[HN Gopher] Bouba/Kiki Effect
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Bouba/Kiki Effect
Author : thunderbong
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-07-19 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| beebmam wrote:
| I first learned about this effect from Hempuli, the developer of
| the game "Baba Is You".
|
| It turns out that "Baba" and "Keke", two named objects that the
| player can control, were named after this effect! Hempuli talked
| about this during one of their twitch streams many months back.
|
| (I can't say enough wonderful things about this game)
| alserio wrote:
| That's exactly what I was wondering. Thank you. And I agree
| with you, Baba is you is awesome! I really like Hempuli touch
| also in Noita.
| wk0 wrote:
| Cool to see this on HN -- I wrote a program for a psych lab in
| college that was exploring this effect. The idea was to see if
| homogenous sensory stimuli had a faster reaction time & accuracy
| compared to disparate ones.
|
| eg. Was the response to [ Bouba-like image + Bouba-like audio ]
| faster/more accurate than [ Bouba-like image + Kiki-like audio ]
|
| Seemed like it may provide some insight into speech perception
| and synesthesia.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest that the kiki /bouba effect has
| implications for the evolution of language, because it suggests
| that the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary._
|
| Well, no shit - that's why we refer to onomatopoeia, a word which
| probably has far wider currency than others of similar provenance
| like poiesis.
|
| I'll add a conjecture that similar disparities exist in vowels,
| with _e_ and _i_ being considered slender while _a_ , _o_ , and
| _u_ are considered broad.
| renewiltord wrote:
| > _Well, no shit,..._
|
| It is fascinating how many science grants we could save on if
| we just asked HN commenters to describe the world. To think
| that we might have reached such knowledge about human beings by
| just asking HN to tell us about the world.
|
| Eat your heart out, Karl Popper. It appears that Keats wins the
| day.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Consulting people who are intuitively skilled in some area
| can often be a good way to get a head start on understanding
| a problem. Given the seeming universality of imitation in
| humans, the assumption of complete arbitrariness actually
| seems like the bolder claim.
| renewiltord wrote:
| The strange thing is that many of these people seem to be
| unable to make predictions a priori, choosing to use their
| knowledge only for confirmation. If only humanity could
| harness their intellect and knowledge for search rather
| than confirmation.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| You jest, but there's some sobering truth to the reality that
| knowledge is not readily distributed amongst humanity.
|
| Some here in the US were searching for organic solutions to
| eliminating plastic waste, but there was a whole demographic
| that said, "Well, duh" when it was discovered that a
| particular worm ate plastic. For them it was just a part of
| observational life.
| Exuma wrote:
| Wow!!! I've thought my whole life about this at random
| moments....... when I was a very little kid, maybe 5-10 I used to
| say certain words and I would get a very intense visualization
| that would go along with it. The visualization was never of the
| actual object, but some bizarre shape or pattern, and it would
| always be the same when I would say that word.
|
| For example the world "girl" would visualize a head of hair with
| these brown slender shapes that would surround the head and move
| upwards.
|
| It's really crazy it actually has a name. I noticed as I get
| older it no longer happens, but I remember it used to happen
| incredibly intensely when I was young.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Makes me wonder if young children generally have some form of
| Synesthesia, when the brain still develops, that then subsides
| in most adults.
|
| While I had practically forgotten it until you mentioned it, I
| had similar experiences, for example the french song "au clair
| de la lune" always evoked the same, very vivid (but rather
| abstract) picture in my mind. To my child mind, it was so
| intense that the song _was_ that picture to me.
|
| Nowadays this doesn't happen...
| armoredkitten wrote:
| I have no idea if there's research directly linking the two
| areas together, but what you're describing sounds more like a
| form of synesthesia than this more general effect. When I think
| of "bouba" and "kiki" I don't have any mental
| visualization...it's just that if I see these shapes and have
| to name them, one pairing feels a little more "right" than the
| other. Having mental visualizations associated with particular
| words, letters, musical notes, etc. is synesthesia. It's also
| very, very cool. And I guess the article does note near the
| bottom that there may be some relationship. But the bouba/kiki
| effect is definitely more widespread than synesthesia.
| schoen wrote:
| What you experienced might also be more similar to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia, since the bouba/kiki
| experiments are mostly about people judging the quality of a
| match between sounds and _pre-prepared_ images, rather than
| having them spontaneously visualize images based on the sounds.
|
| Many synesthetes experience a consistent match between words or
| sounds and visualizations, but not necessarily the same pairing
| that other people do.
| haecceity wrote:
| I don't get it? What's the significance of this? I thought the
| left one is bam/pow and the right one is a blob?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is a binary choice, either you call the left shape bouba and
| the right shape kiki, or you call the left shape kiki and the
| right shape bouba, you can't use any other name.
|
| The interesting part is that everyone gives the same answer,
| regardless of culture and language.
| alok99 wrote:
| From the article: Without being told which shape was which,
|
| > 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged
| one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches
| abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way
|
| So apart from visually impaired (from birth) people, we may
| have a pattern in mapping shapes to phonemes.
| saberdancer wrote:
| My guess is that the shape of our mouth/tongue makes us
| choose "bouba" for the rounded shape.
| haecceity wrote:
| Why did I choose something else??
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| QI had a look at this about 12 years ago[0].
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDxajXekbaM
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This is how I remember numbers, spelling, and names sometimes. A
| sequence of numbers has a nice plot / wave to it. I can't say my
| mapping from these categories to shapes generalizes for anyone
| else and it hasn't made me particularly good at memory
| competitions. It's just how it works.
|
| Also, memorizing a couple of credit card's information has saved
| me so much time -- highly recommended.
| codezero wrote:
| This is intriguing, can you describe in more detail how you map
| a series of numbers to a shape/sound?
|
| like is 1234 a slope /
|
| ?
| jraph wrote:
| It sounds like synesthesia. Some people see the year as ring-
| shaped in their head. The "visualization" is consistent
| during the lifetime and can help memorizing dates.
|
| I don't have this, though I do have a consistent
| "visualization" of numbers under one hundred (and, yes,
| months, and days of months, and weeks) since very young.
| Probably helps a bit to memorize some stuff, though I can't
| compare with the same me deprived of this view. I'm not great
| at remembering birthdays but not terrible either.
|
| People with such visualizations don't even always realize not
| all people see them the same way, or at all for that matter.
| nirav72 wrote:
| does it always have to be a ring? I've always imagined a
| year vertically/top down. Each month a slice. Also alphabet
| letters in color. Each letter having a distinct color.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Do you have synesthesia? The alphabet color thing is a
| common marker of it
| codezero wrote:
| Nope, it doesn't need to be a ring.
|
| I was deep into synesthesia stuff when I worked at UCSD
| and had a friend participate in an experiment at VS
| Ramachandran's lab and one of the neat things is that a
| lot of the commonalities are culturally or temporally
| specific.
|
| Many of the people with numeric synesthesia use a ring
| because they resemble CLOCKS! 1-12 is a common pattern
| and most people with synesthesia that grew up with this
| kind of clock have the same pattern for the first 12
| numbers, but after that they tend to have their own
| patterns they develop.
|
| This is true for other forms of synesthesia as well,
| there's not a single "way" but more a categorical set of
| shared characteristics, usually derived from their
| surroundings, as this isn't something people get taught
| to manage or take advantage of, but some folks naturally
| do. It's truly fascinating.
|
| It sounds like you grew up with more calendars than round
| clocks, or an agenda/diary of some sort, or maybe it
| comes from something else - think about it, I'd love to
| know if you can place it!
|
| It definitely sounds like you have some form of
| synesthesia.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't have enough colors in my head to fill a whole
| alphabet.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yes. In fact there's almost no "entropy" to remember in 1234
| because it perfectly matches a 45 deg slope. I just have to
| remember it starts at ground and has length 4.
|
| A seq like 1244 has a bit more entropy with the "bump" where
| the 3 should be, so it's easier to see it as a slope of
| length 2 starting at 12, or some "busy-beaver" like sequence
| that starts gradual and curves rapidly up to 44. The bump at
| 3 seems most natural.
|
| A long sequence of numbers looks like monotonically
| increasing groups or strings, and the curve is easy to
| remember. Is it a log-like plot, a hyperbolic curve,
| parabola, saw tooth, line, etc? I usually end up finding a
| curve that has fewer deviations and matches the numbers
| nicely. I just have to remember how long each sequence was.
|
| Like this:
|
| 1234567788100
|
| is
|
| 1/7, length 7. 77/99, length 3, except +1 where the 99 should
| be. It's kind of clumsy with text, easier with pictures and
| dots, like seeing wood grain or stars. All you need is the
| "origin" coordinate frame. There's still numbers, but the
| lines help keep the memory of the relationship more natural.
|
| Words are the same. Sounds angle up and down and squiggle
| back sometimes. It's why my handwriting is so terrible I
| think. Probably this is how shorthand was developed, so I
| don't think it's all that unique to me.
|
| From there, numbers->sounds is easy enough but never helped
| me remember things. What helps is the ridge-lines and
| parabolas.
| codezero wrote:
| It sounds like you've got some form of synesthesia!
|
| I can totally understand what you're saying but there's no
| way I could apply it to a series of numbers, maybe not even
| if I practiced.
|
| Did you always have this feeling with numbers, or was it
| practiced at all? It feels like what you're describing is a
| natural visualization you've developed and it also sounds a
| lot more powerful than something one might practice.
| matsemann wrote:
| A Norwegian newspaper did a deep dive a few years ago about how
| people visualize the year. Crazy how different people are, I
| ended up in discussions with many people during that week
| hearing lots of different variations. Your description of waves
| reminded me about it, since it's almost how I view time. Like a
| sinus wave where the valley is the summer. But zoomable with
| smaller waves so the months and weeks also are waves on top of
| the big wave.
|
| https://nrkbeta.no/2018/01/01/this-is-what-the-year-actually...
| robbie-c wrote:
| As someone who has trouble remembering which way round Type 1 and
| Type 2 decisions are defined, I have started calling them Bouba
| and Kiki decisions.
|
| It doesn't help whatsoever but it does wind up my cofounder ;)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Type X where X is the number of ways through the door.
|
| Type 1 is a one way door, no return!
|
| Type 2 is a 2 way door.
|
| I'd probably label type 1 a kiki (a pointy decision ...
| beware!)
| [deleted]
| gfaure wrote:
| There's a Tom Scott video about this with some further academic
| references: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDIAObsqcs
|
| Bouba/kiki is most likely a specific instance of the more general
| notion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism. Another
| well-known cross-linguistic association is the one between front
| vowels and small objects on one hand, and back vowels and large
| objects on the other.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| 'Symbolism' is a terrible word to describe something like this.
| Symbols are convention and can change. This is the opposite -
| an innate cross-sensory connection that will not change.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Does a lion symbolize something fierce? The Book of Isaiah
| notwithstanding, I doubt that symbol will change.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| A lion IS something fierce. But only its use in western
| history make it a symbol of that. There's plenty of other
| fierce creatures (e.g. an orca, a crocadile, a poisonous
| frog) that wouldn't conjure the same symbolism.
| hyperpape wrote:
| It's structurally the same. You can choose a lion, a
| wolf, a shark, etc, but it is not arbitrary that you
| choose some such animal to symbolize ferocity, and not a
| rabbit.
|
| There's some bias to associate sounds with particular
| images or concepts, but we have different languages
| because we don't choose the same words.
|
| If anything, the consistency of symbolism is much greater
| than inter-linguistic consistency of how words sound.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| I don't understand what point you are trying to make. You
| seem to have made exactly mine. Symbolism is a choice.
| The Bouba/Kiki thing is not.
| P-ala-din wrote:
| I just watched this video a few hours ago because youtube
| randomly recommended it to me.
|
| I wonder if it's just the Baader-Meinhof effect or if the post
| was caused by the same youtube algorithm.
| kanbara wrote:
| i would use the term frequency illusion, as baader-meinhof
| refers to a specific instance of someone who coined the term,
| and are members of a former west german left extremist
| terrorist group which actually killed people. pretty weird
| that it continues to be in use, it'd be as if we discovered
| this effect today and called it the taliban effect or the
| stalin gulag effect.
| kgarten wrote:
| Why? yes they should be remembered for the atrocities they
| did ... why change the name?
|
| I'm always worried that if we engage in this type of
| cancelling we will end up with vilification and people will
| forget that Stalin and Hitler were also just people (and
| not evil looking demons).
|
| The Taliban got a dedication on an Apollo mission and in
| one of the Rambo movies ... now these things tend to be
| forgotten. It's always better to remember and remind people
| about the potential of evil we (you and me) can do to other
| people. Leave the name, yet make sure that the article and
| every mention refers also to the R A F.
| sedivy94 wrote:
| I see nothing wrong with the examples you provide.
| Zababa wrote:
| I've seen a few time things like that, you often see short
| and weird videos in the millions of views with everyone
| saying in the comments that they came suddenly due to the
| algorithm. I've always had this theory that at some people
| people (or machines) realized that it's easier to push
| everyone to have the same tastes compared to catering to
| every single niche. I think it's an extension of that.
| wyager wrote:
| Bouba/Kiki are onomatopoeia for the sounds objects of those
| shapes are liable to make if you drop them or otherwise
| physically interact with them. Bouba is probably soft/flexible
| and Kiki is probably hard/rigid.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| There is no inherent association with shape and substance.
| Leaves/flowers can be pointy like the kiki shape and fall
| softly and limply, whereas rocks are ubiquitous, round, and
| solid.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Leaves and flowers are still mostly curvy. I can't think of
| anything soft that has straight lines meeting at sharp
| angles. Rigidity is physically necessary for maintaining that
| shape long term.
|
| On the other side, you rarely see rocks with extended round
| parts meeting at sharp, concave angles. A lot if not most
| things that look like that are soft.
|
| It's not a perfect correlation, but it does seem like a real
| one to me.
| starfallg wrote:
| The association is with how the sounds are vocalised and the
| shapes we make with our mouths.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Perhaps it's the sound they make when they're eaten?
|
| Bouba sounds like something that doesn't require a lot of
| chewing.
| arexxbifs wrote:
| Heston Blumenthal once likened nachos to Kiki and sourcream
| to Bouba when picking condiments for chili.
| wyager wrote:
| 99.9% of concave rocks are pointy, not smooth. Almost no
| rocks look like bouba.
|
| Very few leaves look like Kiki. Most are rounded. Leaves also
| aren't the kind of physical objects you would typically
| interact with physically as a baby learning about kinematics.
| growup12345 wrote:
| So either I have autism, or this is complete bogus research
| howaboutnope wrote:
| I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned already:
|
| http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Series_4/23.htm
| jxramos wrote:
| I've wondered if languages which "score" well in leveraging this
| sort of mapping just make it easier to juggle complex subjects by
| using more "efficient" parts of our mental stack that position
| conversation to go deeper on any point of interest just because
| it's less energy intensive or something along those lines.
| Something akin to a mental locality of concepts if you will.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect#Implications...
| arketyp wrote:
| I wonder to what extent intra-language selection of synesthetic
| words occur along these lines when there are competing
| synonyms/alleles. Onomatopoetic words could be favored for
| instance, but also words that in _written_ form look like the
| thing they 're describing, e.g. (from the top of _my_ head):
| "bomb", "locomotive", "ghost", "teeth" etc.
| jxramos wrote:
| ps it's a joy to watch VS Ramachandran get excited about
| synesthesia, definitely worth hunting down videos of him on
| YouTube.
| horse666 wrote:
| Yes, absolutely! I loved listening to the Reith lectures
| many, many years ago, when Vilayanur Ramachandran gave them.
| You can still listen to them here,
| http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/
|
| In Lecture 4 (Purple Numbers and Sharp Cheese) he talks about
| the Kiki / Bouba effect. His enunciation is amazing.
| incrudible wrote:
| Bouba... a woody sort of word.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulNWr-yBWP8
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