Big Kiki or Big Bouba Energy? (Kiki/Bouba Effect)

Psych Papers

The Kiki-Bouba effect is a phenomenon where people tend to associate certain sounds with specific shapes. When shown a sharp, angular shape and a soft, rounded shape, and asked which is named "Kiki" and which is "Bouba," most people will label the sharp shape as "Kiki" and the rounded shape as "Bouba." This effect suggests that there is a universal, possibly innate connection between speech sounds and the visual appearance of objects.

This effect is seen across multiple languages and cultures and even observed in children and people born blind.

We connect the kiki/bouba effect to past research we’ve conducted on which boys names and girls names would win in a fight? We surveyed over 500 people per survey and gave them random name pairings and asked who would win in a fight (eg, “David vs. Anthony… who would win in a fight?”). We also connect it to another survey we ran on which letters would win in a fight. Similar setup (eg, “X vs. W… who would win in a fight?”)

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

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1. Cold Open (00:00:00)

2. What is the Kiki Bouba Effect? (00:00:34)

3. Callback to our "Which Names Would Win in a Fight?" Survey (00:06:49)

4. Callback to our "Which Letters Would Win in a Fight?" Survey (00:11:17)

5. Effect on the Evolution of Language (00:13:36)

6. Wrap-Up (00:16:10)