Dogs may link 'Bouba' with round shapes and 'Kiki' with spiky ones, study suggests
ScienceAlert reports on research from the University of Parma that tested 70 dogs on a sound and shape association long studied in humans.
Dogs may link the made-up word 'Bouba' with a rounded shape and 'Kiki' with a spiky one, as most people do. That is according to ScienceAlert, which reported on a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Animal behaviorist Eleonora Biffi of the University of Parma in Italy led the research. ScienceAlert reported that her team recruited 70 domestic dogs for two almost identical experiments.
In the first, 51 dogs sat with their owners in a room facing two screens, each with its own speaker, one on the left and one on the right. Over roughly 15 minutes, a human voice said either 'Bouba' or 'Kiki' while the two shapes swapped between the screens. A GoPro filmed each dog. The researchers then used AI to track where the dogs' heads were pointing, as a stand-in for where they were looking.
The second experiment used 19 other dogs. This time the owners wore headphones playing rock music, so they could not hear the words. The aim was to rule out cues from the owners.
“dogs looked significantly more at the rounded shape while 'Bouba' was played, and they looked at and explored the spiky shape when 'Kiki' was played”Biffi and team, study authors
The finding matters because of what the test has shown in people. ScienceAlert reported that the experiment was first conceived in the 1920s. Most people who take it agree that Kiki is spiky and Bouba is round, regardless of the language or alphabet they use. That suggests something universal about how humans connect shapes with sounds. ScienceAlert described the dog results as a starting point for bigger questions, such as why dogs are quick to pick up on human language and how they became our close companions.
Some questions remain open. In the first experiment, the dogs showed a general bias toward looking at the spiky shapes. That bias disappeared in the second experiment, when owners wore headphones. The authors considered whether the dogs were picking up unintentional cues from their owners. They called this "unlikely" because humans typically prefer rounded or curved shapes. They also suggested another possible explanation: the more angular, 'spiky' facial features of dogs, especially ancient dogs and wolves, could plausibly contribute to an opposite bias.
According to ScienceAlert, much more research is needed before scientists can definitively say that dogs associate 'Bouba' with round shapes and 'Kiki' with sharp ones.
