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The purpose of this study was to examine the responses of a Steller sea lion to two consecutive commands. We conducted this study on one same subject, Hama, as a continuation of Sasaki et al. (2022), which examined whether the Steller sea lion can discriminate human vocal commands. In Sasaki et al. (2022), commands were presented individually to examine the accuracy rate for each command. In the present study, we observed how Hama responded to the rapid presentation of two consecutive commands. The commands were presented in 20 different orders and combinations as 20 command combination patterns using five different commands. The results showed that Hama responded to 12 command combination patterns by performing behaviors corresponding to two consecutive commands. Hama performed the two behaviors in sequence in 8 of the 12 command combination patterns. The responses to the other four command combination patterns were combined single behaviors that combined the behaviors indicated by the two consecutive commands and that were already connected to different single commands. Although the combined single behaviors were not simple combinations of behaviors induced by the two consecutive commands, the combined single behaviors included the common body parts (e.g., fore flippers) or common action types (e.g., rotation) of behaviors induced by each command in the two consecutive commands. These results not only indicate that Hama could understand multiple linguistic information, but also suggest the possibility that Hama spontaneously formed categories based on the learned commands.

This study examined how vowel length in words affects the gustatory imageries (i.e., sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness, and spiciness). We presented pseudowords with long and short vowels to native Japanese speakers using different modalities and instructions. The stimuli were presented visually (Studies 1, 3, and 4) or auditorily (Study 2). In addition, half of participants in Study 3 were instructed to subvocalize the stimuli and the other half were instructed not to subvocalize. Words with long vowels were associated with sweetness when presented in katakana characters (Studies 1 and 3). Words with short vowels were associated with saltiness and bitterness when presented in katakana characters (Study 3). Our findings revealed a role of vowel length in taste-sound correspondences in Japanese. It advances the understanding of how people obtain information about the taste expectations from word forms.

This study investigated the effects of consonant alliteration and meter on valence, arousal, and aesthetic evaluations. In Study 1, native Japanese speakers evaluated valence, arousal, beauty, and understandability of classical Japanese poems after listening to both alliterated and non-alliterated versions. The alliterated poems were rated as slightly calmer than the non-alliterated ones, although the difference was not statistically significant. In Study 2, native Japanese speakers listened to poems that consisted of pseudowords. The poems used as stimuli were systematically made in terms of alliteration and meter. The metered poems were perceived as more preferable, calmer, and more beautiful than the non-metered ones, regardless of the presence or absence of alliteration. Additionally, the alliterated and metered poems were perceived as more exciting than non-alliterated and metered poems. These results suggest that metered poems make people feel beautiful and comfortable. It might be applicable to clinical treatment.

This study focused on associative learning for new words in the first language and haptic stimuli. In the first, healthy Japanese participants made nine subjective evaluations of haptic stimuli using five-point semantic differential scales (e.g., regarding stickiness, scored from 1 [not sticky] to 5 [sticky]). In the second and third, the participants carried out two learning tasks for associative pairs of a new word in Japanese and haptic stimulus (H), or new words only (W). In the fourth one, after each learning task, participants performed recognition and free recall tasks. The results of the recognition tasks showed that the accuracy rates of W were better than those of H, whereas the response times of W were faster than those of H. Further, preference of haptic features negatively correlated with free recall scores of H; however, there was no significant difference between the free recall scores of H and W.

This study investigated the effect of gustatory stimuli on the associative learning of new (meaningless) word forms in a first language. Japanese native speakers performed the following tasks: (1) subjective evaluations of gustatory stimuli; (2) learning tasks of associative pairs of a new word form and gustatory stimulus (G) or only new word forms (W); (3) recognition memory tasks associated with the G/W condition; (4) free recall task for the G/W conditions. The accuracy rates of W were highest, whereas there was no significant difference between free recall scores. Subjective evaluations of gustatory stimuli negatively correlated with the free recall performance of word forms associated with the gustatory stimuli, while accuracy rates of the recognition and free recall tasks of G were positively correlated. Accordingly, learning new word forms on their own is more effective than associative learning of new word forms and gustatory stimuli in one day of learning.

The aim of this study was to identify the effects of perceptual (visual and olfactory) and emotional imageries of food names to word recognition memories. First, we asked Japanese healthy participants to imagine visual (Experiment 1), olfactory (Experiment 2), emotional (Experiment 3), or preferential features (Experiment 4) of presented words associated with foods and drinks (imagining condition), while we also asked them to passively read presented words (reading condition). Second, they judged whether each word was previously presented (word recognition memory task). Results showed that accuracy rates of the imagining condition were significantly higher than those of the reading condition in word recognition memory tasks of all the experiments. Our findings suggest that perceptual and emotional imageries of food names facilitate word recognition memories.

The purpose of this study was to identify associative processes for words in a second language and their referents. ThirtyJapanese participants learned associative conditions for novel words in Chinese and pictorial referents (CP), as well asnovel words in Chinese and words in Japanese (CJ), against a condition of only novel words in Chinese (C). After thelearning phase, participants conducted 2 retrieval tasks for word recognition and 3 recognition tasks for source-monitoringof the referents. Correct answers for each recognition task were provided to participants after each trial. Although correctanswers in all the conditions gradually increased in both the recognition and retrieval tasks, there were no significantdifferences among these conditions. In contrast, recognition and retrieval speeds were faster for CP than CJ. These findingssuggest that pictures contribute to recognition and retrieval speeds of associations between words in a second languageand referents.

Previous studies have hypothesized that Japanese sound-symbolic words with voiced initial consonants (SSWV; e.g.,boroboro) rather than those with voiceless initial consonants (SSWVL; e.g., horohoro) or semi-voiced initial consonants(SSWSV; e.g., poroporo) induce stronger evaluations of the quality of psycholinguistic features. To investigate this hy-pothesis, we asked 36 Japanese participants to evaluate 13 psycholinguistic features (familiarity, visual imagery, auditoryimagery, haptic imagery, arousal, preference, disgust, hardness, softness, heaviness, lightness, fastness, and slowness) withSSWV, SSWVL, and SSWSV using 5-point semantic differential scales. All the initial consonants involved h (f; SSWVL),p (SSWSV), or b (SSWV). The experimental results showed that SSWV included higher levels of visual imagery, auditoryimagery, haptic imagery, arousal, disgust, hardness, and heaviness over SSWVL or SSWSV (ps ¡ .05). Taken together,these findings suggest that SSWV induces psychological and physical quality evaluations more than SSWVL and SSWSV.

Vowels in words have been associated with specific meanings in sound symbolism (Hamano, 1998; Newman, 1933;Sapir, 1929). The purpose of this study was to examine whether each vowel individually involves physical and emotionalmeanings. Six-hundred and thirteen participants (482 females; M 16.97) rated 5-point semantic differential scales (size,distance, thickness, extent, weight, height, depth, preference, arousal, and familiarity) to presented Japanese vowels (a, i, u,e, and o). Results showed that the size, extent, and thickness of a, u, and o were significantly higher than i and e, whereasthe preference and familiarity of a was higher than the others. These results were consistent with previous findings towhich vowels in sound-symbolic words were associated with physical (i.e., size, extent, and thickness) and emotional (i.e.,preference) evaluations. Our findings suggest that each vowel itself could individually contribute to specifically physicaland emotional evaluations.

Theoretical linguists have hypothesized that the vocalization of the initial consonants in Japanese sound-symbolic wordsaffect their psychological evaluations. By using 5-point semantic differential scales associated with 13 psycholinguis-tic features (familiarity, visual imagery, auditory imagery, haptic imagery, arousal, preference, disgust, hardness, soft-ness, heaviness, lightness, fastness, and slowness), we asked 36 Japanese participants to evaluate sound-symbolic wordswith voiceless (SSWVL; e.g., kirakira) or voiced initial consonants (SSWV; e.g., giragira) in experiment 1, whereas weasked them to evaluate sound-symbolic words with semi-voiced consonants (SSWSV; e.g., pochapocha) or SSWV (e.g.,bochabocha) in experiment 2. Results of experiments 1 and 2 showed that the participants had higher levels of disgust,arousal, hardness, heaviness, and slowness for SSWV as opposed to SSWVL and SSWSV (ps ¡ .05). In sum, these find-ings suggest that the presence of vocalization of initial consonants in Japanese sound-symbolic words contribute to theirpsychological evaluations to sound-symbolic words.

This study examined behavioral changes in 15-day learning of word-picture (WP) and word-sound (WS) associations, using meaningless stimuli. Subjects performed a learning task and two recognition tasks under the WP and WS conditions every day for 15 days. Two main findings emerged from this study. First, behavioral data of recognition accuracy and response time were improved in both conditions of WP and WS by the 15-day learning of associations. Second, the performance in WP was better than that in WS for 15 days, but the correlation between accuracies in WP and WS was significant across subjects. These results suggest that even if meaningless stimuli are employed as an experimental stimulus, the long-term learning of associations between words and perceptual features could be formed in both visual and auditory modalities, between which the performance levels are highly correlated, but the learning effect could be dominant when words are associated with visual features, compared to auditory features. (Contains 5 figures.)