‘Bouba’ and ‘Kiki’ in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape–sound matches, but different shape–taste matches to westerners

Multisensory Research 26 Supplement (2013) 123 brill.com/msr Poster Presentation 'Bouba' and 'Kiki' in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape–sound matches, but different shape–taste matches to westerners Andrew J. Bremner 1 , ∗ , Serge Caparos 2 , Jules Davidoff 1 , Jan W. de Fockert 1 , Karina Linnell 1 and Charles Spence 3 1 Goldsmiths, University of London, UK 2 Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada 3 University of Oxford, UK Abstract Western participants consistently match certain shapes with particular speech sounds, tastes, and flavours. Here we demonstrate that the 'Bouba–Kiki effect', a well-known shape–sound symbol- ism effect