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Bouba/kiki effect

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Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#121

Post by huhtenberg »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #14
jesprenj wrote: post #5

What about the effect where for some pairs of words that don't theoretically have ordering preference (kiki/bouba vs bouba/kiki), (plus/minus vs minus/plus), (on/off vs off/on), (positive/negative vs negative/positive) have some psychological order that most people use and if the other ordering is used, it sound weird? Does this effect have a name?

Even among words that do theoretically have an ordering preference, some people have different habits. I knew someone who habitually said "three or two", rather than "two or three". Leaving aside the effect of prosody mentioned in another comment, I think the rest of it is habit, together with the brain's tendency to group things. If you're used to hearing "plus or minus", your brain may be grouping it together into…

"three or two" means "likely three, maybe two"

"two or three" means "likely two, maybe three"

Here, the ordering is significant and has nothing to do with a habit.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#122

Post by lqet »

madebythejus wrote: post #47
ComplexSystems wrote: post #27

I have always thought this association is partly from some intuition we have about the mechanical and acoustic properties of hypothetical things that would have this shape. The shape with sharp, jagged edges would occur in real life if it were made of some hard material, perhaps, like glass, metal, etc. The shape with the soft, curvy lines would occur if it were made of something softer and possibly elastic. It doesn…

The effect is somehow also visible in the shapes of the letters, with ‘B’, ‘O’ ‘U’ being rounded and soft. The letters ‘K’ and ‘I’ are made of sharper shapes featuring triangles and lines. I wonder if letter designs were influenced by the sounds made by objects.

I distinctly remember trying to "read" sentences as a small child by investigating the shape of the letters. For example, if a letter looked friendly, like like A or C, I assumed a nice message. If the letters looked serious or grave, like T, E, K or W, I assumed a bad message. If a letter looked soft like B or P or O, I assumed the sentence was about something soft, etc.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#123

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

xattt wrote: post #118
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I don’t see the correlation, sorry!

I’d expect an adult to be more familiar with a bus by virtue of having taken the bus more often than a child. Whether or not that’s exciting or just a mundane commute shouldn’t affect familiarity.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#125

Post by anonymous_sorry »

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!

As a kid I instinctively associated different days of the week with colours. This is a form of synaesthesia. As an adult I never think this way, and even when I try can only even remember one of the colour associations (Friday was orange).

My cod-biological explanation is that a child's brain is still forming connections and the process of becoming an adult involves pruning many of these connections to become more focused and efficient.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#126

Post by JoshTriplett »

huhtenberg wrote: post #121
JoshTriplett wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even among words that do theoretically have an ordering preference, some people have different habits. I knew someone who habitually said "three or two", rather than "two or three". Leaving aside the effect of prosody mentioned in another comment, I think the rest of it is habit, together with the brain's tendency to group things. If you're used to hearing "plus or minus", your brain may be grouping it together into…

"three or two" means "likely three, maybe two" "two or three" means "likely two, maybe three" Here, the ordering is significant and has nothing to do with a habit.

That's not a common connotation; I've never once seen anyone use those phrases to mean that. "two or three" does not typically have any connotation of either being more likely.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#128

Post by anonymous_sorry »

mopierotti wrote: post #53
sethammons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take this picture and ask adults and kids which way the bus is traveling, kids get it right more often than adults https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/which-way-bus-going-why-adult... Spoilers: adults prune information for more efficient processing and in doing so lose information

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…

I don't think the point is to nitpick how realistic the representation is or how fair the question is. The point is children react to the question differently from the way adults do. And that's true despite (or perhaps because of) what an adult thinks of the question.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#129

Post by tgv »

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…

The whole effect is probably based on the combined word-sound associations everyone acquires, not on some biological preference. For starters, there's no evolutionary reason why sounds should be associated with shapes.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#130

Post by Biganon »

ffsm8 wrote: post #79
smeej wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've just confirmed the post's point about overanalysis. This type of thinking is exactly why adults get it right less often than children. Kids immediately recognize the view must be from the driver's side of the bus because they're not examining the situation. They're taking the first piece of relevant information and rolling with it. No door means passengers get on the other side, so it's going whatever…

But there is a difference in the picture. You'd also determine that it's going left when looking at the windshields, as only the left side is completely straight. Honestly, this image is a terrible example to illustrate their point. I think it's more likely that children are more likely to actually use public transit, which is why they'd be able to detect the missing door quickly.

The right windshield is straight as well, you see part of a building behind it
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