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Wow!!! I've thought my whole life about this at random moments....... when I was a very little kid, maybe 5-10 I used to say certain words and I would get a ver

by Exuma 5y ago

Wow!!! I've thought my whole life about this at random moments....... when I was a very little kid, maybe 5-10 I used to say certain words and I would get a very intense visualization that would go along with it. The visualization was never of the actual object, but some bizarre shape or pattern, and it would always be the same when I would say that word. For example the world "girl" would visualize a head of hair with these brown slender shapes that would surround the head and move upwards. It's really crazy it actually has a name. I noticed as I get older it no longer happens, but I remember it used to happen incredibly intensely when I was young.

armoredkitten 5y ago
I have no idea if there's research directly linking the two areas together, but what you're describing sounds more like a form of synesthesia than this more general effect. When I think of "bouba" and "kiki" I don't have any mental visualization...it's just that if I see these shapes and have to name them, one pairing feels a little more "right" than the other. Having mental visualizations associated with particular words, letters, musical notes, etc. is synesthesia. It's also very, very cool. And I guess the article does note near the bottom that there may be some relationship. But the bouba/kiki effect is definitely more widespread than synesthesia.
schoen 5y ago
What you experienced might also be more similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia, since the bouba/kiki experiments are mostly about people judging the quality of a match between sounds and pre-prepared images, rather than having them spontaneously visualize images based on the sounds. Many synesthetes experience a consistent match between words or sounds and visualizations, but not necessarily the same pairing that other people do.
anyfoo 5y ago
Makes me wonder if young children generally have some form of Synesthesia, when the brain still develops, that then subsides in most adults. While I had practically forgotten it until you mentioned it, I had similar experiences, for example the french song "au clair de la lune" always evoked the same, very vivid (but rather abstract) picture in my mind. To my child mind, it was so intense that the song was that picture to me. Nowadays this doesn't happen...

by Exuma 5y ago

armoredkitten 5y ago

I have no idea if there's research directly linking the two areas together, but what you're describing sounds more like a form of synesthesia than this more general effect. When I think of "bouba" and "kiki" I don't have any mental visualization...it's just that if I see these shapes and have to name them, one pairing feels a little more "right" than the other. Having mental visualizations associated with particular words, letters, musical notes, etc. is synesthesia. It's also very, very cool. And I guess the article does note near the bottom that there may be some relationship. But the bouba/kiki effect is definitely more widespread than synesthesia.

schoen 5y ago

What you experienced might also be more similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia, since the bouba/kiki experiments are mostly about people judging the quality of a match between sounds and pre-prepared images, rather than having them spontaneously visualize images based on the sounds. Many synesthetes experience a consistent match between words or sounds and visualizations, but not necessarily the same pairing that other people do.

anyfoo 5y ago

Makes me wonder if young children generally have some form of Synesthesia, when the brain still develops, that then subsides in most adults. While I had practically forgotten it until you mentioned it, I had similar experiences, for example the french song "au clair de la lune" always evoked the same, very vivid (but rather abstract) picture in my mind. To my child mind, it was so intense that the song was that picture to me. Nowadays this doesn't happen...