" Bouba" and " Kiki" in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Authors
Colleges, School and Institutes
External organisations
- Sensorimotor Development Research Unit
- University of London
- Department of Experimental Psychology
Abstract
Western participants consistently match certain shapes with particular speech sounds, tastes, and flavours. Here we demonstrate that the " Bouba-Kiki effect", a well-known shape-sound symbolism effect commonly observed in Western participants, is also observable in the Himba of Northern Namibia, a remote population with little exposure to Western cultural and environmental influences, and who do not use a written language. However, in contrast to Westerners, the Himba did not map carbonation (in a sample of sparkling water) onto an angular (as opposed to a rounded) shape. Furthermore, they also tended to match less bitter (i.e., milk) chocolate samples to angular rather than rounded shapes; the opposite mapping to that shown by Westerners. Together, these results show that cultural-environmental as well as phylogenetic factors play a central role in shaping our repertoire of crossmodal correspondences.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 165-172 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Cognition |
Volume | 126 |
Issue number | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2013 |
Keywords
- Cross-cultural, Crossmodal correspondence, Flavour, Shape symbolism, Sound symbolism, Taste