Bouba–Kiki effect holds true in dogs

When presented with two shapes, one with spikes and one rounded, and asked to designate them ‘bouba’ and ‘kiki’, people tend to agree that kiki is the spiky one — and so do dogs. Researchers found that when presented with images of these shapes, domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) more often looked at and moved toward the round shape when the word ‘bouba’ was played from a speaker, and vice versa. The results could suggest that dogs make similar connections between visual information and sounds to humans.