Motion iconicity in prosody

Evidence suggests that human non-verbal speech may be rich in iconicity. Here, we report results from two experiments aimed at testing whether perception of increasing and declining f 0 can iconically mapped onto motion events. We presented a sample mixed-nationality participants ( N = 118) with sets videos, where one pictured upward movement the other downward movement. A disyllabic non-sense word prosodically resynthesized as or was simultaneously each video pair, were tasked guessing which videos described. Results indicate prosody is associated motion, such motion-prosody congruent pairings more readily selected than incongruent p < 0.033). However, effect observed our primarily driven by selections words . follow-up experiment native Turkish speaking 92) tested for language-specific metaphor auditory pitch. showed no significant association between motion. Limitations experiment, some implications motor theory perception, “gestural origins” theories language evolution, are discussed.