
shapes. However, there was little evidence that the control participants (one of whom was a professional chef and restauranteur)
exhibited any crossmodal correspondence between the various
tastes and particular shapes. One might, though, question whether
testing just three control participants would have been sufcient
to demonstrate a signicant effect, had one been present. Moreover, it is important to note here that Gallace et al. (in press)
argued that the total Gestalt of real foods may be a more salient
driver of such crossmodal correspondences than pure tastants
(such as those used by Cytowic & Wood, 1982). If so, one might
expect to see more reliable crossmodal correspondences emerge
when people (be they synaesthetes or non-synaesthetes) are asked
to match shapes to real foods. This constituted an additional aim of
the present study.
The one area where even non-synaesthetes often talk in terms
of shape is in the case of wine-tasting. It is not uncommon, for
example, for wine experts to talk about wines as having a sharp
or rounded taste (e.g., Lehrer, 2009, p. 140141; Peynaud, 1987,
p. 168171). That said, it has never been clear quite how literally
one should take such statements. Is one to understand that the
wine tasters really taste round, pointed, or sharp shapes on their
tongues? Or, are they instead merely using language metaphorically to talk about the acidity or balance of the wine, akin to the situation where people describe a cheese as being sharp (see Marks,
1991; Williams, 1976)? One of the only literal attempts to link
shape to foods in non-synaesthetes comes from Lyman (1989, p.
102104) who, in his book on The psychology of food, suggests
that . . .foods having irregular, jagged shapes might carry stronger,
somewhat unpleasant meanings, while smooth, rounded foods carry
calmer, more pleasant ones. However, no empirical evidence was
brought forward by Lyman to support these suggestions.
More promising evidence regarding a putative link between
shape and taste in non-synaesthetes comes from an unpublished
study by Gal, Wheeler, and Shiv (submitted for publication). They

reported that if people performed a task requiring them to judge

which of three angular shapes had the largest surface area, they
subsequently rated a sample of cheddar cheese as tasting sharper
than if they had just completed the same task using rounded
shapes instead (a 0.41 difference on a 6-point scale, i.e., equivalent
to a 6.8% difference in rated sharpness). While such results provide
stronger evidence for the existence of crossmodal correspondence
between shape and taste/avour, it is worth noting that Gal and his
colleagues had to test a very large number of participants (N = 224)
in order to obtain an effect that was only-just signicant (p = .03).
What is more, it is difcult to rule out the possibility that the angular shape task simply primed the word sharp in the participants
minds, and it was this semantic prime that carried over to inuence their responses to the cheese sample (see Neely, 1977;
Schneider, Engel, & Debener, 2008).
Here, we report a number of simple demonstrations highlighting the fact that people really do reliably link certain attributes
of shapes and nonsense words to specic tastes, oral textures,
and avours, using everyday food products such as mineral water
and chocolate. Furthermore, we show that when tested appropriately, these crossmodal correspondences can be easily demonstrated in relatively small groups of people using nothing more
than a quick and easy to administer pencil-and-paper task. We believe that these ndings, and the methodology outlined here, are
potentially important in terms of the marketing and branding of
food and drink items. Note that the choice of foodstuffs used in
the present study was based simply on the results of our previous
research (Gallace et al., in press) and on the basis of the results of a
number of public science demonstrations over the last couple of
years where we have adopted the technique reported here to illustrate to the general public the crossmodal link between the tastes,
avours, and textures of foods and angular/rounded words and
shapes.
2. Methods
Twenty participants (ranging in age from 18 to 60 years,
approximately matched for gender) were given paper analog
labelled line scales on which to score each of the food and drink
items that were presented (see Fig. 1, for the scales and the labels
used). Each line scale was 13.5 cm long, with a crayon (of the type
shown in Fig. 1) marking the mid-point of the line. The rst four

Still water

-3.741.85

Sparkling water

3.511.94

Brie

Maluma

Takete

-3.022.22

Maluma

Cranberry juice

Takete

2.452.26

Tuki

Malteser

Lula
-1.543.49

Tuki

Caramel Nibble

Lula

2.692.73

Fig. 1. The six line scales used in the demonstrations reported here. Each line was
13.5 cm long. The dotted line represents the centrepoint of each of the lines. The
participants mean response the standard deviations (SD) for each of the scales are
reported next to each of the scales (note that ve values fall to the left of the dotted
line, +ve values to the right). The means and their SDs (error bars) are also shown
schematically.

C. Spence, A. Gallace / Food Quality and Preference 22 (2011) 290295

scales were shown on the rst sheet, the last two scales on a second sheet. The participants were simply instructed to make a mark
on the line. The following written instructions appeared on the
bottom of the rst sheet: Please make a mark along the line above
that you think best matches the avour of the various foods and drinks
you are about to try. If the avour better matches the shape/word on
the left of the page mark a point to the left of centre, whereas if the
avour better matches the shape/word on the right of the page mark
a point to the right of the centre.
The participants were rst given two opaque white plastic cups
which were each lled to a height of approximately 1 cm, one with
tap water, the other with San Pellegrino sparking mineral water.
They were asked to taste each of the samples and rate them by
putting a mark on the score sheet in front of them. Next, the participants were given a paper plate with a small piece of Brie cheese
and another opaque white cup containing about 1 cm of cranberry
juice. These were both supermarket own label products. The participants were asked to mark the next two line scales on the sheet.
Finally, the participants were given two pieces of chocolate: A
Malteser (Nestl) and a Caramel Nibble (Cadbury). Maltesers are
a popular product in the UK. They consist of a round honeycomb-centre coated in milk chocolate. Caramel Nibbles are ovalshaped and have a milk chocolate shell containing a soft caramel
centre. The participants were again asked to taste the chocolate
samples and to rate them on the scales provided. Note that the
angular and rounded shapes, and the Maluma/Takete word pair
incorporated in this study have been used in previous sound symbolism research (see Spence, submitted for publication, for a review). The Tuki/Lula word pair was chosen because we had used
a similar pair of terms in our previous research (see Gallace
et al., in press). Over the years, many different pairs of words have
been used to demonstrate sound symbolism (see Spence, submitted for publication, for a review). Tuki and Lula were chosen because they t with the general form of such stimuli: The former
word containing sharp sounds (e.g., t and k), while the latter
word containing more rounded sounds. No verbal instruction
was given about the order in which the participants should sample
the stimuli.
3. Results
The participants responses were measured using a ruler, with
the 0-point corresponding to the mid-point of the scales shown
by the dashed line in Fig. 1). Negative values indicate responses
to the left of the mid-point, while positive values indicate a response on the right half of the scale. Participants responses for
each pair of foodstuffs assessed with each of the three scales were
compared using paired samples t-tests. Signicant differences
were observed for all three of the scales (see Fig. 1). Participants
scored the sparkling water much further (7.3 cm) toward the angular shape end of the scale than they did the still water (p < .001).
They also rated the Brie cheese signicantly further toward the
Maluma end of the scale than they did the cranberry juice (mean
difference of 5.5 cm along the scale; p < .001). Finally, the comparison for the chocolates shows that sound symbolism effects are
also sufciently strong to discriminate between competitively
marketed commercial products, with the Maltesers being rated
as much more Tuki than the Caramel Nibble (mean difference of
4.2 cm along the scale; p = .001).
4. Discussion
These results highlight the existence of reliable crossmodal
correspondences between the taste/texture/avour of real foods/
drinks and nonsense words and shapes. These ndings are of

293

theoretical interest in terms of broadening the number of sensory

modalities in which sound symbolism effects have been demonstrated. To date, sound symbolism research has tended to focus almost exclusively on matching speech sounds to purely visual forms
(most typically to line drawings; Boyle & Tarte, 1980; see Hinton
et al., 1994; and Spence, submitted for publication, for a review).
Nevertheless, the results reported here bear comparison with other
research in which people have been shown to make reliable crossmodal matches between specic tastes (e.g., bitter, sweet, salty,
sour), and avours (orange blossom, vanilla, coffee, etc.) and sounds
(Bronner, 2010; Bronner, Bruhn, Hirt, & Piper, 2008; Crisinel
& Spence, 2009, 2010a, 2010b; Holt-Hansen, 1968, 1976; Rudmin
& Cappelli, 1983; Simner, Cuskley, & Kirby, 2010; Spence, in press).
Over the years, crossmodal correspondences involving taste/avour
have been demonstrated using everything from pure tones
(Holt-Hansen, 1968, 1976) through to simulated instrument sounds
(Crisinel & Spence, 2010b), and phonetic speech sounds (Simner
et al., 2010). Qualitatively similar crossmodal associations, albeit
phenomenologically much stronger, have also been reported in a
number of synaesthetes over the years. These unusual individuals
apparently experience taste concurrents in response to the
presence of particular inducing tones or musical tone intervals
(e.g., Beeli, Esslen, & Jncke, 2005; Luria, 1968). So, for instance,
S., the Russian mnemonist studied extensively by Luria, when
presented with a 50 Hz tone at 100 dB, reported experiencing a
taste sensation that he likened to sweet and sour borscht a sensation that gripped his entire tongue. When presented with a 3000 Hz
tone at 113 dB instead, he reported an ugly taste rather like that of
a briny pickle (Luria, 1968, p. 23). The link to full-blown synaesthesia is interesting in the case of taste/avour-tone matching, given
recent claims that synaesthetes may simply exhibit more intense/
stronger crossmodal correspondences than the rest of the population (e.g., Martino & Marks, 2001; Ward, Huckstep, & Tsakanikos,
2006; though see also Spence, submitted for publication).
Over the years, many have seen the commercial potential of
capitalizing on the ndings of sound symbolism research (e.g.,
Belli, 2001; Klink, 2000, 2001; Yorkston & Menon, 2004; see also
Schloss, 1981). Indeed, it is well-known that changing various
attributes of a products packaging and/or name can inuence a
consumers perception of the product itself, be it mouthwash, potato chips, or water (Gal et al., submitted for publication; Schloss,
1981; Spence, Shankar, & Blumenthal, 2010; Krishna & Morrin,
2008; Spence & Gallace, in press). Thus, in terms of the results of
the sparkling/still water comparison reported here, food manufacturers might be encouraged to consider the use of angular (or
rounded) shapes in the graphic design of their product packaging.
Indeed, given our results, the purveyors of sparkling water might
be well advised to use angular shapes in the graphic designs on
their packaging. As it happens, San Pellegrino sparkling mineral
water bottles are already covered with angular red stars. Whether
this use of angular symbols on their packaging reects the lucky
intuitions of their marketing team, or is merely coincidental may,
of course, never be known (according to their Italian website,
http://www.sanpellegrino.it, accessed on 29/08/2010, the stars
have been an integral part of the label at least since 1908; i.e.,
pre-dating the modern advent of sound symbolism research in
1929; see Khler, 1929; Sapir, 1929). It is interesting to note that
the still bottled water sold by the same manufacturer (Acqua Panna) has no such angular shapes on its packaging. Meanwhile, the
Apollinaris brand of carbonated water sold in Germany also has a
prominent red triangle displayed on the front of the bottle. One
might ask here which sense is driving the crossmodal correspondence between the angularity of shape and carbonation? Well,
according to the latest research, carbonation involves both chemosensory taste perception together with robust stimulation of the
somatosensory system (see Chandrashekar et al., 2009).

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The results of the comparison of the chocolates are particularly

interesting, because they show signicant differences between the
words associated with similarly-positioned commercially-available chocolate products. Maltesers are certainly noisier to eat than
Caramel Nibbles. It may have been this difference in aural texture
that was driving the participants responses. Recent research has
highlighted the importance of sound to our perception of food
and drink (e.g., Zampini & Spence, 2004, 2005). In order to determine just how important eating sounds are as a driver of peoples
responses to chocolate confectionary, one might consider repeating the experiment reported here in deaf individuals, or in normal-hearing individuals while listening to loud background white
noise.
5. Conclusions
The results of the research reported here demonstrate that
crossmodal correspondences really do exist between the taste/texture/avour of commercially-available food and drink items and
the angularity of nonsense shapes, as well as the roundedness/
low pitch of the vowel sounds used to describe them. What will
be needed in future research is to determine whether graphical designs on product packaging, or brand names that have been designed on the basis of sound symbolism research, change a
consumers sensory expectations about, and hence experience of,
real products (cf. Keller, Heckler, & Houston, 1998; Westbury,
2005; Yeomans, Chambers, Blumenthal, & Blake, 2008). In the
years to come, it would seem likely that sound symbolism research
could be fruitfully used to help constrain the development of new
product names/brands. Of course, sound symbolism may not, in
itself be enough. Many brand names also incorporate have some
kind of semantic link to the product that they describe. In this
regard, it is interesting that Klink (2001) has been able to demonstrate that sound symbolism insights can easily be combined with
some element of semantics (e.g., though see Pinker, 2007, p. 303
304). In summary, marketers should consider designing product
names and packaging where both the semantic associations and
sound symbolism synergistically contribute to create a given
expectancy about the product.
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