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.
Bouba/kiki effect
81–90 of 176 posts
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#82Fifteen 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…
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...
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#83I 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 largely an artifact of which article sounds the most correct with the word. Sort of how we might use “a/an” with words that have consonant or vowel starting sounds in English.
Is there any truth to this supposition?
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#84Fifteen 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…
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…
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Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#85Interesting that the words acute and obtuse seem to follow the same pattern. Etymology says they come from ancient words for needle and club. Which also follow the same pattern.
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#86I 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…
Doesn't sound plausible to me. It does seem arbitrary more than related to the sound. There is der Titel and der Tisch, but die Tinte and die Tasche, das Tier but die Tür, etc.
ETA: Having said that, certain endings strongly indicate a specific gender, e.g. for masculine: -or, -ling, -ner, -smus, -er, -ich, -ist, -ant, and -us. See e.g. here:
https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/german-easy-learning/h...
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#87Seems very self-evident/obvious. In real life, soft, round things make soft, muted sounds. Sharp things make higher pitched, shorter sounds. The sounds of bouba and kiki reflects this.
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.
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#88Niki Bourbaki is the name of a very well balanced multiperson.
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#89The most we can say is that some languages (notably NOT mandarin Chinese with ~1 billion native speakers, so the idea that it's ingrained in all humans is laughable at best) have a preference for giving the long bou and boo sound to rounder objects and the shorter ki and ka sounds to sharper objects, and that language affects our naming preference.
Most languages, including some without writing system, but not Mandarin Chinese, indeed.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.039...
Chinese/English speakers also seem to map the shapes differently to tone contours: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
(Note that this article contains some tangible object instantiation of the bouba/kiki forms.)
Re: Bouba/kiki effect
#90These have entered our common household vocabulary after I called one of our houseplants "a little too kiki for my liking" and was forced to explain. Humans love categories, it's great to have names for splits like this :)