Is Kiki angry and Bouba happy? Association between emotions, shapes, and sounds

Abstract

Research has shown that particular shapes and speech sounds have common higher-order emotional properties, which might mediate associating angular shapes with kiki-like words and round shapes with bouba-like words, resulting in the so-called kiki-bouba effect. However, research supporting this account has mostly recruited explicit association tests to investigate whether people link particular emotions with these shapes and pseudo-words. This study investigated whether the kiki-bouba effect, observed in the implicit association test, can be similarly based on these emotional mediation processes. We found that the explicit and implicit association tests robustly produced a link between angular shape and angry facial expressions, whereas the round shape was associated with happy and calm facial expressions. In contrast, aurally presented kiki and bouba-like words were associated with these facial expressions in the explicit association test but not in the implicit association test. These observations suggest that people process implicitly the emotional properties of angular/round shapes, while they do not automatically process the emotional properties of the perceived kiki/bouba-like words when the task emphasizes implicit association processes. Consequently, we propose that the kiki-bouba effect, which is observed in explicit association tests, can be partially based on emotional mediation processes. In contrast, the kiki-bouba effect, which is based on implicitly operating association processes, is not likely to be based on emotional mediation processes.

Fig. 1

(Above) The illustration of the stimuli and design used in Experiment 1. The black arrows refer to congruent stimulus pairs whereas grey arrows refer to incongruent stimulus pairs. Notice that Experiments 1 and 2 also included images of real facial expressions. Original material showing these real facial expressions stems from MPI FACES database (persons #139 [angry_a, happy_a, sad_a] and #171 [angry_a, happy_a, sad_b, neutral_b], Ebner et al., 2010). Depiction used with kind permission of the Max Planck Institute— further distribution, publication, or display beyond illustrating the research methodology of this study is prohibited by the Max Planck Institute. In Conditions 1 and 2 of Experiment 1, stimuli consisted of real facial expressions (25%), corresponding facial expressions of emoji stimuli (25%), and [tɑketɑ]/[mɑbemɑ] stimuli (50% in Condition 1), or angular/round shapes (50% in Condition 2). (Below) The mean manual reaction times for Experiment 1 as a function of the congruency for the conditions of emotion-word, emotion-shape, and shape-word. In the emotion-word condition, the congruent pairs were angry-[tɑketɑ] and calm-[mɑbemɑ], in the emotion-shape condition, the congruent pairs were angry-angular and calm-round, and in the shape-word condition, the congruent pairs were angular-[tɑketɑ] and round-[mɑbemɑ]. Error bars depict the standard error of the mean. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences (***p <.001)

Fig. 2

(Above) The illustration of the stimuli and design used in Experiment 2. The black arrows refer to congruent stimulus pairs whereas grey arrows refer to incongruent stimulus pairs. Notice that Experiments 1 and 2 also included images of real facial expressions. Experiment 2 consisted of two sub-experiments from which the first only presented real facial expressions and the second only presented corresponding facial expressions of emoji stimuli. (Below) The mean manual reaction times for Experiment 2, separately for the real faces and emoji faces, as a function of the congruency for the conditions of angry-happy, sad-happy, and angry-sad. In the angry-happy condition, the congruent pairs were angry-angular and happy-round, in the sad-happy condition, the congruent pairs were sad-angular and happy-round, and in the angry-sad condition, the congruent pairs were angry-angular and sad-round. Error bars depict the standard error of the mean. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences (***p <.001)

Fig. 3

(Above) The illustration of the stimuli and design used in Experiment 3. The black arrows refer to congruent stimulus pairs whereas grey arrows refer to incongruent stimulus pairs. (Below) The mean manual reaction times for Experiment 3 as a function of the congruency for the conditions of angry-happy, sad-happy, and angry-sad. In the angry-happy condition, the congruent pairs were angry-[tɑketɑ] and happy-[mɑbemɑ], in the sad-happy condition, the congruent pairs were sad-[tɑketɑ] and happy-[mɑbemɑ], and in the angry-sad condition, the congruent pairs were angry-[tɑketɑ] and sad-[mɑbemɑ]. Error bars depict the standard error of the mean

Fig. 4

The mean estimated valences and arousal values of stimuli used in Experiments 1–3 across the emotional dimensions of valence and arousal