Talk:Bouba/kiki effect

Uncited, unrelated fact

The following quote was removed from the article: "A similar experiment draws from feminine and masculine qualities that the human brain associates with numbers. Subjects were given two numbers: a 9 and an 11, and were asked which one seems feminine and which seems masculine. The majority of the subjects chose 9 as the one that portrayed feminine characteristics, but for unknown reasons." While interesting, there was no citation, and it doesn't seem immediately related to the article at hand. I took it out, and I think we should keep it out until someone can find some more information and a citation. Webster100 (talk) 18:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Bouba/kiki effect in popular culture

This effect can be found in the childrens' picture book "Mr Pod and Mr Piccalilli" by Penny Dolan and Nick Sharratt. Mr Pod's apartment features round-shaped furniture and a plump cat, and Mr Pod is also round shaped. Mr Piccallili's flat has furnishings that are more elongated, fancy and ornate, and his cat looks (frankly) underfed, and he is tall and slim. This effect is obviously deliberate, and adds to the appeal of the story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.201.103 (talk) 15:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment

The article would be more powerful if a fuller description of the experiment were given. In particular the range of cultures the subjects were drawn from; only Tenerife, and English and Tamil speakers are mentioned.

Somewhat related, I read somewhere speculation that Mickey Mouse the cartoon character did well because of his round features, while Felix the Cat, with his sharp ears and whiskers, was a subconscious turn-off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rfinchdavis (talk • contribs) 22:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

OR: Obvious Research

"The rounded shape may most commonly be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound kiki."

Oh come on! Due to Wikipedia's restrictions against original research, no one is allowed to point out what should be one very very obvious fact: The Spanish island in question would be more than familiar with the Latin alphabet, in Spanish "B" and "K" are pronounced the same as in English, and, well, "B" is a round, bubbly letter and "K" is a sharp, pointy, angular one. The "bouba" shape could not be assembled out of Ks, but a reasonable facsimile could be constructed out of rotated, overlapped Bs, while the converse is also true.

Do this experiment off the coast of China or Korea, preferably in an area with a low literacy rate and little exposure to western writing, and I'll be more inclined to believe it. Or, for a counter-experiment, make a shape that appears to be constructed out of cursive lowercase non-looped 'h's. Give the names "Hohu" and "Nnunu" and ask collections of westerners and Japanese which they see. I hypothesise that the Japanese will be inclined towards "Nnunu" while the westerners will be inclined towards "Hohu" simply because the westerners will see the shape as an 'h' and the Japanese will see it as a 'ん' 173.12.172.149 (talk) 01:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

How would your argument about the Roman alphabet account for the findings with Tamil speakers? Or with children who, at 2 1/2 years of age, still cannot yet read? Edhubbard (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not distrust the veracity of these tests, but I can't believe that those at 2 1/2 years can't read... -RadicalOne---Contact Me 23:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that the obvious answer was missed by the researchers. It is not the shape of the mouth, but the shape of the sound. The sound "kiki" is composed of two very sharp accents. Drop the kiki object and you'd hear crackles and crunches. Whereas "bouba" the sound is much less compressed. Drop the bouba and you'd hear a thud or a plop. In other words, "kiki" mimics both the sharp shape of the sound of the word kiki and the nature of the sound if you dropped a sharp object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.97.46 (talk) 05:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But why is the sound of "kiki" described as "sharp"? And why is the shape of the letter B round? And why is the shape of the letter K pointed? The Bouba - Kiki Effect! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.166.229.46 (talk) 13:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The letter C is round and makes the sound of a K ;) --Frantik (talk) 14:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This is most definitely original research, but the key to the bouba/kiki effect is the shape of the soundwave, i.e. how the amplitude of the sound varies in time. This is the graph (obtained with Audacity) of a recording of my voice, saying "bouba" (the part on the left) and "kiki" (the part on the right). The horizontal axis represents time; the vertical axis represents the amplitude of the sound. Note how the variations in amplitude are much more gradual in the "bouba" sound, just like the variations in direction of the line that makes up the corresponding shape are gradual and produce gentle curves. On the other hand, the amplitude changes much more quickly in the "kiki" sound, just like the direction of the lines that make up the corresponding shape changes abruptly and produces acute angles. Devil Master (talk) 09:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Latin bulbus <-> Greek bolbós onion, bulbous plant. Try three shapes

with kiki and touda, for instance, sharp shape and a shape with square edges. I think you'll find the association of bouba with the rounded shape remains consistently above 50% but the other sounds, not so much. This is not original. 150.199.103.241 (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Special People

More specifically, the vibrational modes of an object depend on its shape, and sharp objects have some modes with higher frequencies, which give the sharper sound. Note from that, we attach the word "sharp" to higher frequencies, and "flat" (in English, anyway) to lower frequencies. I was about to discuss this on a signal processing discussion page, but then a web search found this page. I first heard about this in the context of autism, but it is interesting that it is more general. Note even that the sound of a dropped rock will depend on its shape, so no need to depend on modern devices. Gah4 (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

"Kiki" looks like the letter "K", and "Bouba" looks like the letter "B"

Has the similarity of the "kiki" shape to the shape of the letter "K", as well as the similarity of "bouba" to shape of the letter "B", been proposed as an explanation for association of these shapes with these sounds? This might provide a straightforward explanation for this phenomenon, at least in the case of people who use the Roman alphabet. Jarble (talk) 03:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

It's been proposed, and rejected. For example, this works not only for English speakers, but also for Tamil speakers, and people in Namibia. It also works for (Canadian) children as young as 2 1/2 years old, who cannot read yet. See above for the same points. To turn the problem on it's head, why did we choose the letter K to represent the /k/, and B to represent the /b/ sound? Is it that the basic ability to make these cross-modal associations pre-dates the invention of the alphabet, and perhaps biased the creative process so that the sounds and letter shapes go together? Edhubbard (talk) 12:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

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Kiki/Bouba experiment

did 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran paper (second paragraph) did repeated the experiment? I couldn't find any detailes in the paper cited. the only clue was this sentence in a comment: Our results again confirm these findings with a different set of stimuli and different names. but I couldn't find any other place in the paper describing that experiment, and not the details in this wikipedia page (American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers)... Am I missing anything?

Role of childhood vision in the development of bouba/kiki effect

Information to be added or removed:

After the second paragraph: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes (1,2,3). A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes (3). However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness (3).

Explanation of issue: The role of vision in developing bouba/kiki effect (known under the broader name of sound-shape associations), has been shown in three recent studies. This is especially fascinating since in congenitally blind people, the effect for touched shape is an association between touch and hearing, which seems to depend on vision!

I cannot make the edits myself, since I am one the authors of the third study and therefore have a conflict of interest. We also found an extended sensitive period for the development of this effect - this was possible to investigate because we had persons who were born with or developed cataracts and then regained vision through surgery.

References supporting change:

1. Fryer, L., Freeman, J., & Pring, L. (2014). Touching words is not enough: How visual experience influences haptic-auditory associations in the “Bouba-Kiki” effect. Cognition, 132, 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.015

2. Hamilton-Fletcher, G., Pisanski, K., Reby, D., Stefanczyk, M., Ward, J., & Sorokowska, A. (2018). The role of visual experience in the emergence of cross-modal correspondences. Cognition, 175, 114–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.023

3. Sourav, S., Kekunnaya, R., Shareef, I., Banerjee, S., Bottari, D., & Röder, B. (2019). A Protracted Sensitive Period Regulates the Development of Cross-Modal Sound–Shape Associations in Humans. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625

134.100.162.175 (talk) 15:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav

Reply 20-SEP-2019

  Clarification requested  

• Two of the suggested sources have been provided with page ranges rather than exact pages where the information resides. These page ranges collectively exceed 16 pages in length — with 15 of those pages being offered as references for only two sentences of proposed text.
• The third reference, which contains ten pages, has no page number provided.
• When ready to proceed with the requested information, kindly change the {{request edit}} template's answer parameter to read from |ans=yes to |ans=no. Thank you!
  

Regards,  Spintendo  23:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Reply 23-SEP-2019

Thank you for your reply. The information supporting the two lines are in the abstracts of all three paper - that is, page 1.

• "Presented with shapes they could feel but not see, sighted participants showed a robust "Bouba-Kiki" effect. However, in a sample of people with a range of visual impairments, from congenital total blindness to partial sight, the effect was significantly less pronounced." [1, p.1]
• "Examining five auditory-tactile correspondences, we show that only one requires visual experience to emerge (pitch-shape)" [2, p. 1]. Please note that there are other kinds of associations between senses other than sound-shape associations that might not need visual input to emerge.
• "[...] we investigated the role of visual experience in the development of audiovisual and audiohaptic sound–shape associations (SSAs) using a unique set of five groups: individuals who had suffered a transient period of congenital blindness through congenital bilateral dense cataracts before undergoing cataract-reversal surgeries (CC group), individuals with a history of developmental cataracts (DC group), individuals with congenital permanent blindness (CB group), individuals with late permanent blindness (LB group), and controls with typical sight (TS group). Whereas the TS and LB groups showed highly robust SSAs, the CB, CC, and DC groups did not—in any of the modality combinations tested. These results provide evidence for a protracted sensitive period during which aberrant vision prevents SSA acquisition. Moreover, the finding of a systematic SSA in the LB group demonstrates that representations acquired during the sensitive period are resilient to loss despite dramatically changed experience." [3, p. 1].
  
  Like the other references in the article, however, we would be grateful if the references were not cited by page number - this would be conformant to APA recommendations. Put in another way, the two lines to be added are not direct quotations and should therefore cite whole articles. 134.100.162.175 (talk) 10:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav

Reply 23-SEP-2019

With regards to the first 2 sources, there is no conflict of interest in using them, as the COI editor had no input in their production. Thus the information which is sourced by all three references may be added by the COI editor themselves by using just two of the references (e.g., the text which states: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes). Everything after A systematic effect.. will need to be added by a third party, as that information is referenced only by the COI editor's article. For that information to be reviewed, page numbers need to be provided. Please advise when ready to proceed. Regards,  Spintendo  11:18, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Notes

References

Reply 23-SEP-2019

Thank you for the feedback. I have now added the first two references, and the first sentence. I reckon I might have confused the page request for the third article: it is an electronic article for now, also known as an epub ahead of print. The article number serves the purpose of page numbers as an identifier inside the journal (0956797619866625, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625). The page numbers inside the article (in pdf version, available on the article site under a CC-BY license or directly at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797619866625) are:

• Page 1: Abstract: reports absence of bouba/kiki effect in groups of individuals who have suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood and in a congenitally blind group, and its presence in a late blind group.
• Page 3: Reports the participant characteristics and establishes the basis for 12 years of vision.
• Pages 5 and 6: Reports the results.

134.100.162.175 (talk) 12:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav

The pdf page number would be sufficient. The key here is that the information provided should not force the reader to read the entire 10 pages to confirm the information in the claim. If the purpose is to have the article be read in its entirety as an option for the Wikipedia reader, then a link to the article could be placed in a Further reading section. If that is your wish, please propose it here on the talk page under a new edit request. Regards,  Spintendo  06:06, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. If the reference section links to the page, like https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797619866625#page=5, and mentions the page in a parameter then a further reading section would probably not be necessary. The reader can scroll the article to read it completely if they want.
134.100.162.175 (talk) 12:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav

 Not done The cumulative claims made in the requested prose do not appear on pdf page #5 of the reference in question. Those claims are the following, shown below in bold font:

A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes. However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness.

Regards,  Spintendo  19:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Reply 25-SEP-2019

The PDF indeed linked to the starting page of the results section. Here are the precise page and line numbers in the pdf file behind the claims, now self-contained without needing to consult the reply on 23rd September:

• "A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts.": These two groups are the congenital (CC) and developmental cataract (DC) groups (Description: Page 3, Table 1, entries: CC and DC). That they suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood is mentioned for CC group in abstract (lines 3-5), and follows from the definition as well: "[...]individuals who had suffered a transient period of congenital blindness through congenital bilateral dense cataracts before undergoing cataract-reversal surgeries (CC group)". For the DC group: Page 2, paragraph 6, lines 15-17: "All DC participants tested in the present study had suffered from markedly degraded vision before the age of 12 years." That a systematic effect was missing in these two groups, along with the congenitally blind group tested (justifying the "also"): Page 1, Abstract, lines 7-8: "Whereas the TS and LB groups showed highly robust SSAs, the CB, CC, and DC groups did not—in any of the modality combinations tested." (TS: typically sighted group, LB: late blind group, CB: congenitally blind group. Page 3, Table 1). SSA: Sound-Shape Association, Page 1, Abstract, lines 2-3.
• "However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age[...]": Page 3, Table 1 (Participant details), entry LB: "Late permanently blind individuals with blindness onset after the age of 12 years".
• "[...]show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals,": Page 7, paragraph 2, lines 7-9: "Crucially, LB individuals showed a significant SSA-H indistinguishable from that of the TS group." TS: Typically sighted (Page 3, Table 1 (participant details), entry TS. SSA-H: Sound-Shape Association with haptic shapes (Page 5, §Statistical Analysis, paragraph 2, lines 1-3: "All five groups (CC, DC, CB, LB, and TS) took part in the sound–haptic-shape-association (SSA-H) condition." Additionally, I propose that the word "show" be changed to "showed"
• "indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness.": Page 8, paragraph 4, lines 5-7: "At the same time, we provided evidence that prolonged blindness with an onset after this sensitive period fails to abolish SSAs[...]". SSA: Sound-Shape Association (Page 1, Abstract, line 3). Also, page 7, paragraph 2, lines 29-33: "[...]a typical or high visual capability must exist over a protracted developmental phase to elaborate and stabilize cross-modal correspondences such as SSAs; once acquired, these representations seem to be resilient to changing visual environments."
  
  The claim is additionally supported by the data of Hamilton-Fletcher et al. (2018), reanalyzed in our article, and I suggest that their article should be mentioned in this line as well. Page 7, paragraph 5, lines 11-14 in Sourav et al. (2019): "Including only LB individuals with blindness onset after 12 years of age (N=23), we found a robust SSA-H response that was indistinguishable from the SSA-H of the TS group[...]". See also: https://twitter.com/Gilouxy/status/1169700911440175108

134.100.162.175 (talk) 12:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav

Reply 25-SEP-2019

The information you've provided above makes it clear that the claims you wish to add to the article constitute a significant part of your research. Pinging @Drmies: for their input on this. To Drmies: The COI editor would like to add claims from an article they've written. My question asks how much of the article's findings need be reproduced here and whether or not WP:MEDRS applies. Thank you in advance for any input you can offer. Regards,  Spintendo  02:54, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know why you are asking me, Spintendo--I don't edit such articles. Drmies (talk) 03:04, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  My apologies, I wasn't asking you to edit the article, only to offer any input you thought might be helpful. Since the loss of Jytdog I've been without an editor that I trust to go to in order to seek advice on science articles. Sorry to disturb, and thank you for your time. Regards,  Spintendo  05:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  Spintendo, I'm staying out of MEDRS. No apology necessary--this just is not my expertise. I always ping Doc James, who's probably tired of hearing from me by now. (How's it going, Doc?) Drmies (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  Pinging @Mindmatrix: for their input on this request. Regards,  Spintendo  05:36, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  I appreciate the ping, but psychology isn't really my area of expertise. Perhaps you can try some of the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology, which has a long list of participants, many of whom are still active on Wikipedia. Or just notify the project by leaving a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology. Mindmatrix 11:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  So WP:RS states secondary sources should be used. These are primary sources.

  We have recent books that cover the topic

  https://books.google.ca/books?id=UMuvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13

  https://books.google.ca/books?id=tJCuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79

  Text also needs to be adjusted per WP:MEDMOS Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  I must have confused the two doctors here and meant to originally ping Doc James instead of Drmies. I knew that one of you were MEDRS specialists, but forgot which one. I do apologize and thank Doc James for coming to the rescue here, and for Drmies and Mindmatrix in pointing me in the right direction. Warm regards,  Spintendo  18:55, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

  To the COI editor: If I'm correct, what the feedback from Doc James is saying is that we can't use your report because yours is a primary source, whereas secondary sources are to be preferred (two of which Doc James has provided) and that the wording of these findings (along with the article itself) needs to align with Wikipedia's Manual of Style for Medicine-related articles. If the COI editor still wishes to continue improving this article, I will leave it to them to edit it along those lines, as they would not fall under a conflict of interest with respect to using any of these other secondary sources. Regards,  Spintendo  19:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Notes

Ramachandran and Hubbard 2001

I reinserted the {{failed verification}} tag to the following quote:

In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both groups, 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.

References

It was initially added by 㓟 in this edit, and removed by Goldragon979 in this edit with the edit summary Reference was indeed contained in the mentioned document (page 17). I don't see anything in the PDF above to back up the claims in that paragraph, on page 17 or elsewhere.

This paragraph was first added by Edhubbard in this edit with the edit notice copying and editing text from the synesthesia to begin expansion of this page, to make it more complete. In the following edit, he added the reference to the J. Conscious. Stud. paper yielding the paragraph:

In tests conducted with both English and Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% picked the curvy shape as bouba and the jagged one as kiki, suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds.

References

This user is one of the co-authors of that paper, so they would presumably know the results they got, but I'm not seeing anything in this paper about doing this experiment on Tamil speakers or getting results of 95%–98%. The closest thing I can find in this paper is the last sentence on this footnote on page 19:

First, consider stimuli like those shown in figure 7, originally developed by Köhler (1929; 1947) and further explored by Werner (1934; 1957; Werner & Wapner, 1952). If you show fig. 7 (left and right) to people and say ‘In Martian language, one of these two figures is a “bouba” and the other is a “kiki”, try to guess which is which’, 95% of people pick the left as kiki and the right as bouba, even though they have never seen these stimuli before.

Notes

It was also Edhubbard who added the information about the subjects being American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India in this edit after Kingturtle added a {{who}} tag.

So it seems that a certain Wikipedia editor is using their own knowledge of an experiment they ran to edit this article rather than any sort of reference to published, peer-reviewed papers, which violates WP:VERIFY. It's strange to me because this article gets not infrequently as if it shows that Tamil and English speakers performed as predicted 95% to 98% of the time, but I'm really not seeing that statement explicitly stated in this paper. If I happened to miss something, please let me know. Umimmak (talk) 18:20, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Köhler’s book does not mention experiments in Tenerife. He cites Dimitri Usnadse in regards to the experiment.

“The bouba/kiki effect was first observed by German American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In psychological experiments first conducted on the island of Tenerife (where the primary language is Spanish, Köhler showed forms similar to those shown at the right and asked participants which shape was called „takete“ and which was called „baluba“ („maluma“ in the 1947 version)”

This claim from the section “Discovery”, which is repeated in more recent literature on the subject, is not substantiated by the two references given here. Neither in the first, nor in the second edition of his book does Köhler describe actually having done the experiment with participants, let alone in Tenerife (the only mention of Tenerife in the entire book is when Köhler describes the first time he experienced an earthquake). Instead, he describes it as an “example of his own construction” (which to me sounds like he means a “thought experiment”).

From the first edition: “But we may construct another example. If, looking at these two figures (18 and 19), the reader is asked to choose which he would rather call "takete" or "maluma," he will probably be able to decide with ease.”

From the second edition: “Another example is of my own construction: when asked to match the nonsense words "takete" and "maluma" with the two patterns shown as Figs. 18 and 19, most people answer without any hesitation. In primitive languages one actually finds evidence for the thesis that the names of things and events, which are visually or tactually perceived, have often originated on the basis of such resemblances.”

If there is a source where Köhler describes actually conducting the experiment (whether in Tenerife or elsewhere), it must be added here.

Also, note how in the fifth printing of the first edition (from 1930), which is the one linked in the article, he already writes “maluma”, not “baluba”, as the article seems to claim when it points out that it is “‘maluma’ in the 1947 version”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A04:4540:653D:9500:C9EC:FC89:82AA:B439 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

In his book, Köhler does not claim to have discovered this effect: In both editions he refers to a paper by Dimitri Usnadse in a footnote to the sentences quoted above: “Ein experimenteller Beitrag zum Problem der psychologischen Grundlagen der Namengebung. Psychologische Forschung 1924, Bd. 5(1-2), S. 24–43.”, which can be read here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210861794.pdf

In the (German language) paper, Usnadse describes having actually done a similar experiment with 10 (Georgian) participants (in 1924, five years before Köhler). They were given a list with nonsense words and then shown 6 drawings for 5 seconds each, and then had to pick a name for the drawing from the list of given words (p. 27). He describes the different “strategies” participants developed to match words to drawings and quotes their reasoning. He also describes situations where participants described very specific forms that they associated with a nonsense word, without reference to the shown drawings. He develops a theory of four factors that influence the way names for objects are decided.

In total there were 42 words (32% if these were never picked). It’s not quite clear to me whether participants were given all words in the beginning or a shorter list for each drawing. There is a table that documents the percentage of participants that picked the most often picked name for a given drawing (for drawing 1, 45% picked the same word; 2: 40%, 3: 25%, 4: 40%, 5: 38%, 6: 40%) (p. 41). Usnadse points out that this is significantly more overlap than one could expect, given the high number of possible words. He speculates that there must therefore be certain regularities “which the human soul follows in the process of name-giving“.

It seems to me, that given Köhler’s unspecific descriptions, Usnadse ought to be credited with the discovery at least as much – his experiment seems to be far more rigorous than Köhler’s. At the very least, his contributions should be added to the article.

2A04:4540:6539:C000:CDCA:7C45:8763:E6FC (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

References

spectral analysis of sounds and shapes

This would be WP:OR if I actually did any R, but consider this. Cut two shapes out of a metal sheet, and drop them on a hard floor. Make one sharp and points, the other more rounded. Consider the difference in the sounds. The sharp one will generally have much high frequency components generating by modes in the points, where the rounded ones will not have such high frequencies. Many languages give sounds names that sound similar to the sound itself, such as boom and crack. And again, different sounds have different frequency components, which we notice. I suspect that most of us learn, subconsciously, the frequency spectrum of the sounds of different shapes. Also, letters are shaped based on the sounds that such shapes make, in some languages, anyway. Gah4 (talk) 05:46, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Percentages don't make sense

The summary of Uznadze's 1924 paper says, in part, "He conducted an experiment with 10 participants who were given a list with nonsense words [...] For one particular drawing, 45% picked the same word."

How could 45% of only 10 participants agree? 216.30.158.37 (talk) 12:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The lede currently gives bouba /ˈbuːbə/ and kiki /ˈkiːkiː/, with no citation. This seems like a fine way to say the words to me (although I personally feel the first word should be pronounced /ˈbow.bə/, like the tapioca pearls). However, I was looking through our cited sources and the first paper that uses exactly the words "bouba" and "kiki", and also describes how to pronounce them, seems to be https://web.archive.org/web/20110723035944/http://psych.mcmaster.ca/maurerlab/Publications/Maurer_bouba.pdf#page=2 which claims they are pronounced /ˈbuːbə/ and /ˈkejːkiː/? So maybe kiki is pronounced like "cakey". Maybe we ought to cite this paper up there and change the pronunciation guide to that. Dingolover6969 (talk) 13:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's interesting. Never the way I've heard it. Perhaps that's just the pronunciation used in this one study. Should we look for other sources? Wolfdog (talk) 14:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Not the most citeable, but: https://youglish.com/pronounce/kiki%20bouba/english. Wolfdog (talk) 14:28, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. I've actually never heard anyone pronounce it "cakey". I think the ideal situation would be, maybe, that we note it's pronounced /ˈkiːkiː/ (cite something) (parenthetical: or /ˈkejːkiː/ (cite study)). But I don't really know what to cite. Maybe this University of Birmingham taster lecture that Youglish starts out with is good enough. After all, it is a university professor giving a lecture. Dingolover6969 (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah. Any number of YouTubers are actually credible people/scholars who are pronouncing it. I think "cakey" has to be ignored unfortunately. Again, that pronunciation may have simply been deliberately over-emphasized for that one study in particular. Wolfdog (talk) 18:02, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Ignoring it is a solid option :).

The pronunciation is so rare (again, just going from my personal experience here) that, in terms of how you actually pronounce the word, it's basically just trivia that some other source once pronounced it a different way.

I think it may or may not be worth mentioning said trivia depending on the history of bouba/kiki research, which I don't really have the expertise to characterize myself. If this is just another study in a mass of bouba/kiki studies that we just mention as one of many, then the fact that they think kiki is pronounced cakey is not very significant and might even just be an error on their part. However, if this is "the study" that everybody in the contemporary period knows bouba/kiki from, and everybody just pronounces it "buuba/kiikii" despite the study's guidance, because (eg) people saw the headline result and thought "I know how to pronounce those two words, no problem, no need to check", then I think it would be worthwhile for the page to mention that in the paper it was originally pronounced cakey.

And I don't really know whether or not that's true. Dingolover6969 (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

No, it certainly is not THE study. THE study, I believe, is Ramachandran and Hubbard's 2001 "Synaesthesia" article, which shockingly provides no pronunciations for the two words! Wolfdog (talk) 21:24, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dingolover6969:: I just realized the Ćwiek et al. source provides phonetic transcriptions of a Polish speaker (also a trained phonetician) using the pronunciations [ˈbu:ba] and [ˈkʰikʰi] for their worldwide study... shockingly close to our English-specific pronunciations. Also, a transcription of a similar-sounding word to bouba in Romanian, [bubə], is also provided (literally a perfect English pronunciation for many of us). Wolfdog (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Whoa, that's great! Dingolover6969 (talk) 04:41, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: 'Crazy' Linguistically Rich Asian Languages

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2024 and 6 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bellyisthecutest, Jyagoda, Mayren777, Tarraw (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Esotericzz, Linguist891, MercailleCream.

— Assignment last updated by Esotericzz (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2024 (UTC)