Bluesky Facebook Reddit Email

A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds

12.03.25 | PLOS

SAMSUNG T9 Portable SSD 2TB

SAMSUNG T9 Portable SSD 2TB transfers large imagery and model outputs quickly between field laptops, lab workstations, and secure archives.
Phonemic composition influences words’ aesthetic appeal and memorability
Per-participant-recall of words that included either appealing, neutral or unappealing phonemes: Percentage of participants recalling the individual pseudowords. Credit: Matzinger, Košić., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds

Article URL : https://plos.io/4a5P0f8

Article title: Phonemic composition influences words’ aesthetic appeal and memorability

Author countries: Austria

Funding: This work was supported by a Disruptive Innovation Grant from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Science Fund (grant number: DI_2023-108_MATZINGER_BEALP) awarded to Theresa Matzinger. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

PLOS One

10.1371/journal.pone.0336597

Phonemic composition influences words’ aesthetic appeal and memorability

3-Dec-2025

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Keywords

Cognition Cognitive Psychology Linguistics Memory Psychological Science Social Sciences

Article Information

Journal
PLOS One
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0336597
Article Publication Date
2025-12-03
Article Title
Phonemic composition influences words’ aesthetic appeal and memorability
COI Statement
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Contact Information

Hanna Abdallah
PLOS
onepress@plos.org

How to Cite This Article

APA:
PLOS. (2025, December 3). A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds. Brightsurf News. https://www.brightsurf.com/news/L7V0P5Z8/a-rose-by-any-other-name-not-necessarilyhow-words-sound-aesthetically-correlates-with-their-memorability-study-finds.html
MLA:
"A rose by any other name? Not necessarily—how words sound aesthetically correlates with their memorability, study finds." Brightsurf News, Dec. 3 2025, https://www.brightsurf.com/news/L7V0P5Z8/a-rose-by-any-other-name-not-necessarilyhow-words-sound-aesthetically-correlates-with-their-memorability-study-finds.html.