Which is "Bouba", and which is "Kiki"? [video]

merelysounds 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fun fact for the fans of the “Baba Is You” game[1]:

> the naming of the characters Baba and Keke was inspired by the bouba/kiki effect.

Which makes a lot of sense for a game where meaning itself is one of the core gameplay elements. If you didn’t play that title yet and you enjoy puzzle games, try it.

[1]: Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Is_You

	▲	mnsc 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm in the later part of the game and I feel really stupid. Some levels are so small I feel like I can understand all possible strategies but none work. Lovely game overall though, highly recommend!

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basilikum 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here is the Wikipedia article about the phenomenon of the bouba–kiki effect if you prefer text form or want to know more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba%2Fkiki_effect

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viraptor 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One of my favourite nerdy jokes is that the Fourier transform is a bouba-kiki transform.

	▲	slfreference 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think this indicates the features from vision and audio got aligned properly and hence we know what is what intuitively.

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some1else 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Recently came across another video that demonstrates the effect

https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7CXKACDOY/

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BrenBarn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This phenomenon of "sound symbolism" has received a lot of research attention in the last 10 years or so. For a long time it was considered a curiosity at best, and a total red herring at worst, but a lot of evidence is accumulating that sound symbolic effects are very real and may have profound implications for our understanding of sensorimotor cognition.

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cung 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The shapes just look like the letters. K’s have sharp corners, B’s are round.

	▲	markburns 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That seems to me like it just shifts the problem one level. Why are K's and Kikis spiky and why are B's and Boubas round. Why is it universal too across people with different writing systems and languages.
	▲	canjobear 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The effect replicates in languages with other writing systems.
	▲	harperlee an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I think it is related to the physics of the mouth producing the sound, and we do a form of synesthesia: doing b-u-b seems (to me) quite smoother of a transition than k-i-k. If I stop blowing the u sound my lips close again; when I finish the i I have released the muscles and I need to hold again for the next k. It al feels more sudden an explosive with k. Also the b sound you voice it (otherwise it would be p).
	▲	chrismorgan 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		In Telugu, k is one of the smoother letters: కి (ki: the squiggle at the top is the i vowel sign).
	▲	carabiner 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23121711/
	▲	GrowingSideways 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Interesting. Who would have thought that the human brain could have predicted latin script aeons before it existed?