Bo-NO-bouba-kiki: picture-word mapping but no spontaneous sound symbolic speech-shape mapping in a language trained bonobo.

ABSTRACT: Humans share the ability to intuitively map 'sharp' or 'round' pseudowords, such as 'bouba' versus 'kiki', to abstract edgy versus round shapes, respectively. This effect, known as sound symbolism, appears early in human development. The phylogenetic origin of this phenomenon, however, is unclear: are humans the only species capable of experiencing correspondences between speech sounds and shapes, or could similar effects be observed in other animals? Thus far, evidence from an implicit matching experiment failed to find evidence of this sound symbolic matching in great apes, suggesting its human uniqueness. However, explicit tests of sound symbolism have never been conducted with nonhuman great apes. In the present study, a language-competent bonobo completed a cross-modal m

SUBMITTER: Margiotoudi K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8808101 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature