Color Hearing Research Articles

Color Hearing: Creating a Body of Creative Design Scholarship Using Psychomimicry

This study examined the use of psychomimicry in the apparel design process by exploring a series of three garments entitled, Color Hearing. The designer delineates the iterative design process, explains the design challenges, and expands on what is known by implementing a new technique of coding music to create textile print designs. The designer used a four-stage design process for each of the three garments included in this study. The important contributions of this study include the novel approach of using psychomimicry as a design influence and the establishment of a coding process to generate textile print designs based on the neurological phenomena of synesthesia.

Synesthesia in a Musician Example of "Colours" by B. Appermont for Trombone with Orchestra/Piano

The purpose of the work is a study of the phenomenon of synesthesia in the context of B. Appermont's musical work "Colours" and the identification of objective regularities and the connection between sound and colour palettes, and also the formation of certain common associations. The methodological basis is the application of the hermeneutic method for the interpretation of certain provisions of general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. The use of the comparative research method contributed to the identification of intonation models, which ensured the expression of synesthetic correspondences in the general form and means of expression. A structural method was also used to organise the presentation of the research material, a comparative method to clarify the specifics of certain conceptual positions. The scientific novelty of the work is due to the study of synesthesia through the prism of the analysis of a modern work, which is a vivid embodiment of the synthetic perception of art, as well as the expression of emotional shades of literal musical colouristics. Conclusions. Despite the subjectivity of human perception of music, there is a whole series of objective associations of emotional colouring of sound through the prism of artistic colouristics. This leads to a broader interpretation of the composer's toolkit for the additional embodiment of the author's subjective thinking. Such means of emotional reflection have not yet gained widespread use in the composer's heritage and require additional research.
 Keywords: synesthesia, colour hearing, Bert Appermont, trombone, "Colours" for trombone with orchestra and piano.

Coloured hearing, colour music, colour organs, and the search for perceptually meaningful correspondences between colour and sound.

There has long been interest in the nature of the relationship(s) between hue and pitch or, in other words, between colour and musical/pure tones, stretching back at least as far as Newton, Goethe, Helmholtz, and beyond. In this narrative historical review, we take a closer look at the motivations that have lain behind the various assertions that have been made in the literature concerning the analogies, and possible perceptual similarities, between colour and sound. During the last century, a number of experimental psychologists have also investigated the nature of the correspondence between these two primary dimensions of perceptual experience. The multitude of different crossmodal mappings that have been put forward over the centuries are summarized, and a distinction drawn between physical/structural and psychological correspondences. The latter being further sub-divided into perceptual and affective categories. Interest in physical correspondences has typically been motivated by the structural similarities (analogous mappings) between the organization of perceptible dimensions of auditory and visual experience. Emphasis has been placed both on the similarity in terms of the number of basic categories into which pitch and colour can be arranged and also on the fact that both can be conceptualized as circular dimensions. A distinction is drawn between those commentators who have argued for a dimensional alignment of pitch and hue (based on a structural mapping), and those who appear to have been motivated by the existence of specific correspondences between particular pairs of auditory and visual stimuli instead (often, as we will see, based on the idiosyncratic correspondences that have been reported by synaesthetes). Ultimately, though, the emotional-mediation account would currently appear to provide the most parsimonious account for whatever affinity the majority of people experience between musical sounds and colour.

Синестетическая сфера embodied mind: на примере цветного слуха музыкантов

Синестетическая сфера embodied mind: на примере цветного слуха музыкантов

Musical Stained-glasses by Olivier Messian

Musical Stained-glasses by Olivier Messian

Потенциал развития «цветного слуха» как профессионально-прикладной компетенции педагога-музыканта

Потенциал развития «цветного слуха» как профессионально-прикладной компетенции педагога-музыканта

Coloured hearing' in STEAM Program for 7th-10th Grades

Coloured hearing' in STEAM Program for 7th-10th Grades

'Coloured hearing' in STEAM Program for 7th-10th Grades*

'Coloured hearing' in STEAM Program for 7th-10th Grades*

Serious Game for Music Usability Test about Coloured hearing Synesthesia and its' Usability Test

Serious Game for Music Usability Test about Coloured hearing Synesthesia and its' Usability Test

다큐멘터리 <색청, 색을 듣는 사람들>을 중심으로 한 디지털영상 분석

색청은 성장기에 프루닝이 정상적으로 이루어지지 않아서 시각이나 청각 경로에 혼선이 생긴 사람들에게 발생한다. 그들이 겪는 현상을 '색청'이라고 부른다 색청은 소리를 들을 때 색을 보는 형상을 말한다. 영상의 인터뷰에서 예술분야 전문가는 천부적인 재능으로 보았으며, 의학 분야 전문가는 일상생활에 큰 혼란을 야기하는 장애가 될 수 있다고 말한다. 일반적으로 사람들은 무의식적으로 공감각현상을 겪고 있다. 본 논문에서는 영상의 결과물을 바탕으로 과학적으로 증명된 연구결과와 일상 속의 현상을 바탕으로 '색청'을 분석하고, 또한 편집자의 관점에서 영상을 분석한다. 'Colored hearing' occurs to those who caused confusion in the visual, auditory path to brain because pruning had not normally done in the growth phase. It is called as 'colored hearing'. 'Colored hearing' is a phenomenon which some people can see colors when they hear sounds. In the interview of video, art experts say that the phenomenon is a natural talents, however professionals in the medical field say that the disorder may be causing a major disruption to daily life. Usually people are unknowingly suffering from synesthesia phenomenon. In this paper, based on the video, we show the phenomenon of 'colored hearing' based on the results of scientific research and on the daily life, and also analyze the video from the viewpoint of the editors and the audience.

Synesthetic Problems in French Symbolism’ Aesthetics and their Current Relevance

The article explores the conceptions of synesthesia and the synthesis of arts in French Symbolism based on the theory of con-gruity of spiritual and physical worlds. The author analyzes the synesthetic ideas in musical poetry, color hearing, total theatre and their impact on modern multimedia art practices.

Congenital Rubella Syndrome: An Overview of Clinical Presentations in Bangladeshi Children

Background: Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) has long been characterized by the triad of deafness, cataract and cardiovascular malformations with or without mental retardation. Objective: This study was conducted to observe the clinical manifestations of CRS in children of Bangladesh. Materials and method: This cross sectional study was carried out in Dhaka Shishu (Children) Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Total 40 cases of CRS were enrolled from indoor and outpatient departments of these two hospitals, who were diagnosed according to standard case definition. Serological test for rubella antibody, chest X-ray, colour Doppler echocardiography, visual examination and hearing assessment were done in relative specialised centres. Results: The mean(±SD) age of the study subjects was 6.6(±5.7) months (range: 0-24 months). Among the subjects, 68% were male and 32% were female. Serum for rubella specific antibody revealed positive IgG in 60% cases and IgM in 28% cases. Neurological problem was the most frequently observed (90%) systemic complication followed by visual problem (83%), congenital hearing loss (80%) and congenital heart disease (78%). Cataract was the commonest (55%) among visual problems and microcephaly (62%) among neurological manifestations. Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was the most common (37.5%) isolated structural cardiac defect. Maximum (62.5%) children came from poor socioeconomic status. Maternal onset of infection was commonly detected in 1st trimester of pregnancy. Conclusion: Diagnosis of CRS and recognition of its versatile pattern of clinical presentation are crucial for better prognosis of the affected children. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/dmcj.v2i2.20522 Delta Med Col J. Jul 2014; 2(2): 42-47

Anomalous Auditory Cortex Activations in Colored Hearing Synaesthetes: An fMRI-Study

Color percept induction in synaesthetes by hearing words was previously shown to involve activation of visual and specifically color processing cortex areas. While this provides a rationale for the origin of the anomalous color percept the question of mechanism of this crossmodal activation remains unclear. We pursued this question with fMRI in color hearing synaesthetes by exposing subjects to words and tones. Brain activations in word condition accompanied by highly reliable color percepts were compared with activations in tone condition with only occasional color percepts and both contrasted to activations in normal subjects under the same stimulus conditions. This revealed that already the tone condition similar to the word condition caused abnormally high activations in various cortical areas even though synaesthetic percepts were more rare. Such tone activations were significantly larger than in normal subjects in visual areas of the right occipital lobe, the fusiform gyrus, and the left middle temporal gyrus and in auditory areas of the left superior temporal gyrus. These auditory areas showed strong word and tone activation alike and not the typically lower tone than word activation in normal subjects. Taken together these results are interpreted in favour of the disinhibited feedback hypothesis as the neurophysiological basis of genuine synaesthesia.

“What I Call a Sound”: Anthony Braxton’s Synaesthetic Ideal and Notations for Improvisers

In this article I look at some of the visual elements in Anthony Braxton’s music and examine how he uses graphic and symbolic notations in particular to initiate fresh approaches to improvisation.
 
 Drawing on a previously unpublished interview in which he describes his perceptions of sound, I consider the possibility that Braxton may be a synaesthete who has “colour hearing”. However, since this question appears irresolvable, I focus instead on his music, which certainly embodies a “synaesthetic ideal”, in which sound, colour and shape (and other factors) all correspond, and I trace the possible origins of, and reasons for, this ideal in Braxton’s mystical beliefs and in the upsurge of a synaesthetic culture in fin de siècle European Romanticism.
 
 In the second half of the article, I look at some specific examples of Braxton’s alternative notations and, via reference to his Composition Notes and Tri-axium Writings, I explore how his uses of the visual also reflect the values and methodologies he ascribes to the African American creative music tradition, in which “individual presence” (of the participants), as expressed through improvisation, is a crucial factor in performance practice.
 
 Finally, I suggest that this mixing of African American and European Romantic influences exemplifies Braxton’s claim that his music is “trans-idiomatic”; that is, it cannot be categorised within any one musical or ethnic tradition, but rather synthesises elements from all.

The Nature and Functions of Synesthesia in Music

The author considers the phenomenon of synesthesia, defining it as intersensory association formed by similarity or “contiguity” of heteromodal perceptions. The results of this associative process (occurring mainly at the subconscious level), when coming to the light of consciousness, may be fixed either in verbal form or directly in the sensuous material of the nonverbal arts (most significantly music). Synesthesia calls forth such notions as “melody line,” “the hearing space” and “tone color,” and makes it possible to perceive sounds and chords as “sharp,” “dull” or “high.” Synesthesia (and the particular case of “color hearing”) is the essential component of musical thinking, first of all, in music intended to evoke images.

Vladimir Nabokov: Alphabet in Color by Jean Holabird (review)

REVIEWS 339 and the poem's theme 'is more than a Proustianreturnin art;it is a returnmemory which depends upon the reciprocal action of a prescient self in the past who anticipatesthis moment long before it actually happens' (p. 20I). While their indebtedness to Bakhtin and Gaston Bachelard is acknowledged , Crone and Day declare to have distinctivelycontributedto the study of literatureand space: 'Thus our typology of models of space as self involve complexities and strategies that Bakhtin and Bachelard, with their more abstractedtypologies, do not describe or foresee. Our poetry-derivedmodels have a dynamism Bakhtin'stypology reservesfor the so-called chronotope of the threshold,the chronotope of crisisand breaksin life' (p. 362).The scholars believe such an approach can unravel the modes of elegiac identification with Petersburglandscapesand imaginativespaces that continue to shape the constructionof a new Russian self in post-Soviettimes. This conclusion serves as an invitation to other scholars to reconsider further literary examples of post-Soviet construction and deconstruction of the Petersburg myth. Certainly, Crone's and Day's innovative study is inspiring and enjoyable to anyone interestedin Russian culturalhistory and poetry. University ofEdinburgh ALEXANDRA SMITH Holabird,Jean. Vladimir Nabokov: Alphabet in Color. With a forewordby Brian Boyd. Gingko Press, Corte Madera, CA, 2005. 38 pp. (unpaginated). Illustrations.Appendix. Notes. $25.00. VLADIMIR NABOKOV first describedhis very particularsynestheticcondition of 'coloured hearing' in his 1949 autobiography,Conclusive Evidence, which subsequently became part of the second chapter of his revised version, Speak, Memogy (reproduced here in an appendix). Nabokov's brief account of this 'mixing of the senses' is significantfor two reasons. First, because it offers a rare insight into the specifics of his creative imagination and, secondly, because it providesa criticalmeans of decoding a key dimension of the complex thematic and structuralpatternings of his fiction. Since then, scholars have been tantalized by the challenge of pursuing the significance of individual letters and the colours associated with them throughout Nabokov's work, from TheGiftto Ada.Gennady Barabtarlocited over 200 colours in his guide to Pnin(Phantom ofFact:A Guide toNabokov's Pnin,Ann Arbor, MI, I989), complete with tables charting the instance of individual shades, whilst Don BartonJohnson and Gavriel Shapiro have contributed fascinating and provocative accounts of Nabokov's deployment of both English and Cyrillic alphabets along with the colours they invoke, to reveal the extraordinary scope and precisionof Nabokov'sallusiveworld (D. BartonJohnson, Worlds in Regression: SomeNovelsof Vladimir Nabokov, Ann Arbor, MI, i985; G. Shapiro, Delicate Markers: Subtexts in Vladimir Nabokov's 'Invitation toa Beheading', New York, I998). For all those readerswho have often wondered what the 'dull green, combined somehow with violet' of Nabokov's W would look like, or tried to imagine the distinction between the 'light blue' of his C and the blend of 340 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 'azure and mother-of-pearl'of his S,Jean Holabird has done a great service. Her interpretationof Nabokov's alphabet offers for the first time a pictorial realization(inwatercolour)of the very exact tonal qualityof the letters,as well as a depiction of their visual character. The letters are not given in their alphabetic sequence but are ordered, rather, in Nabokov's groupings, from black which includesA, G and R, the 'sooty rag being ripped' (pp. ii and 36) through the colours which form Nabokov's own very unique rainbow spectrum white, blue, green,yellow, brown and red. These appeartogether in a final concludingimage to make up what he describedas his 'primary,but decidedly muddy rainbow' and the 'hardly pronounceable: kzspygv' (pp. 35 and 36). In his foreword, Brian Boyd dextrously explores the implications of Nabokov's 'auditioncoloree', emphasizingthe fusion of science and art that it encapsulates,and its manifestationin the multiple and various rainbowsthat feature throughoutNabokov's work. These range from the images that recur throughout Speak,Memoy to the fanciful rainbow-hued butterflies that he sketched in the margins of his manuscripts,to the themes that connect this distinctivespectrumof colours so intriguinglywith the most vital elements of his art:language, imagination and memory. School of Slavonic andEastEuropean Studies Bm~BARA WYLLIE, University College London Lovell, Stephen and Menzel, Birgit (eds).Readingfor Entertainment in ContemporagyRussia :Post-Soviet PopularLiterature in HistoricalPerspective. Arbeiten und Texte zur Slavistik, 78...

Synesthesia and common recognition concerning music and colour

This paper discusses the common recognition of music and colour from the viewpoint of synesthesia. The focus is especially placed on coloured hearing synesthesia. Coloured hearing synesthestesia experiences a crossing of senses where a brain recognizes music aurally as colour. An experiment, in the format of questionnaires, was conducted where subjects were required to listen to music and select a representative colour for the music. The analysis of the questionnaires obtained the following results: it suggested that synesthesia exists at a subconscious level in human beings and that synesthesia is caused by influences of common recognition of music and colour associations.

Evidence Against Functionalism from Neuroimaging of the Alien Colour Effect in Synaesthesia

Coloured hearing synaesthetes experience colours to heard words, as confirmed by reliability of self-report, psychophysical testing and functional neuroimaging data. Some also describe the 'alien colour effect' (ACE): in response to colour names, they experience colours different from those named. We have previously reported that the ACE slows colour naming in a Stroop task, reflecting cognitive interference from synaesthetically induced colours, which depends upon their being consciously experienced. It has been proposed that the hippocampus mediates such consciously experienced conflict. Consistent with this hypothesis, we now report that, in functional magnetic resonance imaging of the Stroop task, hippocampal activation differentiates synaesthetes with the ACE from those without it and from non-synaesthete controls. These findings confirm the reality of coloured hearing synaesthesia and the ACE, phenomena which pose major challenges to the dominant contemporary account of mental states, functionalism. Reductive functionalism identifies types of mental states with causal roles: relations to inputs, outputs and other states. However, conscious mental states, such as experiences of colour, are distinguished by their qualitative properties or qualia. If functionalism is applied to conscious mental states, it identifies the qualitative type of an experience with its causal role or function. This entails both that experiences with disparate qualitative properties cannot have the same functional properties, and that experiences with disparate functional properties cannot have the same qualitative properties. Challenges to functionalism have often denied the first entailment. Here, we challenge the second entailment on empirical grounds. In coloured hearing synaesthesia, colour qualia are associated with both hearing words and seeing surfaces; and, in the ACE, these two functions act in opposition to one another. Whatever its merits as an account of other mental states, reductive functionalism cannot be the correct account of conscious experiences.

Large-scale screening of disease model through ENU mutagenesis in mice

Manipulation of mouse genome has merged as one of the most important approaches for studying gene function and establishing the disease model because of the high homology between human genome and mouse genome. In this study, the chemical mutagen ethylnitrosourea (ENU) was employed for inducing germ cell mutations in male C57BL/6J mice. The first generation (Gl) of the backcross of these mutated mice, totally 3172, was screened for abnormal phenotypes on gross morphology, behavior, learning and memory, auditory brainstem response (ABR), electrocardiogram (ECG), electroretinogram (ERG), flash-visual evoked potential (F-VEP), bone mineral density, and blood sugar level. 595 mice have been identified with specific dominant abnormalities. Fur color changes, eye defects and hearing loss occurred at the highest frequency. Abnormalities related to metabolism alteration are least frequent. Interestingly, eye defects displayed significant left-right asymmetry and sex preference. Sex preference is also observed in mice with abnormal bone mineral density. Among 104 Gl generation mutant mice examined for inheritability, 14 of them have been confirmed for passing abnormal phenotypes to their progenies. However, we did not observe behavior abnormalities of Gl mice to be inheritable, suggesting multi-gene control for these complicated functions in mice. In conclusion, the generation of these mutants paves the way for understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms of these abnormal phenotypes, and accelerates the cloning of diseaserelated genes.

On K. Saragev's “Color Hearing”

On K. Saragev's “Color Hearing”