135 university undergraduates heard 12 preludes from J. S. Bach's Well-tempered Clavier (Vol. 1) while viewing alternating red, yellow, green, and blue colored lights. Their task was to rank-order the lights according to how well they “matched” the music. Preferences for combinations of color and music differed depending on whether the music was in a major or a minor key. The present findings along with those of some earlier studies suggest that aesthetic experience may be heightened when colors are seen that match the mental images music evokes.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
HollandM., & WolfeD. A. (1973) Nonparametric statistical methods. New York: Wiley.
2.
MarksL. E. (1975) On colored-hearing synesthesia: cross-modal translations of sensory dimensions. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 303–331.
3.
PeacockK (1985) Synesthetic perception: Alexander Scriabin's color hearingMusic Perception, 2, 483–506.
4.
PolzellaD. J. & BiersD. W. (1987) Chromesthetic responses to music: replication and extension. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 65, 439–443.
5.
PolzellaD. J., & KunaA. M. (1981) Chromesthetic responses to the music of G. F. Handel, In KlingerE. (Ed.), Imagery: concepts, results, and applications. New York: Plenum. Pp. 165–173.
