John Carlos BaezFeb 22

THE BOUBA/KIKI EFFECT

Which of these shapes looks like the sound "bouba", and which looks like the sound "kiki"?

People of all cultures agree on this, and now it's been found that baby chicks do too:

https://phys.org/news/2026-02-bouba-kiki-effect-baby-chicks.html

It may seem weird that sounds should robustly match with shapes, but I think it follows from physics - and living as we do in the physical world, it pays for us to make these associations.

For more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

Thanks to Alex at https://mathstodon.xyz/@WizardOfDocs@wandering.shop/116115329367345332 for pointing out the news about baby chicks!

Show threadTobyBartels

@johncarlosbaez

Even the shapes of the written letters show this effect, which is pretty wild when you consider all of the history that those letters went through.

Feb 22 at 6:28pmWeb
Show threadAtifFeb 22
@TobyBartels https://mathstodon.xyz/@atif/116104574416264394
Show threadTobyBartelsFeb 22

@atif

According to Wikipedia, the effect is slightly stronger in languages that use the Latin script, but still present in others. The original research was done in Georgia, presumably in Georgian written with the Mkhedruli script, where pretty much all of the letters look bouba.

Show threadAtifFeb 22
@TobyBartels I was wondering about this yesterday, thanks. I would guess it’s not that uncommon that non-Latin script users are aware of the Latin script and how it translates to their native one. So it’d be interesting to know if the participants knew the latin alphabet. Also I’d like to note that Georgian k-s look a bit more kiki than their b, and I’d speculate especially so to the natives, since it kind of makes sense that they developed a finer sensitivity to kikiness within their already high baseline bouba alphabet