alt Hacker News> But I guess it's about why so we associate those with spiky shapes, though surely it's because they represent sharp immediate changes in frequency?
Sure, but it's a very abstract connection between objects being sharp in vision and frequencies changing sharply in hearing. There's no guarantee any given organism would make the connection.
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oasisaimlessly • yesterday at 5:07 AM
I don't think it's abstract at all. Rub something sharp (anything from a stick to a phonograph needle) on an object and you'll directly transcribe its spatial frequency spectrum into an audio frequency spectrum.
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In the book „the design of everyday things“ it is mentioned that „natural mappings“ exist. Moving the knob of a vertical slider to the upper end universally means „brighter“ or „louder“, not „less bright“ or „more silent“.