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Sound properties associated with equiluminant colours
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 06:52 authored by Giles Douglas Iain Hamilton-Fletcher, Christoph Witzel, David Reby, Jamie WardJamie WardThere is a widespread tendency to associate certain properties of sound with those of colour (e.g., higher pitches with lighter colours). Yet it is an open question how sound influences chroma or hue when properly controlling for lightness. To examine this, we asked participants to adjust physically equiluminant colours until they 'went best' with certain sounds. For pure tones, complex sine waves and vocal timbres, increases in frequency were associated with increases in chroma. Increasing the loudness of pure tones also increased chroma. Hue associations varied depending on the type of stimuli. In stimuli that involved only limited bands of frequencies (pure tones, vocal timbres), frequency correlated with hue, such that low frequencies gave blue hues and progressed to yellow hues at 800 Hz. Increasing the loudness of a pure tone was also associated with a shift from blue to yellow. However, for complex sounds that share the same bandwidth of frequencies (100–3200 Hz) but that vary in terms of which frequencies have the most power, all stimuli were associated with yellow hues. This suggests that the presence of high frequencies (above 800 Hz) consistently yields yellow hues. Overall we conclude that while pitch–chroma associations appear to flexibly re-apply themselves across a variety of contexts, frequencies above 800 Hz appear to produce yellow hues irrespective of context. These findings reveal new sound–colour correspondences previously obscured through not controlling for lightness. Findings are discussed in relation to understanding the underlying rules of cross-modal correspondences, synaesthesia, and optimising the sensory substitution of visual information through sound.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Multisensory ResearchISSN
2213-4794Publisher
Brill Academic PublishersExternal DOI
Issue
3-5Volume
30Page range
337-362Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-06-23First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-08-07First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-06-22Usage metrics
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