Bouba or kiki?
In an unknown language, one of these shapes is called “bouba,” the other “kiki.” Which one is “kiki”?
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What just happened (read it after the experiment)
What most people do: About three people out of four, across 25 languages, give the same answer.
Most people call the spiky shape “kiki” and the round one “bouba.” Open, rounded sounds suggest roundness; sharp consonants suggest angles.
Wolfgang Köhler described this effect in 1929. In 2022, a study across 25 languages found it in about three people out of four, whatever their writing system.
The link between a word and its meaning isn’t always arbitrary: some sounds have a shape.
More experiments
Sources
- Aleksandra Ćwiek et al., “The bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2022.