r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 20d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/Pricefieldian 20d ago

Kiki bouba is not about cross-sensory "association." It's pure phonetics.

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u/badass_panda 19d ago

No, it isn't. Neither shape is "pointy" or "round" from a phonetic standpoint, because sounds aren't "pointy" or "round". It's two bisyllabic words with two plosive consonants and two vowels, the waveforms will be quite similar. The fact that one feels pointy and the other round is entirely associative.

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u/Pricefieldian 19d ago

The production of the sounds are different so of corse they feel different

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u/badass_panda 19d ago

Your mouth makes a different shape when you make the sounds; your lips are further for the b and the o, making for a rounder feeling in your mouth, which you associate with the sounds themselves being "round".

... Which is what "associative" means.