Bouba/kiki effect • Hacker News Board

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#161

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 2:32 PM UTC

Interesting. I was given a similar "test" in high school, although the names given were Kepick and Oona. But the same preference was there: "kepick" with its "sharp" sounds favored the angled drawing, "Oona" the more undulating. There were some other questions as well, such as a hypothetical about which shape was male and which female (strong preference in the class towards "Oona" being female).

I don't think I'm alone in this: I googled Kepick and Oona and found a reference from a 2012 blogpost: https://nwccapstone.blogspot.com/2012/02/meet-oona-and-kepic...

So I have to ponder how bouba/kiki diverged into kepick/oona. Kinda wonder if some random schoolteacher remembered the study but didn't remember the exact names, substituted something similar, and then built it into a curriculum that got picked up by the education system.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#162

Post by alarge » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 2:35 PM UTC

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".

Lest anyone draw the conclusion that this is a US thing, it certainly is not. I've lived in many places throughout the US and have never heard anyone say "three or two". Nor does "two or three" carry the connotation that two is likelier. A closer fit to that would be "a couple", which formally means two, but sometimes means "a small number".

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#163

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 2:40 PM UTC

xerox13ster wrote: post #151

MereInterest wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

I think the dress example is not super great because “little black dress” is an expression or something. It is like an accessible and inexpensive but still nice and fashionable dress.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_black_dress

So I think a little black designer dress would be a designer dress which happened to be little and black. A designer little black dress would be a dress of the “little black dress,” variety, which also has the trait “designer” applied.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#164

Post by mistermann » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

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!

My theory is that a lot of capabilities remain in the hardware stack, but they are made inaccessible by the software stack (culture mainly, but also that type of media we consume, which can act as a catalyst...or not, if the right kind isn't present/popular).

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#165

Post by mandmandam » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 3:16 PM UTC

automatic6131 wrote: post #150

anbardoi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If Tuesday is blue, Wednesday is green, and Friday is orange then it would makes sense that Thursday is yellow, Monday is violet, Sunday is indigo and Saturday is red...

Nature abhors a vacuum, but it loves a rainbow.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#166

Post by kayo_20211030 » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

Why has nobody mentioned Chomsky in this thread? The correspondence in the results between American English and Tamil just seems like something that should shout Chomsky. I know little about it, but some form of universality in language, and how humans see the shape of it, seems apt as a starting point.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#167

Post by chinchilla2020 » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 4:34 PM UTC

kayo_20211030 wrote: post #166

Why has nobody mentioned Chomsky in this thread? The correspondence in the results between American English and Tamil just seems like something that should shout Chomsky. I know little about it, but some form of universality in language, and how humans see the shape of it, seems apt as a starting point.

Also Corman Mccarthy. His books carefully balance the 'sound' of the prose to help the reader imagine the story. That's why his writing has a poetic tone that drives some people crazy.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#168

Post by dyslexit » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 6:05 PM UTC

I wonder if this effect can be explained by the we form the "bouba"/"kiki" sounds when we speak them. "Kiki" has a sharper enunciation when using your tongue and mouth to form it, while "bouba" feels more like an open round one.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#169

Post by euroderf » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #111

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 a…

Not universal. Finnish for mother/mom is "äiti", which sounds distinctly like a distress call.

Re: Bouba/kiki effect

#170

Post by sizzle » Mon, Jun 17, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

Welp. Got it wrong. I thought of a Hawaiian flower when I heard Kiki and chose the flower looking one. I can also associate bouba to mean bulbous and choose the rounder one. My brain pattern matches like crazy.