Researchers studying animal cognition and cross-modal perception have found that dogs appear to share the well-documented human tendency to associate rounded visual shapes with soft-sounding pseudo-words like “bouba” and spiky figures with sharp-sounding terms like “kiki.” This phenomenon, long observed in human cross-modal studies across diverse cultures, points toward shared sensory mapping mechanisms between humans and other mammals.
The classic linguistic and psychological experiment relies on nonsense words to test how minds map auditory signals to visual geometry without relying on actual semantic meaning. In tests exploring this dynamic with canines, experimenters evaluated how dogs process these associations by setting up testing environments featuring dual screens and speakers. In the initial phases of the trials, researchers tracked animal responses to determine if dogs aligned the acoustic properties of the vocalizations with the geometric forms presented on screen.
To control for potential confounding variables, such as owners inadvertently signaling or guiding their pets during the test, subsequent trials incorporated strict methodological adjustments. A second experiment involving 19 additional dogs replicated the exact spatial setup of the first, but required participating owners to wear headphones playing rock music. This measure effectively blocked owners from hearing the “Bouba” and “Kiki” audio cues, successfully removing any unintentional human behavioral cues that the animals might otherwise have followed.
Scientists analyzing the broader implications of these cross-modal correspondences suggest the phenomenon stems less from formal linguistics and more from fundamental audiovisual mapping of the physical world. The acoustic profiles of these words mirror physical interactions: voiced plosives such as the “b” in “bouba” involve gentle lip movements and continuous waveforms, comparable to smooth curves or rolling objects, while unvoiced plosives like the “k” in “kiki” generate sharp acoustic transients and turbulent pressure spikes resembling jagged points and edges.
While the exact evolutionary origins of these sensory mappings remain an active area of investigation among researchers exploring how animals and humans process environmental energy waves, these repeatable results demonstrate that abstract cross-modal associations are not uniquely human.
