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Bouba/kiki effect

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Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#111

Post by int_19h »

acyou wrote: post #55

Mama/dada effect: Children everywhere in the world say mamamama as their first syllable, which is why mama means mother both in Chinese and in anglo-franco-hispanic-germanic-latin languages, and everywhere else. They then say dada, baba, papa, which is why baba means dad in both China and in latin languages. Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest that the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, be…

While "mama" is a very common word for "mother" across languages, it is by no means universal. A particularly startling example is Georgian, where "mama" means dad, and "deda" means mom (and note that this is an Indo-European language!).

Which is to say - there's no single "first syllable" and "second syllable" that all babies say in that exact order. They just babble, and adults interpret those noises as syllables according to the phonemics of their language. Thus results may vary.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#112

Post by int_19h »

FabHK wrote: post #87
meowface wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the letters in "bouba" appear rounder than the letters in "kiki".

Would be interesting to see whether that is the case across writing systems.

It isn't. It's not even the case for the script from which Latin developed.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#113

Post by defrost »

portaouflop wrote: post #107
cnasc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this bus is clearly intended to be a school bus but it’s missing too much detail. If the absence of the door is a valid clue, then so is the absence of the big red stop sign that is on the non-door-side.

Lay off the copium - busses don’t have red stop signs everywhere (for example they don’t have them here) But they always have doors…

    The other day someone pointed at the open platform of RM1353 and asked me: did you take the doors off this bus? “No, it was built that way.” She looked amazed, and pleased.
https://www.theredbus.co.uk/blog/platform-sharing

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#115

Post by de_nied »

When I hear or say K, T, or Ch, I hear a higher pitch frequency being used than B, M, L (which sounds like lower frequencies).

Humans have a psychoacoustic effect that makes higher pitch sounds perceived as being louder.

When somethting has a louder intial sound, but the transient sound is about the same, it makes it feel more snappy (like a snare, versus a kick). This is reminiscent of a jagged edge.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#116

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

soared wrote: post #64
mopierotti wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a good example. The bus is clearly a simplified representation. If the answer/explanation given was actually correct then you'd also expect the bus to have other details like side view mirrors. Edit: I hate to dwell on this too much, but even if a door and mirrors were visible, the bus could be in reverse. This seems to be more of a case of accidentally picking the intended answer due to a lack…

Or because kids are very familiar with busses and adults are not.

Why would kids be more familiar with busses than adults?

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#117

Post by colordrops »

strbean wrote: post #70
crazygringo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That bus example is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Spoiler follows: The solution is supposedly that in countries where you drive on the right-hand side of the road, children immediately deduce that the bus is traveling to the left. This seems nonsensical to me because it's not even clear the bus is on a road, or it it is, that it's on the far side of the road. As far as I can tell, the bus is in a dirt fie…

The rationale they provide is that you can't see the door to the bus. So we are looking at the driver's side of the bus. Ignore "Which was is the bus going?" and instead ask "Which side is the front of the bus?" And, knowing that we are looking at the driver's side because of the absence of doors, the answer depends on which side of the road the bus is designed to be driven on.

The bus is missing many details of a real bus, so it's clearly an abstraction that leaves out detail, meaning that it's reasonable to assume the artist may have crudely left out doors from the picture. This doesn't make the kids "right".

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#118

Post by xattt »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #116
soared wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or because kids are very familiar with busses and adults are not.

Why would kids be more familiar with busses than adults?

> Why are [large vehicles] so exciting to a kid? Perhaps it is obvious: they are loud, big, fast, complex, powerful. There is the element of danger. Adaptively, there must be a survival advantage for children who are curious about loud, large, fast beings and objects.

https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry...

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#119

Post by barrenko »

spencerchubb wrote: post #40
paulgerhardt wrote: post #17

Fifteen years ago I went to a museum exhibit on Reggio Emilia teaching methods that I still think about once a week or so. (Reggio Emilia is similar to Montessori in that it is child-led exploration but different in that encourages multiple cross-modal forms of expression to aid comprehension.) The Reggio Emilia exhibit featured children performing a cross-modal exercise of drawing the sounds of various types of shoe…

I wonder if the ability diminishes in adults, or if adults are more inhibited and worried about looking foolish. Try the same experiment with adults after drinking alcohol!

Well, adults are RLHF'ed kids.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#120

Post by phist_mcgee »

cnasc wrote: post #66
mopierotti wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a good example. The bus is clearly a simplified representation. If the answer/explanation given was actually correct then you'd also expect the bus to have other details like side view mirrors. Edit: I hate to dwell on this too much, but even if a door and mirrors were visible, the bus could be in reverse. This seems to be more of a case of accidentally picking the intended answer due to a lack…

Yeah, this bus is clearly intended to be a school bus but it’s missing too much detail. If the absence of the door is a valid clue, then so is the absence of the big red stop sign that is on the non-door-side.

Big red stop sign? Like on the bus?
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