From chickens to humans, animals think "bouba" sounds round
Summary
Newly hatched chicks exhibit bouba/kiki sound-shape associations, suggesting crossmodal perception is not language-specific and exists in non-primate animals. The study shows chicks move toward rounded shapes when hearing 'bouba' and toward spikier shapes with 'kiki', supporting crossmodal correspondences as a general perceptual bias. This challenges the idea that bouba/kiki is unique to humans or linguistic species and raises questions about studying perception in adult primates.