It Turns Out The 'Mil/Mal Effect' Could Affect Your Food Choices

Ever heard of the names “kiko” and “bouba”? 

These are made-up nouns that scientists invented to test how we link images to language. When people are shown a blobby shape and a spiky shape, then asked which one suits “kiko” and which is a better match for “bouba”, they overwhelmingly dub the round one “bouba”. 

Its sharper sibling is often seen as more of a “kiko”, meanwhile. This result is consistent across languages and cultures.

And it seems a similar phenomenon called the “mil/mal effect” might even change how we choose our food.

What is the “mil/mal effect”?

This means that people usually associate sounds like “ee” and “t” with smaller sizes, while words with broader “b” and “oh” noises are perceived as relating to bigger objects.

For instance, people might be likelier to think a table called “mal” was larger than one arbitrarily named “mil”, without seeing either.

A paper that sought to find out how snack names changed our expectations of them used this theory. 

What did they find? 

The researchers asked people to describe what they thought about snacks with fictive names. Half of these (like Iskee, Keesee, Kitsip, and Spisiki) were expected to be seen as “smaller”, while the other half (Bromogaw, Gawdoe, and Gobo) were designed to sound “bigger”.

Scientists assigned these names to both healthier foods (like porridge and trail mix), and less-healthy items, like crisps. Participants were given different names for different products to review.

It seemed that regardless of snack type, people imagined snacks with “bigger” names – like Blorgo – as being heavier and more filling than those with “smaller” fake brands, like Iskee. 

That didn’t seem to affect whether or not participants said they’d choose to buy the products in a supermarket, though. The biggest factor there was the would-be buyer’s goals: when asked which they’d pick for a friend who liked hearty fried food, people were likelier to choose a “big”-sounding snack name.

When asked to shop for a mate who prefers lighter meals, however, they tended to opt for something like a smaller-sounding Kipi.

In general, Teek was an especially popular choice, while it seems nobody wanted to consume poor Blorogo.

The research concluded: “Sound symbolism shapes our perception of the world. Sounds that are associated with information about size and weight can have an impact on food expectations – even through minimal exposure such as reading a food product’s brand name.

“The present research underlines the importance of considering language surrounding food products for expectation and purchase intentions.”