David Barton is completing his PhD at the University of Otago, under the supervision of Professor Jamin Halberstadt in the Social Cognition lab. Originally from South Africa, he immigrated to New Zealand in February 1998 with his wife Ruan.
“We touched down in Auckland with just a few suitcases, having sold or given away most of our earthly possessions, landing in New Zealand with just hopes and dreams of a better life. How our lives have changed since then! Now we have three wonderful daughters to add to our number, two born in Auckland and one in Dunedin.”
David considers what he is doing now as his second profession as he has made a complete 180o turn to what he did in South Africa and Auckland. Starting his working career as a technician working in telecommunications, over the ensuing years he has also been a trainee Pastor, a small business owner, Probation Officer and even worked in the mental health sector as a Counsellor. He has always maintained an active role as a Christian, father, husband, athlete, musician and of course student.
“I started my Master's degree in Psychology at Otago in 2012 and upgraded to a PhD mid-2013. After completing my Bachelor's Degree in Psychology by distance learning through the Open Polytech, where all my studies were undertaken online, being a postgraduate student has been an extra-interesting experience, as it's my first time attending a university campus.”
David's postgraduate research was inspired by what's commonly known as the bouba/kiki effect.
“This effect demonstrates how people non-arbitrarily name rounded shapes with words like 'bouba' and spiky angular shapes with words like 'kiki'. The effect can be located within the area of sound symbolism which shows how information taken in by one sense is experienced in a similar manner in another sense. For example how the round sound of 'bouba' is experienced visually as a rounded shape."
From this, David wondered if sound symbolism influenced the way people were named. Maybe a round sounding name like 'Bob' would be a better name for a person with a rounded face compared to the name 'Rick'.
“According to bouba/kiki studies it would be. This is because the /o/ vowel in 'Bob' causes the mouth to round which consequently also produces sound with a low tone. Research has found low tones to be linked to large rounder objects. Comparatively, 'Rick' causes the mouth to spread due to the /i/ vowel, and produces a higher tone, linked more to thinner, smaller objects. Round faces usually appear larger than more angular faces, so it made sense that 'Bob' would make a better match for a round faced person.”
To test this hypothesis David's lab group ran several studies and found that participants overwhelmingly named rounded faces with names like 'Bob' and angular faces with names like 'Rick.
“This was evidence of sound symbolism in action.”
However, people did not always follow this naming convention. In several cases they gave a person a name which did not match their face.
“Why did this happen? It turns out that your first impressions of the person can influence what name you give them. If your first impressions are positive then you will most likely give them a matching name, but if they are negative you will most likely give them a non-matching name.”
In further studies the lab group manipulated liking and attractiveness and found the same effect; when first impressions are positive you name a person more congruently, but when they are negative you name the person less congruently.
“To test if the effect had any real world implications we conducted a study which involved 158 political candidates who ran for the United States senate between 2000 and 2008. We found photographs of each candidate online and took subjective ratings for the shape of their face and name. Using these ratings we were able to calculate a matching score for each candidate. This matching score was an indication of how well their name matched their face. We then reduced our sample to 53 candidates which included only the best and worst matched candidates. The naming effect clearly emerged from this sample. The best matched candidates significantly received more votes than the worst named candidates. Candidates with names which matched their faces ended up being more successful.”
“Sometimes it is interesting and surprising what you find doing research. For me, it has been the most enjoyable and exhilarating aspect of being a PhD student – and it's probably this aspect that will stay with me when I am finished.”
David Barton