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Bouba/kiki effect

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Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#141

Post by nkrisc »

sethammons wrote: post #42
spencerchubb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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 actually did have trouble with that bus image. However it’s not as though adults make this trade-off for no gain.

Ask a 6-year old to spot a bird in a tree a hundred feet away and they’ll be looking around everywhere for it simply because they don’t know what they’re looking for. An adult knows exactly what to look for: a dark shape in the branches moving separately from the motion of the branches in the wind behind it, briefly silhouetted against the sky while those same branches move, probably 30 ft or higher off the ground (depending on the size of the tree, of course). You probably even know instinctively what size of thing you’re looking for based on your knowledge of the apparent angular size of a bird at a given distance you’re also instinctively able to estimate.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#142

Post by rusticpenn »

schoen wrote: post #97
madebythejus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These are great guesses, but it doesn't look like they match with what's known about the earlier forms of these letters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Latin_script#Ul... Particularly, the degree of sharpness or roundness of a particular letter may have changed a lot over time. I guess it's still possible that there's been some kind of psychological effect at certain times, but it doesn't look like it w…

That is because of the focus on writing itself. Its easier to make sharper letters on clay tablets, making such letters on palm leaves ( popularly used by some cultures for writing) would tear the leaf, so the writing became more rounded in these regions.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#143

Post by anbardoi »

It's actually fucking insane that I'm seeing this pop up on HN right now, I literally just watched a VSauce video (posted like a year ago) explaining this bouba/kiki effect!

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#144

Post by anbardoi »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #125
spencerchubb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

While reading this comment, I was thinking "tuesday is blue, friday? Definitely orange" and then read you saying (Friday was orange) a split second later

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#145

Post by calini »

Harmohit wrote: post #81

I used to experience this had a kid! Not only did words and some names have shapes, but they were quite often coloured shapes. I have quite strong memories of some of the associations I made between names and shapes. However, I have completely lost the 'ability' as an adult. I do not feel it at all.

I had some glimpses of this effect as a kid, where to me for example there was a strong association in my brain between the the letter E, the digit 3, and the colour green, especially light green. Same for C, 5, and light blue.

As an adult, if I try to more strongly tap into my flavour of synesthesia, it starts to feel "made up"; Example, if I query my brain for "what's associated with 2" the response will be "orange, (but I think I just generated that now)" so I sadly kind of dismiss it.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#147

Post by MereInterest »

alwa wrote: post #54
bee_rider wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big shiny square metal block doesn’t look so bad to me, but big shiny heavy square metal block does. Perhaps big it is the switch back and forth… big and heavy are fuzzily size-like characteristics while shiny is not… Is a big shiny square metal block the same thing as a big square shiny metal block? I’m not sure. I think the former is a big square metal block which happens to also be shiny, while the latter is a big…

Linguists apparently have characterized this phenomenon and call it the “Royal Order of Adjectives” [0]: 1. Quantity or number (e.g., “two”) 2. Quality or opinion (e.g., “lovely”) 3. Size (e.g., “big”) 4. Age (e.g., “old”) 5. Shape (e.g., “round”) 6. Color (e.g., “red”) 7. Origin (e.g., “French”) 8. Material (e.g., “wooden”) 9. Purpose (e.g., “sleeping” in “sleeping bag”) [0] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/adjective-…

The exceptions to this are also interesting to see. For example, “stainless-steel hex nut” or “designer little black dress” both violate the standard ordering, which would predict “hex stainless-steel nut” and “little black designer dress”.

These exceptions tend to arise with stock phrases such as “hex nut” or “little black dress”. In that case the entire phrase, including adjectives, is treated as the noun, with additional adjectives prepended.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#148

Post by bowsamic »

bowsamic wrote: post #134
Biganon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to sense timbre has nothing to do with being able to tell the shape of the waveform of a sound. You're able to recognize red, you're unable to tell me it's wavelength (intuitively)

Recognising red _is_ recognising its wavelength. True, we don't know what frequency we hear/wavelength we see is associate with which specific number, but that's irrelevant. Humans are born with the capability of doing a mechanical Fourier decomposition in our ears. Knowing the amplitude at each frequency, as all humans that can hear do, gives us information about the waveform. Sensing timbre therefore is information…

To be more specific, lots of high frequency content means we are hearing sharp transients, so quickly changing waves. Lots of low frequency content means we are hearing smoother waves

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#149

Post by jspash »

anbardoi wrote: post #144
anonymous_sorry wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

While reading this comment, I was thinking "tuesday is blue, friday? Definitely orange" and then read you saying (Friday was orange) a split second later

Tuesday rhymes with blue. Not to mention "Blue Tuesday" is a phrase used quite often.

You might be associating orange with Friday because it makes you think of the sun and going outdoors?

It's all very interesting. Even more so because I don't think of days/colours. My mind gives the days size and mass. ie. starting with Sunday (I'm American) the day is small. And as the week progresses the days get larger, heavier and denser. Until Saturday, which is a big fat puffy ball of "day". You can do what you want with it and it will just be there and be your friend. I love Saturdays.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#150

Post by automatic6131 »

anbardoi wrote: post #144
anonymous_sorry wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

While reading this comment, I was thinking "tuesday is blue, friday? Definitely orange" and then read you saying (Friday was orange) a split second later

+1 for tuesday being blue. Is Wednesday green?
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