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Bouba/kiki effect

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Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#151

Post by xerox13ster »

MereInterest wrote: post #147
alwa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 add…

Well, this is because a hex nut has a purpose and it is for you to hex your lost 10mm wrench.

I would have thought that little black designer dress was correct. Designer little black dress feels incorrect. The L and BL in Little and black and then the Ds in designer and dress also lend an alliterative flow to “little black designer dress” that is not there for “designer little black dress”

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#152

Post by jihadjihad »

zoky wrote: post #52
incognito124 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As per etymologynerd, English speakers tend to like trochaic stress rhythm in sentences, like "salt and pepper" or "lee and sophie" where a different ordering sounds weird.

Maybe, but there are plenty of counter examples: “Chicken and egg” “Cookies and cream” “Heaven and Earth” “Chapter and verse” Seems like some phrases just are a certain way, and inverting them sounds wrong just because that’s what we’re used to hearing.

These examples all consist of a trochee followed by an iamb--another word for this specific metrical foot is choriamb [0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choriamb

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#153

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #128
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…

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.

But that's a different point to what GP was making. It wasn't that children answer differently to adults, it's that they get it 'right' more often than adults. Which is still more about ignorance allowing them to make the same assumptions as the questioner than thought processes. A child might not even be aware that people in other countries might drive on the other side of the road, and so be sure of their 'correct' answer, but most adults know that without knowing the location of this image, the question can't be answered.

EDIT: And if the question weren't ambiguous, you'd basically be telling people the answer, since as soon as you say "assume it's in the US", you give a massive clue that bilateral asymmetry is relevant.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#154

Post by avg_dev »

mionhe wrote: post #82
avg_dev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know, i think this skill can be learned. i used to definitely have very little ability to "bridge sensory modalities", but i've been studying music and performance as a hobby somewhat seriously for about 6 years now. and i now feel like i have much more of that ability than i did before. i probably had it as a kid, just as you were saying, but i am definitely well into adulthood now :) (there is a radio program i…

That's interesting. Does that program have a name? I'm interested in looking it up...

https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/about-time

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#155

Post by zeta0134 »

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…

My letter-color synesthesia continues to fire on all cylinders well into adulthood. It's just a form of memory association of course. I can see that this 'e' is (in my editor) white text on a muted grey background. But that 'e' is also, simultaneously, the brightest lime green you ever laid eyes on. Like #00FF00, extremely light green. Every 'e' in every word lights up in my mind's eye in exactly this color. Most vowels do the same, consonants are inconsistent, numbers are pretty strong.

It's a fun little memory trick, and it was surprising to learn that it's not a universal experience. Not just "your letter-color association is different from mine" (it seems to be highly personal) but "wait, you don't do that at all?"

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#156

Post by arrowsmith »

huhtenberg wrote: post #138
JoshTriplett wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Might be something specific to where you are? What I described is how this construct is used in every place I lived.

Have you ever lived in the UK? Because I've never thought of "two or three" as meaning that two is more likely than three.

Are you sure that other people actually mean this when they say it, or are you just adding the extra connotation in your head?

Also I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say "three or two". That sounds weird, like saying "fork and knife".

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#157

Post by stabbles »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #106
billyjmc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’ve suggested is not equivalent. The a is always taken without negation, and that’s not the case in your rendering.

Ah. "a±(b-c)" then. The fact I made that mistake in the first place just makes me more convinced the original form is unnecessarily complex to parse.

You're too fixated on the example. It's obviously used in cases where you cannot group like that:

    (-b ± sqrt(b² - 4ac)) / 2a = 2c / (-b ∓ sqrt(b² - 4ac))

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#158

Post by huhtenberg »

arrowsmith wrote: post #156
huhtenberg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be something specific to where you are? What I described is how this construct is used in every place I lived.

Have you ever lived in the UK? Because I've never thought of "two or three" as meaning that two is more likely than three. Are you sure that other people actually mean this when they say it, or are you just adding the extra connotation in your head? Also I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say "three or two". That sounds weird, like saying "fork and knife".

Not in the UK, no. But I did live in Canada, the US and across Europe.

Not that it's commonly used and not with 3 and 2 specifically, but when used and the pair is inverted, it's meant to convey that the former is more likely. That's just like ... common sense, really.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#159

Post by inglor_cz »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #83

I have likened this effect to “what sounds right.” I am curious about something with German, and would love feedback from native German speakers: “gendering” on German words seems to be largely arbitrary (as opposed to the romantic languages where gendering seems to align with how the culture associates the word to a gender). My suspicion, that has “felt” correct in most cases, is that gendering in German words is la…

There is a lot of randomness in linguistic gendering ... Czech genders are rather different from German genders, even though we are neighbours.

Der Frosch (M, "frog") vs. ta žába (F).

Das Messer (N, "knife") vs. ten nůž (M).

Die Tat (F, "deed, act") vs. ten čin (M).

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#160

Post by redman25 »

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

Hmm, my first thought was that Friday was purple. Tuesday is definitely blue though.
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