This is just one micro-instance of a much larger thing. Brain encodes structural similarity across modalities. Corollary: language is far from arbitrary labels for things.
No, language is still pretty close to arbitrary labels. The handful of tenuous common threads like the bouba-kiki effect don't change the overall picture that much. The simple fact that language varies as much as it does is sufficient to prove that it's only loosely bound to anything universal.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the arbitrariness of the sign. Arbitrary doesn't mean "random" or "uniformly sampled." The fact there are systematic tendencies among languages in how things are called doesn't negate the arbitrariness of the sign, they could have been called other things. We can also decide to refer to things by another name and we can use any arbitrary name we like! There is no limits on what names we can use (besides silly physiological constraints like having a word with 50 000 consonants). But, of course, there's much more to language than just labels!
For me, the interesting thing in this paper vis-à-vis language is that it shows how much innate structure in cognition must shape our language.
Arbitrariness of the sign is a principle that requires so many epicycles to present as "true" that it's more of a warning against overgeneralization than an insight with any significant predictive power in its own right.
I think it’s natural to think of this in terms of frequencies so the kiki shape has a higher visual frequency. As does the word have a higher audio frequencies within in than bouba so that is naturally associated with the lower frequency undulating line of that shape.
This phrase is a direct quote from the 1955 play (and 1960 film) Inherit the Wind, spoken by the character Henry Drummond (based on Clarence Darrow) regarding the teaching of evolution. It frames scientific education and intellectual freedom as the ultimate, pure progress of human civilization, contrasting with dogmatic resistance.
Context: The line refers to the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial, which debated the legality of teaching evolution in Tennessee schools.
Significance: It serves as a dramatic defense of modernism, science, and freedom of thought against traditionalist views.
Cultural Impact: While based on historical events, the play uses this line to argue that intellectual inquiry is the cornerstone of advancement.
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.
This is just one micro-instance of a much larger thing. Brain encodes structural similarity across modalities. Corollary: language is far from arbitrary labels for things.
No, language is still pretty close to arbitrary labels. The handful of tenuous common threads like the bouba-kiki effect don't change the overall picture that much. The simple fact that language varies as much as it does is sufficient to prove that it's only loosely bound to anything universal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name
>language is far from arbitrary labels for things
I think this is a misunderstanding of the arbitrariness of the sign. Arbitrary doesn't mean "random" or "uniformly sampled." The fact there are systematic tendencies among languages in how things are called doesn't negate the arbitrariness of the sign, they could have been called other things. We can also decide to refer to things by another name and we can use any arbitrary name we like! There is no limits on what names we can use (besides silly physiological constraints like having a word with 50 000 consonants). But, of course, there's much more to language than just labels!
For me, the interesting thing in this paper vis-à-vis language is that it shows how much innate structure in cognition must shape our language.
Arbitrariness of the sign is a principle that requires so many epicycles to present as "true" that it's more of a warning against overgeneralization than an insight with any significant predictive power in its own right.
Preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.17.594640v1....
I think it’s natural to think of this in terms of frequencies so the kiki shape has a higher visual frequency. As does the word have a higher audio frequencies within in than bouba so that is naturally associated with the lower frequency undulating line of that shape.
baba is keke
What's the N value of this study
I don’t know, but it really should be in units of N dozen.
From the preprint linked above:
> We tested a total of 42 subjects, 17 of which were females.
Believe it or not: This is pure and unadulterated advancement of civilization.
Please elaborate.
I looked it up, according to Google:
This phrase is a direct quote from the 1955 play (and 1960 film) Inherit the Wind, spoken by the character Henry Drummond (based on Clarence Darrow) regarding the teaching of evolution. It frames scientific education and intellectual freedom as the ultimate, pure progress of human civilization, contrasting with dogmatic resistance.
Context: The line refers to the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial, which debated the legality of teaching evolution in Tennessee schools.
Significance: It serves as a dramatic defense of modernism, science, and freedom of thought against traditionalist views.
Cultural Impact: While based on historical events, the play uses this line to argue that intellectual inquiry is the cornerstone of advancement.
An interesting explanation that happens to be completely hallucinated. That line doesn't appear anywhere in either the play or the movie.
ha, ha, and they say AI does not hallucinate anymore!
Okay Gemini
If you don't recognize a quote, it's obviously AI? Might want to rethink your logic, or outsource it to AI. Might help you
All the universal translators in fiction make more sense now lol.