The study analyzes the existence of naturally biased associations in the general population between a series of musical selections and a series of quatrains. Differently from other studies in the field, the association is tested between complex stimuli involving literary texts, which increases the load of the semantic factors. The stimuli were eight quatrains taken from the same poem and eight musical clips taken from a classical musical version of the poem. The experiment was conducted in two phases. First, the participants were asked to rate 10 couples of opposite adjectives on a continuous bipolar scale when reading a quatrain or when listening to a musical clip; then they were asked to associate a given clip directly with the quatrains in decreasing order. The results showed the existence of significant associations between the semantics of the quatrains and the musical selections. They also confirmed the correspondences experienced by the composer when writing the musical version of the poem. Connotative dimensions such as rough or smooth, distressing or serene, turbid or clear, and gloomy or bright, characterizing both the semantic and the auditory stimuli, may have played a role in the associations. The results also shed light on the accomplishment of the two diverse methodologies adopted in the two different phases of the test. Finally, the role of specific musical components and their combinations is likely to have played an important role in the associations, an aspect that shall be addressed in further studies.
Albertazzi, L., Canal, L., Dadam, J., & Micciolo, R. (2014). The semantics of biological forms. Perception, 43, 1365–1376. doi: 10.1068/p7794.
2.
Albertazzi, L., Da Pos, O., Canal, L., Micciolo, R., Malfatti, M., & Vescovi, M. (2013). The hue of shapes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39, 37–47. doi:10.1037/ a0028816.
3.
AlbertazziL.BacciF.CanalL.MiccioloR. (2016) The tactile dimensions of abstract paintings: A cross-modal study. Perception45: 805–822. doi:10.1177/0301006616643660.
4.
Albertazzi, L., Canal, L., & Micciolo, R. (2015). Cross-modal associations between materic painting and classical Spanish music. Frontiers of Psychology. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00424.
5.
BelkinK.MartinR.KempS. E.GilbertA. N. (1997) Auditory pitch as a perceptual analogue to odor quality. Psychological Science8: 340–342.
6.
Bigand, E., Vieillard, S., Madurell, F., Marozeau, J., & Dacquet, A. (2005). Multidimensional scaling of emotional responses to music: The effect of musical expertise and of the duration of the excerpts. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 1113–1139.
7.
Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 4, 55–60.
8.
ChenY.-C.SpenceC. (2010) When hearing the bark helps to identify the dog: Semantically-congruent sounds modulate the identification of masked pictures. Cognition114: 389–404.
9.
CollierW. G.HubT. L. (2001) Musical scales and evaluation of happiness and awkwardness: Effects of pitch direction and scale mode. American Journal of Psychology114: 355–375.
10.
Cowles, J. T. (1935). An experimental study of the pairing of certain auditory and visual stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 461–469.
11.
CrisinelA. S.SpenceC. (2010) As bitter as a trombone: Synesthetic correspondences in non-synesthetes between tastes/flavours and musical notes. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics72: 1994–2002.
12.
CrowderR. G. (1985) Perception of the major/minor distinction: III. Hedonic, musical, and affective discriminations. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society23: 314–316. .
13.
CytowicR. E. (1995) Synesthesia: A union of the senses, (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
14.
Di Dio, C., & Gallese, V. (2009). Neuroaesthetics: A review. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 19, 682–687.
15.
DixonM. J.SmilekD.DuffyP. L.ZannaM. P.MerikleP. M. (2006) The role of meaning in grapheme-colour synesthesia. Cortex42: 243–252.
16.
GabrielssonA. (2002) Emotion perceived and emotion felt: Same or different?Musicae Scientiae5: 123–147.
17.
EaglemanD. M. (2012) Synesthesia in its protean guises. British Journal of Psychology103: 16–19. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02020.x.
18.
EvansK. K.TreismanA. (2010) Natural cross-modal mappings between visual and auditory features. Journal of Vision10: 1–12.
19.
GallaceA.SpenceC. (2006) Multisensory synesthetic interactions in the speeded classification of visual size. Perception & Psychophysics68: 1191–1203.
20.
Jakubowski, K., Farrugia, N., Halpern, A. R., Sankarpandi, S. K., & Stewart, L. (2015). The speed of our mental soundtracks: Tracking the tempo of involuntary musical imagery in everyday life. Memory and Cognition, 43, 1229. doi:10.3758/s13421-015-0531-5.
21.
JürgensU. M.NikolićD. (2012) Ideaesthesia: Conceptual processes assign similar colours to similar shapes. Translational Neuroscience3: 22–27.
22.
JuslinP. N. (2013) From everyday emotions to aesthetic emotions: Toward a unified theory of musical emotions. Physics of Life Reviews10: 235–266.
23.
JuslinP. N.LaukkaP. (2004) Expression, perception, and induction of musical emotions: A review and a questionnaire study of everyday listening. Journal of New Music Research33: 217–238.
24.
Juslin, P. N., & Sloboda, J. A. (2001). Music and Emotion: Theory and Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
25.
Krumhansl, C. H., & Lerdahl, F. (2011). Musical tension. In F. Bacci, & D. Melcher (Eds.), Art and the Senses (pp. 311–328). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
26.
KüssnerM. B. (2013a) Shaping music visually. In: LehmannA. C.JeßulatA.WünschC. (eds) Kreativität – Struktur und emotion, Würzburg, Germany: Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 203–209.
27.
KüssnerM. B. (2013b) Music and shape. Literary and Linguistic Computing28: 472–479.
28.
Langlois, T., Peterson, J., & Palmer, S. (2013). Visual texture, music and emotion. Journal of Vision. Abstract retrieved from VSS.
MarksL. E. (1974) On associations of light and sounds: The mediation of brightness, pitch and loudness. The American Journal of Psychology87: 173–188.
31.
MarksL. E. (1987a) On cross-modal similarity: Auditory-visual interactions in speeded discrimination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance13: 384–394.
32.
MarksL. E. (1987b) On cross-modal similarity: Perceiving temporal patterns by hearing, touch and vision. Perception & Psychophysics42: 250–256.
33.
MarksL. E. (2004) Cross-modal interactions in speeded classification. In: CalvertG. A.SpenceC.SteinB. E. (eds) The handbook of multisensory processes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 85–105.
34.
Martino, G., & Marks, L. E. (2000). Cross-modal interaction between vision and touch: the role of synesthetic correspondence. Perception, 29, 745–754.
35.
MaurerD.MondlochC. (2005) Neonatal synesthesia: A revaluation. In: RobertsonL.SagivN. (eds) Perspective from cognitive neuroscience, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, pp. 193–213.
36.
MeierB. (2013) Semantic representation of synesthesia. Theoria et Historia Scientiarum10: 125–134.
37.
MelaraR. D.O’BrienT. P. (1987) Interactions between synesthetically corresponding dimensions. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General116: 323–336.
38.
MeszB.TrevisanoM. A.SigmanM. (2011) The taste of music. Perception40: 209–219.
39.
Mroczko-WasowiczA.NikolićD. (2014) Semantic mechanism may be responsible for developing synesthesia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience8: 1–13.
40.
Mroczko-WasowiczA.WerningM. (2012) Synesthesia, sensory-motor contingency, and semantic emulation: How swimming style-color synesthesias challenges the traditional view of synesthesia. Frontiers in Psychology3: 279. doi:10.3389/fpsych.2012.00279.
41.
Murari, M., Rodà, A., Da Pos, O., Canazza, S., De Poli, G., & Sandri, M. (2015). Is Vivaldi smooth and takete? Non-verbal sensory scales for describing music qualities. Journal of Music Research. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10180/09298215.2015.1101475.
42.
OsgoodC. E. (1956) Method and theory in experimental psychology, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
43.
PalmerS. E.SchlossK. B. (2010) An ecological valence theory of color preferences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences107: 8877–8882.
44.
PalmerS. E.SchlossK. B.XuZ.Prado-LeónL. R. (2013) Music-colour associations are mediated by emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences110: 8836–8841. doi:10.1073/pnas.1212562110.
45.
PinnaB.AlbertazziL. (2010) From grouping to meaning. In: AlbertazziL.van TonderG.VishwanathD. (eds) Perception beyond inference. The information content of perceptual processes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 287–344.
46.
Sagiv, N., Simner, J., Collins, J., Butterworth, B., & Ward, J. (2006). What is the relationship between synaesthesia and visuo-spatial number forms? Cognition, 101, 114–128.
47.
ShoreD. I.BarnesM. E.SpenceC. (2006) The temporal evolution of the crossmodal congruency effect. Neuroscience Letters329: 96–100.
48.
SimnerJ. (2012) Defining synaesthesia. British Journal of Psychology103: 1–15.
49.
Simner, J., Mulvenna, C., Sagiv, N., Tsakanikos, E., Witherby, S. A., & Fraser, C. (2006). Synaesthesia: The prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. Perception, 35, 1024–1033.
50.
Spector, F., & Maurer, D. (2008). The color of Os: Naturally biased associations between shape and color. Perception, 37, 841–847. doi: 10.1068/p5830.
51.
Spector, F., & Maurer, D. (2011). The colors of the alphabet: Naturally biased associations between shape and color. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37, 484–495. doi: 10.1037/a0021437.
Spence, C., & Driver, J. (Eds.). (2004). Crossmodal space and crossmodal attention. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
54.
TanS.KellyM. (2004) Graphic representations of short musical compositions. Psychology of Music32: 191.
55.
TerhardtE. (1984) The concept of musical consonance: A link between music and psychoacoustics. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal1: 276–295.
56.
Tomson, S. N., Narayan, M., Allen, G. I., & Eagleman, D. (2013). Neural networks of colored sequence synesthesia. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 14098–14106.
57.
TramoM. J.CarianiP. A.DelgutteB.BraidaL. D. (2001) Neurobiological foundations for the theory of harmony in western tonal music. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences930: 92–116. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05727.x.
58.
VinesB. W.KrumhanslC. L.WanderleyM. M.LevitinD. J. (2006) Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance. Cognition101: 80–113.
59.
WalkerA. R. (1981) The presence of internalized images of musical sounds. Council for Research in Music Education66–67: 107–112.
60.
WardJ. (2013) Synesthesia. Annual Review of Psychology64: 49–75.
61.
WardJ.HuckstepB.TsakanikosE. (2006) Sound-colour synaesthesia: To what extent does it use cross-modal mechanism common to us all?Cortex42: 264–280.
62.
WardJ.TsakanikosE.BrayA. (2006) Synaesthesia for reading and playing musical notes. Neurocase12: 27–34.
63.
WickerF. W. (1968) Mapping the intersensory regions of perceptual space. The American Journal of Psychology81: 178–188.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
