Can Dogs Hear Shapes? New Study Reveals a Surprising Ability Shared with Humans

Scientists discover that dogs associate certain sounds with rounded or pointed shapes, suggesting a remarkable connection between hearing and vision.

Can a sound have a shape? For humans, the answer appears to be yes—and new research suggests dogs may experience something similar. Scientists have discovered that dogs spontaneously connect certain sounds with particular visual shapes, even when the sounds have no meaning. The findings, published in October 2026, suggest that an unusual ability once associated mainly with human language may be more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously believed.

The Strange Connection Between Sounds and Shapes

Imagine being shown two unfamiliar objects. One is round and smooth, while the other has sharp, pointed edges. Now imagine hearing two invented words: bouba and kiki.

Which word belongs to which object? Most people associate bouba with the rounded object and kiki with the pointed one. This phenomenon is known as the bouba-kiki effect. Scientists have studied it for decades because it suggests that our brains do not always process sounds and images independently. Instead, certain sounds seem naturally connected to particular visual characteristics.

The effect has been observed across different human populations and languages. It has also been demonstrated in very young children. More recently, researchers discovered comparable associations in three-day-old chickens, raising an intriguing possibility: perhaps this ability developed long before human language. Could dogs possess it too?

Putting Dogs to the Test

An international research team led by Eleonora Biffi investigated whether adult domestic dogs would show the same spontaneous sound-shape associations. The study, titled Hearing Shapes: The Bouba-Kiki Effect in Adult Domestic Dogs, was published on 14 October 2026 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The researchers presented dogs with two contrasting visual shapes: one rounded and one pointed. They then played recordings of the invented words bouba and kiki. The central question was whether the dogs would respond differently to the shapes depending on which sound they heard. Because the words had no established meaning for the dogs, any consistent association could provide evidence of a connection between auditory and visual information. The researchers examined where the dogs looked and how they explored the shapes.

The Dogs Made the Same Associations

The results revealed a striking pattern. When the dogs heard bouba, they spent significantly more time looking at the rounded shape. When they heard kiki, they looked at and explored the pointed shape. These responses closely resembled the associations commonly observed in humans.

The researchers concluded that adult domestic dogs appear to demonstrate a spontaneous sound-shape association similar to the bouba-kiki effect. Importantly, this does not mean dogs understand the invented words as language. Instead, the findings suggest that their brains may naturally connect certain acoustic characteristics with particular visual properties. This ability is known as cross-modal correspondence.

It describes situations in which information received through one sense becomes associated with information received through another. For example, humans frequently associate higher-pitched sounds with smaller objects and lower-pitched sounds with larger ones. The new research suggests that dogs may share at least some of these perceptual tendencies. University of Haifa

Why This Matters for Understanding Dogs

Dogs live in a world shaped by information from several senses. They use smell, hearing, vision and touch to understand their surroundings and communicate with other animals and humans. Scientists already know that dogs can combine different types of information when interpreting human behaviour. They may respond to a person’s voice, gestures, body position or facial expressions. However, the bouba-kiki effect represents something different.

It suggests that certain associations between sounds and visual shapes may arise spontaneously, without the need for extensive training or experience. This could provide researchers with new opportunities to investigate how dogs organise sensory information. It also raises questions about the evolutionary origins of such abilities.

If humans, dogs and even newly hatched chickens demonstrate comparable associations, the underlying mechanisms may be older and more widespread than previously assumed. Nevertheless, similar behaviour in different species does not necessarily mean that their brains use identical processes.

Does This Change How We Communicate with Dogs?

The findings are fascinating, but they do not immediately provide new dog-training techniques. The experiment investigated associations between meaningless sounds and abstract shapes. It did not examine whether particular words are easier for dogs to learn or whether changing the sounds used in commands improves obedience.

It would therefore be premature to recommend replacing familiar training words with sounds such as bouba or kiki. The study also does not establish whether dogs are born with this ability or develop it through experience. The researchers specifically identified the origins and function of the effect as subjects requiring further investigation. Future experiments could explore whether puppies show similar responses, whether other animal species share the ability, and how different sounds influence visual attention.

Another Window into the Canine Mind

For dog owners, the discovery offers another reminder that dogs experience their surroundings in ways scientists are still working to understand. Their world is not simply a collection of separate smells, sights and sounds. Information from different senses may interact in unexpected ways, helping dogs interpret the environment around them.

The bouba-kiki experiment does not show that dogs possess human language abilities. What it does suggest is that humans and dogs may share some surprisingly fundamental ways of connecting what they hear with what they see. And that makes a seemingly simple question—can dogs hear shapes?—an intriguing subject for further scientific investigation.

Primary Sources

Original peer-reviewed scientific paper

Biffi, E., Pedretti, G., Normando, S., Lazebnik, T., Loconsole, M., and Valsecchi, P. (2026).

Hearing shapes: The Bouba-Kiki effect in adult domestic dogs.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 293(2080), Article 20261209.

Published: 14 October 2026.

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2026.1209.

Original scientific publication

Institutional research record

University of Haifa — Research publication and abstract

The institutional record confirms the publication date, authors, peer-review status and principal findings. The complete publisher-hosted paper could not be retrieved, so detailed experimental information not established by the abstract has deliberately been excluded.