GoKawiilStudy finds dogs may match 'bouba' and 'kiki' sounds to shapes like humans
Researchers led by animal behaviorist Eleonora Biffi at the University of Parma tested 70 domestic dogs to see if they associate the nonsense word 'bouba' with rounded shapes and 'kiki' with spiky ones, a pattern long observed in humans. Using screens, speakers and AI-based head-tracking from GoPro footage, the team recorded where dogs looked as the words and shapes were played in different combinations. The findings were published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
If dogs show the same sound-shape associations as humans, it could suggest this effect isn't unique to human language processing but may reflect a broader, perhaps evolutionarily shared, way of linking sound and visual form across species. Such a finding could prompt further comparative research into how different animals perceive sensory correspondences, though the study's scope and methods would need scrutiny before drawing firm conclusions about cognition.
- The 'bouba/kiki' effect, first studied in the 1920s, links round shapes to 'bouba' and spiky shapes to 'kiki' across human languages.
- A new study tested whether 70 dogs show a similar association using screens, speakers and AI-based gaze tracking.
- The research, led by Eleonora Biffi at the University of Parma, was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Source: sciencealert.com — Jess Cockerill, 2026-10-18
Published there as: “Dogs seem to agree with humans that 'bouba' is round and 'kiki' is spiky”
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