Abstract
The study analyses the existence of cross-modal associations in the general population between a series of paintings and a series of clips of classical (guitar) music. Because of the complexity of the stimuli, the study differs from previous analyses conducted on the association between visual and auditory stimuli, which predominantly analyzed single tones and colors by means of psychophysical methods and forced choice responses. More recently, the relation between music and shape has been analyzed in terms of music visualization, or relatively to the role played by emotion in the association, and free response paradigms have also been accepted. In our study, in order to investigate what attributes may be responsible for the phenomenon of the association between visual and auditory stimuli, the clip/painting association was tested in two experiments: the first used the semantic differential on a unidimensional rating scale of adjectives; the second employed a specific methodology based on subjective perceptual judgments in first person account. Because of the complexity of the stimuli, it was decided to have the maximum possible uniformity of style, composition and musical color. The results show that multisensory features expressed by adjectives such as “quick,” “agitated,” and “strong,” and their antonyms “slow,” “calm,” and “weak” characterized both the visual and auditory stimuli, and that they may have had a role in the associations. The results also suggest that the main perceptual features responsible for the clip/painting associations were hue, lightness, timbre, and musical tempo. Contrary to what was expected, the musical mode usually related to feelings of happiness (major mode), or to feelings of sadness (minor mode), and spatial orientation (vertical and horizontal) did not play a significant role in the association. The consistency of the associations was shown when evaluated on the whole sample, and after considering the different backgrounds and expertise of the subjects. No substantial difference was found between expert and non-expert subjects. The methods used in the experiment (semantic differential and subjective judgements in first person account) corroborated the interpretation of the results as associations due to patterns of qualitative similarity present in stimuli of different sensory modalities and experienced as such by the subjects. The main result of the study consists in showing the existence of cross-modal associations between highly complex stimuli; furthermore, the second experiment employed a specific methodology based on subjective perceptual judgments.
Highlights
In recent years the field of perception studies has seen an increasing amount of research showing the tendency for a sensory feature, or attribute, in one modality to be matched with a sensory feature in another modality
The study tested whether the general population exhibits crossmodal associations between complex stimuli of two different modalities, and between a series of paintings and a series of clips of classical music
One was conducted using the semantic differential on a unidimensional rating scale of adjectives; the other was based on subjective judgments on the association between visual and auditory stimuli
Summary
In recent years the field of perception studies has seen an increasing amount of research showing the tendency for a sensory feature, or attribute, in one modality to be matched with a sensory feature in another modality Prompted by interest in the field of synesthesia (Wicker, 1968; Melara and O’Brien, 1987; Cytowic, 1995; Baron-Cohen and Harrison, 1997; Ward and Simner, 2003; Simner et al, 2006), studies considered similar phenomena occurring in the general population (Martino and Marks, 2001; Maurer and Mondloch, 2005; Sagiv and Ward, 2006; Spector and Maurer, 2008, 2011; Parise and Spence, 2009; Deroy et al, 2013; Deroy and Spence, 2013). Since inducers have a conceptual nature, it has been asked whether a full account of synesthesia should not go beyond the standard sensory-sensory approach (Dixon et al, 2006; Simner and Ward, 2006; Ward et al, 2007; Eagleman, 2012; Jürgens and Nikolic, 2012, 2014; Mroczko-Wasowicz and Werning, 2012; Simner, 2012; Ward, 2013; Mroczko-Wasowicz and Nikolic, 2014)
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