Emotional ties to phonetic sounds start in early childhood, ASU study shows

There’s a linguistic concept called the "gleam-glum effect," where some phonetic sounds seem to evoke different emotions.

A new study from Arizona State University shows for the first time that emotional ties to sounds start in early childhood.

Researchers studied college students and 5-year-olds to see how strongly they connected “ee” and “uh” sounds with certain emotional responses.

Both groups showed positive associations with “ee” sounds like in “gleam” and negative associations with “uh” sounds like in “glum.”

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A flamingo dances and shows happy emotions. It was associated with “ee” sounds and happiness.

Connie Catedral / Arizona State University

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A flamingo dances with a broken leg and face shows sad emotions. It was associated with “uh” sounds.

Connie Catedral / Arizona State University

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A snake roasts a marshmallow over a fire and shows happy emotions. It was associated with “ee” sounds.

Connie Catedral / Arizona State University

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A snake shows sad emotions as it is unable to roast a marshmallow over a campfire. It was associated with “uh” sounds and sad emotions.

Connie Catedral / Arizona State University

Those associations were stronger for the college students than for the children.

ASU professor and study author Viridiana Benitez says that could offer insights into how sounds form meaning.

“The sounds of words and their actual meaning might tell us that these are the kind of early communicative sounds that might have been used that eventually evolved into the more sophisticated language that we have today," Benitez said.

Benitez says she would like to study the effect in even younger participants.