Grooving: Kiki and Bouba Minds (opens in new tab)

Imagine that the two drawings below are called Kiki and Bouba in some alien language. If you had to guess which one was Kiki and which one was Bouba - without any other information, which one would be Kiki, and which one would be Bouba? If you are like most people, the sharp angular shape (on the left) would be named Kiki while the curvier rounded shape (on the right) would be named Bouba. This effect is called the Bouba/Kiki effect which highlights how we map sounds to visual shapes and was ...