Cross-Modal Perceptual Organization in Works of Art

Sensory translation between audition and vision

Across the millennia, and across a range of disciplines, there has been a widespread desire to connect, or translate between, the senses in a manner that is meaningful, rather than arbitrary. Early examples were often inspired by the vivid, yet mostly idiosyncratic, crossmodal matches expressed by synaesthetes, often exploited for aesthetic purposes by writers, artists, and composers. A separate approach comes from those academic commentators who have attempted to translate between structurally similar dimensions of perceptual experience (such as pitch and colour). However, neither approach has succeeded in delivering consensually agreed crossmodal matches. As such, an alternative approach to sensory translation is needed. In this narrative historical review, focusing on the translation between audition and vision, we attempt to shed light on the topic by addressing the following three questions: (1) How is the topic of sensory translation related to synaesthesia, multisensory integration, and crossmodal associations? (2) Are there common processing mechanisms across the senses that can help to guarantee the success of sensory translation, or, rather, is mapping among the senses mediated by allegedly universal (e.g., amodal) stimulus dimensions? (3) Is the term 'translation' in the context of cross-sensory mappings used metaphorically or literally? Given the general mechanisms and concepts discussed throughout the review, the answers we come to regarding the nature of audio-visual translation are likely to apply to the translation between other perhaps less-frequently studied modality pairings as well.

Marble melancholy: using crossmodal correspondences of shapes, materials, and music to predict music-induced emotions

Introduction

Music is known to elicit strong emotions in listeners, and, if primed appropriately, can give rise to specific and observable crossmodal correspondences. This study aimed to assess two primary objectives: (1) identifying crossmodal correspondences emerging from music-induced emotions, and (2) examining the predictability of music-induced emotions based on the association of music with visual shapes and materials.

Methods

To achieve this, 176 participants were asked to associate visual shapes and materials with the emotion classes of the Geneva Music-Induced Affect Checklist scale (GEMIAC) elicited by a set of musical excerpts in an online experiment.

Results

Our findings reveal that music-induced emotions and their underlying core affect (i.e., valence and arousal) can be accurately predicted by the joint information of musical excerpt and features of visual shapes and materials associated with these music-induced emotions. Interestingly, valence and arousal induced by music have higher predictability than discrete GEMIAC emotions.

Discussion

These results demonstrate the relevance of crossmodal correspondences in studying music-induced emotions. The potential applications of these findings in the fields of sensory interactions design, multisensory experiences and art, as well as digital and sensory marketing are briefly discussed.

Cross-modal associations between paintings and sounds: Effects of embodiment

The present study investigated cross-modal associations between a series of paintings and sounds. We studied the effects of sound congruency (congruent vs. non-congruent sounds) and embodiment (embodied vs. synthetic sounds) on the evaluation of abstract and figurative paintings. Participants evaluated figurative and abstract paintings paired with congruent and non-congruent embodied and synthetic sounds. They also evaluated the perceived meaningfulness of the paintings, aesthetic value and immersive experience of the paintings. Embodied sounds (sounds associated with bodily sensations, bodily movements and touch) were more strongly associated with figurative paintings, while synthetic sounds (non-embodied sounds) were more strongly associated with abstract paintings. Sound congruency increased the perceived meaningfulness, immersive experience and aesthetic value of paintings. Sound embodiment increased immersive experience of paintings.

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.