Dogs share the bouba/kiki bias

A controlled study (51 dogs; Proc. R. Soc. B) found dogs look longer at rounded shapes when the word “bouba” is played and at angular shapes when “kiki” is played, suggesting the classic human sound–shape mapping extends beyond humans. The authors propose this may arise from species‑specific sensory/morphological biases (dogs’ relatively angular facial morphology) rather than human‑style infant preferences. — If cross‑modal sound–shape mappings are shared across species, that reshapes arguments about the evolutionary origins of language, multimodal perception, and the design of human–animal communication and AI multimodal systems.