Fun fact for the fans of the “Baba Is You” game[1]:<p>> the naming of the characters Baba and Keke was inspired by the bouba/kiki effect.<p>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.<p>[1]: Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Is_You" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Is_You</a>
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: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba%2Fkiki_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba%2Fkiki_effect</a>
One of my favourite nerdy jokes is that the Fourier transform is a bouba-kiki transform.
Recently came across another video that demonstrates the effect<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7CXKACDOY/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7CXKACDOY/</a>
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.
The shapes just look like the letters. K’s have sharp corners, B’s are round.
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).
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.
The effect replicates in languages with other writing systems.
In Telugu, k is one of the smoother letters: కి (<i>ki</i>: the squiggle at the top is the <i>i</i> vowel sign).
<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23121711/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23121711/</a>
Interesting. Who would have thought that the human brain could have predicted latin script aeons before it existed?