Article published In: Words in the World
Edited by Laura Teddiman, Lori Buchanan and Hamad Al-Azary
[The Mental Lexicon 19:1] 2024
► pp. 135–144
Symbols to shapes processing
Published online: 10 January 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.24037.nas
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.24037.nas
Abstract
The Bouba/Kiki (BK) effect is observed when a linguistic sound is associated with a shape. People usually
associate the nonword bouba with a round shape, and kiki with a sharp shape (Ramachandran, V. S., & Hubbard, E. M. (2001). Synaesthesia--a
window into perception, thought and language. Journal of consciousness
studies, 8(12), 3–34.). In 2011, Nielsen and Rendall found that certain
English letters (/k/, /p/, and /t/) and (/b/, /l/, /m/, and /n/) were associated with sharp and round shapes respectively. The BK
effect was investigated in depth for the first time in Arabic in 2022 (Nassereddine) using Arabic Analogs to the English letters.
Arabic participants’ performance was not consistent with previous research (Nielsen, A., & Rendall, D. (2011). The
sound of round: evaluating the sound-symbolic role of consonants in the classic Takete-Maluma
phenomenon. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie
expérimentale, 65(2), 115. ). The goal of the present study was to determine
the roundest and sharpest Arabic letters by presenting all letters both visually and auditorily to Arabic speakers and have them say whether
a letter shape or sound best maps on to the standard bouba and kiki shapes. The results revealed
that Arabic does have both round and sharp letters, and that there is a strong influence of phonological features on this BK
effect.
Keywords: Bouba/Kiki effect, Arabic, round and sharp letters
Article outline
- Method
- Participants
- Stimuli
- Letter stimuli
- Image stimuli
- Procedure
- Results
- Discussion
- Note
References
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