Bouba/Kiki
January 9, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Which of these shapes would you say is a bouba, and which a kiki?
(Images courtesy of Fotosearch and of DesignedtoaT.)
This bouba/kiki test was designed by psychologist Wolfgang Köhler some sixty years ago: 98 percent of people pick the rounded form as bouba, the jagged design as kiki. (See Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes in the May 2003 issue of Scientific American.)
Autistic children tend to perform poorly on the bouba/kiki test, as noted in a November 2006 Scientific American article on mirror neurons and autism by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego and Lindsay M. Oberman, a graduate student there.
Were you in the 98 percent to choose
for booba
and
for kiki?
The kiki is supposed to be a pointy-shaped object that’s similar but different to the bouba shape, not a fragmented window or anything like that.
Anyways I don’t really know why autistics would perform poorly at this, other than perhaps it has something to do with language cognition.
Will change it—–let me know what you think. I chose that image because of a reference to jagged fragments like broken glass.
That is a really weird test. Both the words are nonsense, so assigning them to a shape seems arbitrary at best.
Hi Folks, I think that I have a good explanation of just why autistic children have problems with this test (if I can get it published somewhere!)
This is not the Bouba/Kiki test.
The actual test is conducted in this manner: “a researcher displays two crudely drawn shapes, one jagged and one curvy, to an audience and asks” the question.
Asks. Verbally. The subjects HEAR the words, hence are unbiased by the visual “booba” with its fourd roundish letteres and the angular K’s and I’s of the “kiki” when seen in print.
Claiming to represent a cognitive/senses test in print, but acting as if seeing the words in silence is the same test as hearing words you’ve never seen? Not even giving lip service to the difference? Bad science! You might as well not show the pictures either, just describe a rounded and angular shape. Interesting test, yes, but it is NOT the Kiki/Bouba test, and should not be labeled as such.
Thanks for the correction—it is more than appreciated.
is the bouba kiki really related to autism? i need to know cause i am doing a project on it.
It’s not really related to autism, but I found the results from the results noted in the November 2006 Scientific American of interest regarding my son’s speech and how his mind might work.
I’m doing this project for my science fair project. i will update you on how it turned out.!.
I did the Bouba-Kiki effect for my 6th grade science fair project. 93.6% of my respondents picked the bouba as rounded. I think it would be interesting to compare how males and females differed. Of the 95total subjects i studied, only 7 respondents picked backwards. They were as follows: 6 males and only 1 female. This difference might be interesting to further study. My mom teaches autistic kids and i might do this test on autistic kids next year to when i get in high school