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Is this not reducible to whether a speech sound contains fricatives and stops or not? They produce spiky sounds But I guess it's about why so we associate thos

Is this not reducible to whether a speech sound contains fricatives and stops or not? They produce spiky sounds But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes, though surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency? I'd be interested on results of shapes imagined when you take the source as musical or other non speech sounds.

selridge 8mo ago
>But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes I think the why just got a lot tricker than we imagined. Because we failed to replicate this experiment on other primates, we couldn't avoid a semantic suspicion about those associations. Now we probably have to set semantics aside or let it get a lot weirder, because we can replicate across ~300My. >surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency? Maybe, and I think "multi-sensory signal processing" is the best framing, but the representation could also carry harder to think about things like "harm". It's also super cool because the bouba-kiki effect framing was chosen due to methodological convenience for linguists and cultural anthropologists and their experimental bounds, not neuroscientists or signal processing folks. We could potentially find other experiments quickly, since chicks are a model organism and the mechanism is clear. Things could move fast here.
canjobear 8mo ago
> But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes, though surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency? Sure, but it's a very abstract connection between objects being sharp in vision and frequencies changing sharply in hearing. There's no guarantee any given organism would make the connection.
- oasisaimlessly 8mo ago
  I don't think it's abstract at all. Rub something sharp (anything from a stick to a phonograph needle) on an object and you'll directly transcribe its spatial frequency spectrum into an audio frequency spectrum.
  - canjobear 8mo ago
    Do you think it's obvious that a chick would understand that connection?
    - bondarchuk 8mo ago
      It's not about "understanding" that you or me do when we read a wikipedia article. It's about the mechanisms in the brain that encode things.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 8mo ago
    "Spatial frequency spectrum" typically refers to visual elements of an object, and has nothing particularly to do with its structure. Entirely smooth surfaces banded in different colors have a "spatial frequency". Extremely irregularly surfaces have no effective spatial frequency. Objects on the same scale as, say, a human head, would have to be "rubbed" at ridiculous high rates (and repeatedly) to even get into a "frequency" range that might include pressure variations that would be considered as a "wave". I think you're imagining an entirely too limited set of objects.
- fzeindl 8mo ago
  In the book „the design of everyday things“ it is mentioned that „natural mappings“ exist. Moving the knob of a vertical slider to the upper end universally means „brighter“ or „louder“, not „less bright“ or „more silent“.
  - 5- 8mo ago
    maybe the chicks and norman get it, but i'm currently renting an apartment in france that has a bunch of these light switches installed all upside down, with "-" at the top: https://www.legrand.com.gh/en/catalog/products/arteor-push-button-dimmer-universal-2-wire-2-module-white-572239a https://www.legrand.com.gh/en/catalog/products/arteor-push-b...
  - IsTom 8mo ago
    > Moving the knob of a vertical slider to the upper end universally means „brighter“ or „louder“, not „less bright“ or „more silent“. Except for the organ drawbars?
    - bondarchuk 8mo ago
      But then you are "pulling out the stops"! That sounds louder, doesn't it.
  - seba_dos1 8mo ago
    Which way would a vertical weight slider go?

selridge 8mo ago

>But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes I think the why just got a lot tricker than we imagined. Because we failed to replicate this experiment on other primates, we couldn't avoid a semantic suspicion about those associations. Now we probably have to set semantics aside or let it get a lot weirder, because we can replicate across ~300My. >surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency? Maybe, and I think "multi-sensory signal processing" is the best framing, but the representation could also carry harder to think about things like "harm". It's also super cool because the bouba-kiki effect framing was chosen due to methodological convenience for linguists and cultural anthropologists and their experimental bounds, not neuroscientists or signal processing folks. We could potentially find other experiments quickly, since chicks are a model organism and the mechanism is clear. Things could move fast here.

canjobear 8mo ago

> But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes, though surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency? Sure, but it's a very abstract connection between objects being sharp in vision and frequencies changing sharply in hearing. There's no guarantee any given organism would make the connection.

oasisaimlessly 8mo ago
I don't think it's abstract at all. Rub something sharp (anything from a stick to a phonograph needle) on an object and you'll directly transcribe its spatial frequency spectrum into an audio frequency spectrum.
- canjobear 8mo ago
  Do you think it's obvious that a chick would understand that connection?
  - bondarchuk 8mo ago
    It's not about "understanding" that you or me do when we read a wikipedia article. It's about the mechanisms in the brain that encode things.
- PaulDavisThe1st 8mo ago
  "Spatial frequency spectrum" typically refers to visual elements of an object, and has nothing particularly to do with its structure. Entirely smooth surfaces banded in different colors have a "spatial frequency". Extremely irregularly surfaces have no effective spatial frequency. Objects on the same scale as, say, a human head, would have to be "rubbed" at ridiculous high rates (and repeatedly) to even get into a "frequency" range that might include pressure variations that would be considered as a "wave". I think you're imagining an entirely too limited set of objects.
fzeindl 8mo ago
In the book „the design of everyday things“ it is mentioned that „natural mappings“ exist. Moving the knob of a vertical slider to the upper end universally means „brighter“ or „louder“, not „less bright“ or „more silent“.
- 5- 8mo ago
  maybe the chicks and norman get it, but i'm currently renting an apartment in france that has a bunch of these light switches installed all upside down, with "-" at the top: https://www.legrand.com.gh/en/catalog/products/arteor-push-button-dimmer-universal-2-wire-2-module-white-572239a https://www.legrand.com.gh/en/catalog/products/arteor-push-b...
- IsTom 8mo ago
  > Moving the knob of a vertical slider to the upper end universally means „brighter“ or „louder“, not „less bright“ or „more silent“. Except for the organ drawbars?
  - bondarchuk 8mo ago
    But then you are "pulling out the stops"! That sounds louder, doesn't it.
- seba_dos1 8mo ago
  Which way would a vertical weight slider go?