Let's test sound symbolism.

[Observer]

The Bouba/Kiki effect fascinates me. I'm going to post several made-up words with three possible definitions each. I'd appreciate it if you'd post what you think the definition of each word should be, based solely on its sound. If you look at other peoples posts before you post, you may influence your decisions.

1. sverous [sv'ɛərɪs]
a. amicable
b. indifferent
c. rude

2. mara ['mɑɾɑ]
a. wood
b. metal
c. plastic

3. ghult ['gʌlt]
a. freed
b. guarded
c. captured

4. nur ['njuɾ]
a. sun
b. moon
c. star

[Hallow XIII]

-

[WeepingElf]

1c, 2a, 3c, 4b

[cromulant]

Answers in white.

1b, 2a, 3c, 4c

[Boşkoventi]

1c, 2a, 3c, 4c

[Shrdlu]

1c 2a 3a 4a

[Haplogy]

1b 2a 3c 4b

I've always loved sound symbolism. It's quite fascinating, really.
Also, for anyone interested, my L1 is Dutch.

[Drydic]

Experiment ruined by first responder not blanking their answers.

And apparently not even reading the post.

[Hakaku]

1b, 2a, 3c, 4c

[Lyhoko Leaci]

1c, 2a, 3c, 4b.

[finlay]

The Bouba/Kiki effect fascinates me. I'm going to post several made-up words with three possible definitions each. I'd appreciate it if you'd post what you think the definition of each word should be, based solely on its sound. If you look at other peoples posts before you post, you may influence your decisions.

1. sverous [sv'ɛərɪs]
a. amicable
b. indifferent
c. rude

2. mara ['mɑɾɑ]
a. wood
b. metal
c. plastic

3. ghult ['gʌlt]
a. freed
b. guarded
c. captured

4. nur ['njuɾ]
a. sun
b. moon
c. star

1c 2b 3c 4b

[clawgrip]

1 c (sounds like severe)
2 a (or c, but not b)
3 c
4 a

[finlay]

if you want to do an experiment like this, you need to check what the subject's native language is, otherwise your results will be negated because you can say "well it actually might be because of differing languages". to do this kind of test ideally you want native monolingual speakers of two particular languages so that you can compare and see if it's crosslinguistic. furthermore, if one group consistently comes up with an answer that another group doesn't, it's probably some other influence (for instance, clawgrip and myself both picked c for 1 because it sounds like another English word, although I thought it sounded like swear).

[Vuvuzela]

1c 2a 3b 4a

[Boşkoventi]

if you want to do an experiment like this, you need to check what the subject's native language is, otherwise your results will be negated because you can say "well it actually might be because of differing languages". to do this kind of test ideally you want native monolingual speakers of two particular languages so that you can compare and see if it's crosslinguistic. furthermore, if one group consistently comes up with an answer that another group doesn't, it's probably some other influence (for instance, clawgrip and myself both picked c for 1 because it sounds like another English word, although I thought it sounded like swear).

Yeah, I thought about mentioning that 1) sounds like "severe", and ghult reminds me of "caught" / "captured". But I suspect this is a big part of sound symbolism anyway (i.e. association with related words).

[finlay]

if you want to do an experiment like this, you need to check what the subject's native language is, otherwise your results will be negated because you can say "well it actually might be because of differing languages". to do this kind of test ideally you want native monolingual speakers of two particular languages so that you can compare and see if it's crosslinguistic. furthermore, if one group consistently comes up with an answer that another group doesn't, it's probably some other influence (for instance, clawgrip and myself both picked c for 1 because it sounds like another English word, although I thought it sounded like swear).

Yeah, I thought about mentioning that 1) sounds like "severe", and ghult reminds me of "caught" / "captured". But I suspect this is a big part of sound symbolism anyway (i.e. association with related words).

No, the most surprising thing about bouba/kiki was that it holds across language boundaries extraordinarily consistently.

[svld]

1b, 2a, 3c, 4b
2 is not plastic because it looks like a more basic word.
4 as moon might be influenced by English and Chinese.

[tubragg]

1c 2a 3b 4b

[Click]

1. sverous [sv'ɛərɪs] c
2. mara ['mɑɾɑ] c
3. ghult ['gʌlt] c
4. nur ['njuɾ] b

[Observer]

if you want to do an experiment like this, you need to check what the subject's native language is, otherwise your results will be negated because you can say "well it actually might be because of differing languages". to do this kind of test ideally you want native monolingual speakers of two particular languages so that you can compare and see if it's crosslinguistic. furthermore, if one group consistently comes up with an answer that another group doesn't, it's probably some other influence (for instance, clawgrip and myself both picked c for 1 because it sounds like another English word, although I thought it sounded like swear).

This is just for fun.

if you want to do an experiment like this, you need to check what the subject's native language is, otherwise your results will be negated because you can say "well it actually might be because of differing languages". to do this kind of test ideally you want native monolingual speakers of two particular languages so that you can compare and see if it's crosslinguistic. furthermore, if one group consistently comes up with an answer that another group doesn't, it's probably some other influence (for instance, clawgrip and myself both picked c for 1 because it sounds like another English word, although I thought it sounded like swear).

Yeah, I thought about mentioning that 1) sounds like "severe", and ghult reminds me of "caught" / "captured". But I suspect this is a big part of sound symbolism anyway (i.e. association with related words).

No, the most surprising thing about bouba/kiki was that it holds across language boundaries extraordinarily consistently.

I find it interesting that autistic individuals assign a given name to a given shape nearly 50/50. This suggests that humans have a basic shared perceptual schema that autistic individuals lack.

[finlay]

I tested it on some japanese folk today (my kid students and colleagues). They didn't know what the hell I was doing, but only one of them said it the "backwards" way. (out of 4 so not really "conclusive")

[cybrxkhan]

1a 2b 3b 4b

[Herr Dunkel]

1b 2a 3b 4b

[Chagen]

1b 2a 3a 4b

[Nortaneous]

a a c b