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The following quote was removed from the article: "A similar experiment draws from feminine and masculine qualities that the human brain associates with numbers. Subjects were given two numbers: a 9 and an 11, and were asked which one seems feminine and which seems masculine. The majority of the subjects chose 9 as the one that portrayed feminine characteristics, but for unknown reasons." While interesting, there was no citation, and it doesn't seem immediately related to the article at hand. I took it out, and I think we should keep it out until someone can find some more information and a citation. Webster100 ( talk) 18:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
This effect can be found in the childrens' picture book "Mr Pod and Mr Piccalilli" by Penny Dolan and Nick Sharratt. Mr Pod's apartment features round-shaped furniture and a plump cat, and Mr Pod is also round shaped. Mr Piccallili's flat has furnishings that are more elongated, fancy and ornate, and his cat looks (frankly) underfed, and he is tall and slim. This effect is obviously deliberate, and adds to the appeal of the story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.201.103 ( talk) 15:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
The article would be more powerful if a fuller description of the experiment were given. In particular the range of cultures the subjects were drawn from; only Tenerife, and English and Tamil speakers are mentioned.
Somewhat related, I read somewhere speculation that Mickey Mouse the cartoon character did well because of his round features, while Felix the Cat, with his sharp ears and whiskers, was a subconscious turn-off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rfinchdavis ( talk • contribs) 22:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
"The rounded shape may most commonly be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound kiki."
Oh come on! Due to Wikipedia's restrictions against original research, no one is allowed to point out what should be one very very obvious fact: The Spanish island in question would be more than familiar with the Latin alphabet, in Spanish "B" and "K" are pronounced the same as in English, and, well, "B" is a round, bubbly letter and "K" is a sharp, pointy, angular one. The "bouba" shape could not be assembled out of Ks, but a reasonable facsimile could be constructed out of rotated, overlapped Bs, while the converse is also true.
Do this experiment off the coast of China or Korea, preferably in an area with a low literacy rate and little exposure to western writing, and I'll be more inclined to believe it. Or, for a counter-experiment, make a shape that appears to be constructed out of cursive lowercase non-looped 'h's. Give the names "Hohu" and "Nnunu" and ask collections of westerners and Japanese which they see. I hypothesise that the Japanese will be inclined towards "Nnunu" while the westerners will be inclined towards "Hohu" simply because the westerners will see the shape as an 'h' and the Japanese will see it as a 'ん' 173.12.172.149 ( talk) 01:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that the obvious answer was missed by the researchers. It is not the shape of the mouth, but the shape of the sound. The sound "kiki" is composed of two very sharp accents. Drop the kiki object and you'd hear crackles and crunches. Whereas "bouba" the sound is much less compressed. Drop the bouba and you'd hear a thud or a plop. In other words, "kiki" mimics both the sharp shape of the sound of the word kiki and the nature of the sound if you dropped a sharp object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.97.46 ( talk) 05:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
But why is the sound of "kiki" described as "sharp"? And why is the shape of the letter B round? And why is the shape of the letter K pointed? The Bouba - Kiki Effect! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.166.229.46 ( talk) 13:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
This is most definitely original research, but the key to the bouba/kiki effect is the shape of the soundwave, i.e. how the amplitude of the sound varies in time. This is the graph (obtained with Audacity) of a recording of my voice, saying "bouba" (the part on the left) and "kiki" (the part on the right). The horizontal axis represents time; the vertical axis represents the amplitude of the sound. Note how the variations in amplitude are much more gradual in the "bouba" sound, just like the variations in direction of the line that makes up the corresponding shape are gradual and produce gentle curves. On the other hand, the amplitude changes much more quickly in the "kiki" sound, just like the direction of the lines that make up the corresponding shape changes abruptly and produces acute angles. Devil Master ( talk) 09:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Latin bulbus <-> Greek bolbós onion, bulbous plant. Try three shapes
with kiki and touda, for instance, sharp shape and a shape with square edges. I think you'll find the association of bouba with the rounded shape remains consistently above 50% but the other sounds, not so much. This is not original. 150.199.103.241 ( talk) 17:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Special People
Has the similarity of the "kiki" shape to the shape of the letter "K", as well as the similarity of "bouba" to shape of the letter "B", been proposed as an explanation for association of these shapes with these sounds? This might provide a straightforward explanation for this phenomenon, at least in the case of people who use the Roman alphabet. Jarble ( talk) 03:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
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did 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran paper (second paragraph) did repeated the experiment? I couldn't find any detailes in the paper cited. the only clue was this sentence in a comment: Our results again confirm these findings with a different set of stimuli and different names. but I couldn't find any other place in the paper describing that experiment, and not the details in this wikipedia page (American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers)... Am I missing anything?
![]() | This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Information to be added or removed:
After the second paragraph: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes (1,2,3). A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes (3). However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness (3).
Explanation of issue: The role of vision in developing bouba/kiki effect (known under the broader name of sound-shape associations), has been shown in three recent studies. This is especially fascinating since in congenitally blind people, the effect for touched shape is an association between touch and hearing, which seems to depend on vision!
I cannot make the edits myself, since I am one the authors of the third study and therefore have a conflict of interest. We also found an extended sensitive period for the development of this effect - this was possible to investigate because we had persons who were born with or developed cataracts and then regained vision through surgery.
References supporting change:
1. Fryer, L., Freeman, J., & Pring, L. (2014). Touching words is not enough: How visual experience influences haptic-auditory associations in the “Bouba-Kiki” effect. Cognition, 132, 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.015
2. Hamilton-Fletcher, G., Pisanski, K., Reby, D., Stefanczyk, M., Ward, J., & Sorokowska, A. (2018). The role of visual experience in the emergence of cross-modal correspondences. Cognition, 175, 114–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.023
3. Sourav, S., Kekunnaya, R., Shareef, I., Banerjee, S., Bottari, D., & Röder, B. (2019). A Protracted Sensitive Period Regulates the Development of Cross-Modal Sound–Shape Associations in Humans. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 15:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
{{
request edit}}
template's answer parameter to read from |ans=yes
to |ans=no
. Thank you!Regards, Spintendo 23:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. The information supporting the two lines are in the abstracts of all three paper - that is, page 1.
With regards to the first 2 sources, there is no conflict of interest in using them, as the COI editor had no input in their production. Thus the information which is sourced by all three references may be added by the COI editor themselves by using just two of the references (e.g., the text which states: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes
). Everything after A systematic effect..
will need to be added by a third party, as that information is referenced only by the COI editor's article. For that information to be reviewed, page numbers need to be provided.
[a] Please advise when ready to proceed. Regards,
Spintendo
11:18, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Notes
References
Cite the source clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate)
Thank you for the feedback. I have now added the first two references, and the first sentence. I reckon I might have confused the page request for the third article: it is an electronic article for now, also known as an epub ahead of print. The article number serves the purpose of page numbers as an identifier inside the journal (0956797619866625, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625). The page numbers inside the article (in pdf version, available on the article site under a CC-BY license or directly at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797619866625) are:
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 12:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
Regards, Spintendo 19:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes. However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness.
The PDF indeed linked to the starting page of the results section. Here are the precise page and line numbers in the pdf file behind the claims, now self-contained without needing to consult the reply on 23rd September:
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 12:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
The information you've provided above makes it clear that the claims you wish to add to the article constitute a significant part of your research. Pinging @ Drmies: for their input on this. To Drmies: The COI editor would like to add claims from an article they've written. My question asks how much of the article's findings need be reproduced here and whether or not WP:MEDRS applies. Thank you in advance for any input you can offer. Regards, Spintendo 02:54, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Notes
I reinserted the {{ failed verification}} tag to the following quote:
In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both groups, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way. [1] failed verification
References
- ^ Ramachandran, V.S.; Hubbard, E.M. (2001). "Synaesthesia: A window into perception, thought and language" (PDF). Journal of Consciousness Studies. 8 (12): 3–34.
{{ cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter|last-author-amp=
ignored (|name-list-style=
suggested) ( help)
It was initially added by
㓟 in
this edit, and removed by
Goldragon979 in
this edit with the edit summary Reference was indeed contained in the mentioned document (page 17)
. I don't see anything in the PDF above to back up the claims in that paragraph, on page 17 or elsewhere.
This paragraph was first added by
Edhubbard in
this edit with the edit notice copying and editing text from the
synesthesia to begin expansion of this page, to make it more complete.
In the following
, he added the reference to the J. Conscious. Stud. paper yielding the paragraph:
In tests conducted with both English and Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% picked the curvy shape as bouba and the jagged one as kiki, suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds. [1]
References
- ^ Ramachandran, V.S. & Hubbard, E.M. (2001b). Synaesthesia: A window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(12), 3 - 34.
This user is one of the co-authors of that paper, so they would presumably know the results they got, but I'm not seeing anything in this paper about doing this experiment on Tamil speakers or getting results of 95%–98%. The closest thing I can find in this paper is the last sentence on this footnote on page 19:
First, consider stimuli like those shown in figure 7, originally developed by Köhler (1929; 1947) and further explored by Werner (1934; 1957; Werner & Wapner, 1952). If you show fig. 7 (left and right) to people and say ‘In Martian language, one of these two figures is a “bouba” and the other is a “kiki”, try to guess which is which’, 95% of people pick the left as kiki and the right as bouba, even though they have never seen these stimuli before. [a]
Notes
- ^ In his original experiments, Köhler (1929) called the stimuli takete and baluma. He later renamed the baluma stimulus maluma (Köhler, 1947). However, the results were essentially unchanged and ‘most people answer[ed] without hesitation’ (p. 133). (For further discussion, see Lindauer, 1990; Marks, 1996.) Our results again confirm these findings with a different set of stimuli and different names.
It was also
Edhubbard who added the information about the subjects being American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India
in
this edit after
Kingturtle added a {{
who}} tag.
So it seems that a certain Wikipedia editor is using their own knowledge of an experiment they ran to edit this article rather than any sort of reference to published, peer-reviewed papers, which violates WP:VERIFY. It's strange to me because this article gets not infrequently as if it shows that Tamil and English speakers performed as predicted 95% to 98% of the time, but I'm really not seeing that statement explicitly stated in this paper. If I happened to miss something, please let me know. Umimmak ( talk) 18:20, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
“The bouba/kiki effect was first observed by German American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In psychological experiments first conducted on the island of Tenerife (where the primary language is Spanish, Köhler showed forms similar to those shown at the right and asked participants which shape was called „takete“ and which was called „baluba“ („maluma“ in the 1947 version)”
This claim from the section “Discovery”, which is repeated in more recent literature on the subject, is not substantiated by the two references given here. Neither in the first, nor in the second edition of his book does Köhler describe actually having done the experiment with participants, let alone in Tenerife (the only mention of Tenerife in the entire book is when Köhler describes the first time he experienced an earthquake). Instead, he describes it as an “example of his own construction” (which to me sounds like he means a “thought experiment”).
From the first edition: “But we may construct another example. If, looking at these two figures (18 and 19), the reader is asked to choose which he would rather call "takete" or "maluma," he will probably be able to decide with ease.” [1]
From the second edition: “Another example is of my own construction: when asked to match the nonsense words "takete" and "maluma" with the two patterns shown as Figs. 18 and 19, most people answer without any hesitation. In primitive languages one actually finds evidence for the thesis that the names of things and events, which are visually or tactually perceived, have often originated on the basis of such resemblances.” [2]
If there is a source where Köhler describes actually conducting the experiment (whether in Tenerife or elsewhere), it must be added here.
Also, note how in the fifth printing of the first edition (from 1930), which is the one linked in the article, he already writes “maluma”, not “baluba”, as the article seems to claim when it points out that it is “‘maluma’ in the 1947 version”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A04:4540:653D:9500:C9EC:FC89:82AA:B439 ( talk) 17:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
In his book, Köhler does not claim to have discovered this effect: In both editions he refers to a paper by Dimitri Usnadse in a footnote to the sentences quoted above: “Ein experimenteller Beitrag zum Problem der psychologischen Grundlagen der Namengebung. Psychologische Forschung 1924, Bd. 5(1-2), S. 24–43.”, which can be read here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210861794.pdf
In the (German language) paper, Usnadse describes having actually done a similar experiment with 10 (Georgian) participants (in 1924, five years before Köhler). They were given a list with nonsense words and then shown 6 drawings for 5 seconds each, and then had to pick a name for the drawing from the list of given words (p. 27). He describes the different “strategies” participants developed to match words to drawings and quotes their reasoning. He also describes situations where participants described very specific forms that they associated with a nonsense word, without reference to the shown drawings. He develops a theory of four factors that influence the way names for objects are decided.
In total there were 42 words (32% if these were never picked). It’s not quite clear to me whether participants were given all words in the beginning or a shorter list for each drawing. There is a table that documents the percentage of participants that picked the most often picked name for a given drawing (for drawing 1, 45% picked the same word; 2: 40%, 3: 25%, 4: 40%, 5: 38%, 6: 40%) (p. 41). Usnadse points out that this is significantly more overlap than one could expect, given the high number of possible words. He speculates that there must therefore be certain regularities “which the human soul follows in the process of name-giving“.
It seems to me, that given Köhler’s unspecific descriptions, Usnadse ought to be credited with the discovery at least as much – his experiment seems to be far more rigorous than Köhler’s. At the very least, his contributions should be added to the article.
2A04:4540:6539:C000:CDCA:7C45:8763:E6FC ( talk) 16:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
References
This would be WP:OR if I actually did any R, but consider this. Cut two shapes out of a metal sheet, and drop them on a hard floor. Make one sharp and points, the other more rounded. Consider the difference in the sounds. The sharp one will generally have much high frequency components generating by modes in the points, where the rounded ones will not have such high frequencies. Many languages give sounds names that sound similar to the sound itself, such as boom and crack. And again, different sounds have different frequency components, which we notice. I suspect that most of us learn, subconsciously, the frequency spectrum of the sounds of different shapes. Also, letters are shaped based on the sounds that such shapes make, in some languages, anyway. Gah4 ( talk) 05:46, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
The summary of Uznadze's 1924 paper says, in part, "He conducted an experiment with 10 participants who were given a list with nonsense words [...] For one particular drawing, 45% picked the same word."
How could 45% of only 10 participants agree? 216.30.158.37 ( talk) 12:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
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The following quote was removed from the article: "A similar experiment draws from feminine and masculine qualities that the human brain associates with numbers. Subjects were given two numbers: a 9 and an 11, and were asked which one seems feminine and which seems masculine. The majority of the subjects chose 9 as the one that portrayed feminine characteristics, but for unknown reasons." While interesting, there was no citation, and it doesn't seem immediately related to the article at hand. I took it out, and I think we should keep it out until someone can find some more information and a citation. Webster100 ( talk) 18:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
This effect can be found in the childrens' picture book "Mr Pod and Mr Piccalilli" by Penny Dolan and Nick Sharratt. Mr Pod's apartment features round-shaped furniture and a plump cat, and Mr Pod is also round shaped. Mr Piccallili's flat has furnishings that are more elongated, fancy and ornate, and his cat looks (frankly) underfed, and he is tall and slim. This effect is obviously deliberate, and adds to the appeal of the story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.201.103 ( talk) 15:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
The article would be more powerful if a fuller description of the experiment were given. In particular the range of cultures the subjects were drawn from; only Tenerife, and English and Tamil speakers are mentioned.
Somewhat related, I read somewhere speculation that Mickey Mouse the cartoon character did well because of his round features, while Felix the Cat, with his sharp ears and whiskers, was a subconscious turn-off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rfinchdavis ( talk • contribs) 22:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
"The rounded shape may most commonly be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound kiki."
Oh come on! Due to Wikipedia's restrictions against original research, no one is allowed to point out what should be one very very obvious fact: The Spanish island in question would be more than familiar with the Latin alphabet, in Spanish "B" and "K" are pronounced the same as in English, and, well, "B" is a round, bubbly letter and "K" is a sharp, pointy, angular one. The "bouba" shape could not be assembled out of Ks, but a reasonable facsimile could be constructed out of rotated, overlapped Bs, while the converse is also true.
Do this experiment off the coast of China or Korea, preferably in an area with a low literacy rate and little exposure to western writing, and I'll be more inclined to believe it. Or, for a counter-experiment, make a shape that appears to be constructed out of cursive lowercase non-looped 'h's. Give the names "Hohu" and "Nnunu" and ask collections of westerners and Japanese which they see. I hypothesise that the Japanese will be inclined towards "Nnunu" while the westerners will be inclined towards "Hohu" simply because the westerners will see the shape as an 'h' and the Japanese will see it as a 'ん' 173.12.172.149 ( talk) 01:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that the obvious answer was missed by the researchers. It is not the shape of the mouth, but the shape of the sound. The sound "kiki" is composed of two very sharp accents. Drop the kiki object and you'd hear crackles and crunches. Whereas "bouba" the sound is much less compressed. Drop the bouba and you'd hear a thud or a plop. In other words, "kiki" mimics both the sharp shape of the sound of the word kiki and the nature of the sound if you dropped a sharp object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.97.46 ( talk) 05:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
But why is the sound of "kiki" described as "sharp"? And why is the shape of the letter B round? And why is the shape of the letter K pointed? The Bouba - Kiki Effect! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.166.229.46 ( talk) 13:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
This is most definitely original research, but the key to the bouba/kiki effect is the shape of the soundwave, i.e. how the amplitude of the sound varies in time. This is the graph (obtained with Audacity) of a recording of my voice, saying "bouba" (the part on the left) and "kiki" (the part on the right). The horizontal axis represents time; the vertical axis represents the amplitude of the sound. Note how the variations in amplitude are much more gradual in the "bouba" sound, just like the variations in direction of the line that makes up the corresponding shape are gradual and produce gentle curves. On the other hand, the amplitude changes much more quickly in the "kiki" sound, just like the direction of the lines that make up the corresponding shape changes abruptly and produces acute angles. Devil Master ( talk) 09:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Latin bulbus <-> Greek bolbós onion, bulbous plant. Try three shapes
with kiki and touda, for instance, sharp shape and a shape with square edges. I think you'll find the association of bouba with the rounded shape remains consistently above 50% but the other sounds, not so much. This is not original. 150.199.103.241 ( talk) 17:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Special People
Has the similarity of the "kiki" shape to the shape of the letter "K", as well as the similarity of "bouba" to shape of the letter "B", been proposed as an explanation for association of these shapes with these sounds? This might provide a straightforward explanation for this phenomenon, at least in the case of people who use the Roman alphabet. Jarble ( talk) 03:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
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did 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran paper (second paragraph) did repeated the experiment? I couldn't find any detailes in the paper cited. the only clue was this sentence in a comment: Our results again confirm these findings with a different set of stimuli and different names. but I couldn't find any other place in the paper describing that experiment, and not the details in this wikipedia page (American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers)... Am I missing anything?
![]() | This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Information to be added or removed:
After the second paragraph: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes (1,2,3). A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes (3). However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness (3).
Explanation of issue: The role of vision in developing bouba/kiki effect (known under the broader name of sound-shape associations), has been shown in three recent studies. This is especially fascinating since in congenitally blind people, the effect for touched shape is an association between touch and hearing, which seems to depend on vision!
I cannot make the edits myself, since I am one the authors of the third study and therefore have a conflict of interest. We also found an extended sensitive period for the development of this effect - this was possible to investigate because we had persons who were born with or developed cataracts and then regained vision through surgery.
References supporting change:
1. Fryer, L., Freeman, J., & Pring, L. (2014). Touching words is not enough: How visual experience influences haptic-auditory associations in the “Bouba-Kiki” effect. Cognition, 132, 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.015
2. Hamilton-Fletcher, G., Pisanski, K., Reby, D., Stefanczyk, M., Ward, J., & Sorokowska, A. (2018). The role of visual experience in the emergence of cross-modal correspondences. Cognition, 175, 114–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.023
3. Sourav, S., Kekunnaya, R., Shareef, I., Banerjee, S., Bottari, D., & Röder, B. (2019). A Protracted Sensitive Period Regulates the Development of Cross-Modal Sound–Shape Associations in Humans. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 15:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
{{
request edit}}
template's answer parameter to read from |ans=yes
to |ans=no
. Thank you!Regards, Spintendo 23:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. The information supporting the two lines are in the abstracts of all three paper - that is, page 1.
With regards to the first 2 sources, there is no conflict of interest in using them, as the COI editor had no input in their production. Thus the information which is sourced by all three references may be added by the COI editor themselves by using just two of the references (e.g., the text which states: The bouba/kiki effect seems to be dependent on a long sensitive period (link to : critical period) with high visual capacities in childhood being necessary for its typical development. In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes
). Everything after A systematic effect..
will need to be added by a third party, as that information is referenced only by the COI editor's article. For that information to be reviewed, page numbers need to be provided.
[a] Please advise when ready to proceed. Regards,
Spintendo
11:18, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Notes
References
Cite the source clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate)
Thank you for the feedback. I have now added the first two references, and the first sentence. I reckon I might have confused the page request for the third article: it is an electronic article for now, also known as an epub ahead of print. The article number serves the purpose of page numbers as an identifier inside the journal (0956797619866625, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619866625). The page numbers inside the article (in pdf version, available on the article site under a CC-BY license or directly at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797619866625) are:
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 12:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
Regards, Spintendo 19:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
A systematic effect has been reported to be missing also in persons who suffered a period of severe visual deprivation in childhood through cataracts. Even after visual restoration and a long period of vision recovery, at group level these persons do not show a bouba/kiki effect for touched or seen shapes. However, persons who became blind after 12 years of age show this effect for touched shapes at a level indistinguishable from typically sighted individuals, indicating that once developed, the bouba/kiki effect is not abolished by blindness.
The PDF indeed linked to the starting page of the results section. Here are the precise page and line numbers in the pdf file behind the claims, now self-contained without needing to consult the reply on 23rd September:
134.100.162.175 ( talk) 12:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC) Suddha Sourav
The information you've provided above makes it clear that the claims you wish to add to the article constitute a significant part of your research. Pinging @ Drmies: for their input on this. To Drmies: The COI editor would like to add claims from an article they've written. My question asks how much of the article's findings need be reproduced here and whether or not WP:MEDRS applies. Thank you in advance for any input you can offer. Regards, Spintendo 02:54, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Notes
I reinserted the {{ failed verification}} tag to the following quote:
In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both groups, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way. [1] failed verification
References
- ^ Ramachandran, V.S.; Hubbard, E.M. (2001). "Synaesthesia: A window into perception, thought and language" (PDF). Journal of Consciousness Studies. 8 (12): 3–34.
{{ cite journal}}
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It was initially added by
㓟 in
this edit, and removed by
Goldragon979 in
this edit with the edit summary Reference was indeed contained in the mentioned document (page 17)
. I don't see anything in the PDF above to back up the claims in that paragraph, on page 17 or elsewhere.
This paragraph was first added by
Edhubbard in
this edit with the edit notice copying and editing text from the
synesthesia to begin expansion of this page, to make it more complete.
In the following
, he added the reference to the J. Conscious. Stud. paper yielding the paragraph:
In tests conducted with both English and Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% picked the curvy shape as bouba and the jagged one as kiki, suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds. [1]
References
- ^ Ramachandran, V.S. & Hubbard, E.M. (2001b). Synaesthesia: A window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(12), 3 - 34.
This user is one of the co-authors of that paper, so they would presumably know the results they got, but I'm not seeing anything in this paper about doing this experiment on Tamil speakers or getting results of 95%–98%. The closest thing I can find in this paper is the last sentence on this footnote on page 19:
First, consider stimuli like those shown in figure 7, originally developed by Köhler (1929; 1947) and further explored by Werner (1934; 1957; Werner & Wapner, 1952). If you show fig. 7 (left and right) to people and say ‘In Martian language, one of these two figures is a “bouba” and the other is a “kiki”, try to guess which is which’, 95% of people pick the left as kiki and the right as bouba, even though they have never seen these stimuli before. [a]
Notes
- ^ In his original experiments, Köhler (1929) called the stimuli takete and baluma. He later renamed the baluma stimulus maluma (Köhler, 1947). However, the results were essentially unchanged and ‘most people answer[ed] without hesitation’ (p. 133). (For further discussion, see Lindauer, 1990; Marks, 1996.) Our results again confirm these findings with a different set of stimuli and different names.
It was also
Edhubbard who added the information about the subjects being American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India
in
this edit after
Kingturtle added a {{
who}} tag.
So it seems that a certain Wikipedia editor is using their own knowledge of an experiment they ran to edit this article rather than any sort of reference to published, peer-reviewed papers, which violates WP:VERIFY. It's strange to me because this article gets not infrequently as if it shows that Tamil and English speakers performed as predicted 95% to 98% of the time, but I'm really not seeing that statement explicitly stated in this paper. If I happened to miss something, please let me know. Umimmak ( talk) 18:20, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
“The bouba/kiki effect was first observed by German American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In psychological experiments first conducted on the island of Tenerife (where the primary language is Spanish, Köhler showed forms similar to those shown at the right and asked participants which shape was called „takete“ and which was called „baluba“ („maluma“ in the 1947 version)”
This claim from the section “Discovery”, which is repeated in more recent literature on the subject, is not substantiated by the two references given here. Neither in the first, nor in the second edition of his book does Köhler describe actually having done the experiment with participants, let alone in Tenerife (the only mention of Tenerife in the entire book is when Köhler describes the first time he experienced an earthquake). Instead, he describes it as an “example of his own construction” (which to me sounds like he means a “thought experiment”).
From the first edition: “But we may construct another example. If, looking at these two figures (18 and 19), the reader is asked to choose which he would rather call "takete" or "maluma," he will probably be able to decide with ease.” [1]
From the second edition: “Another example is of my own construction: when asked to match the nonsense words "takete" and "maluma" with the two patterns shown as Figs. 18 and 19, most people answer without any hesitation. In primitive languages one actually finds evidence for the thesis that the names of things and events, which are visually or tactually perceived, have often originated on the basis of such resemblances.” [2]
If there is a source where Köhler describes actually conducting the experiment (whether in Tenerife or elsewhere), it must be added here.
Also, note how in the fifth printing of the first edition (from 1930), which is the one linked in the article, he already writes “maluma”, not “baluba”, as the article seems to claim when it points out that it is “‘maluma’ in the 1947 version”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A04:4540:653D:9500:C9EC:FC89:82AA:B439 ( talk) 17:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
In his book, Köhler does not claim to have discovered this effect: In both editions he refers to a paper by Dimitri Usnadse in a footnote to the sentences quoted above: “Ein experimenteller Beitrag zum Problem der psychologischen Grundlagen der Namengebung. Psychologische Forschung 1924, Bd. 5(1-2), S. 24–43.”, which can be read here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210861794.pdf
In the (German language) paper, Usnadse describes having actually done a similar experiment with 10 (Georgian) participants (in 1924, five years before Köhler). They were given a list with nonsense words and then shown 6 drawings for 5 seconds each, and then had to pick a name for the drawing from the list of given words (p. 27). He describes the different “strategies” participants developed to match words to drawings and quotes their reasoning. He also describes situations where participants described very specific forms that they associated with a nonsense word, without reference to the shown drawings. He develops a theory of four factors that influence the way names for objects are decided.
In total there were 42 words (32% if these were never picked). It’s not quite clear to me whether participants were given all words in the beginning or a shorter list for each drawing. There is a table that documents the percentage of participants that picked the most often picked name for a given drawing (for drawing 1, 45% picked the same word; 2: 40%, 3: 25%, 4: 40%, 5: 38%, 6: 40%) (p. 41). Usnadse points out that this is significantly more overlap than one could expect, given the high number of possible words. He speculates that there must therefore be certain regularities “which the human soul follows in the process of name-giving“.
It seems to me, that given Köhler’s unspecific descriptions, Usnadse ought to be credited with the discovery at least as much – his experiment seems to be far more rigorous than Köhler’s. At the very least, his contributions should be added to the article.
2A04:4540:6539:C000:CDCA:7C45:8763:E6FC ( talk) 16:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
References
This would be WP:OR if I actually did any R, but consider this. Cut two shapes out of a metal sheet, and drop them on a hard floor. Make one sharp and points, the other more rounded. Consider the difference in the sounds. The sharp one will generally have much high frequency components generating by modes in the points, where the rounded ones will not have such high frequencies. Many languages give sounds names that sound similar to the sound itself, such as boom and crack. And again, different sounds have different frequency components, which we notice. I suspect that most of us learn, subconsciously, the frequency spectrum of the sounds of different shapes. Also, letters are shaped based on the sounds that such shapes make, in some languages, anyway. Gah4 ( talk) 05:46, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
The summary of Uznadze's 1924 paper says, in part, "He conducted an experiment with 10 participants who were given a list with nonsense words [...] For one particular drawing, 45% picked the same word."
How could 45% of only 10 participants agree? 216.30.158.37 ( talk) 12:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)