Colored Hearing (The Study of Synesthesia and the Combination of the Senses Process)

Synesthesia is a kind of neurological phenomenon in which the stimulus perceived through one of the senses automatically activates the perception in another sense. The common name for sound to sight Synesthesia is “colored hearing”, i.e. the activation of color, form and motion via sound. The purpose of this research is to recognize the role of sound in creating synesthetic experiences (of course, in ordinary people, and not in the neurological sense) and to answer the question that how the sound can create visual synesthetic experiences. On one hand, artistic Synesthesia cannot be considered some sort of metaphoric or symbolic language and it is likely to find its origins in the reality of human perception. So another question which will be examined is what properties are latent in perception process making it possible for us to experience synesthetic perception. Furthermore, the auditory stimulus might also possess some attributes which would make the coupling between auditory and visual perceptions possible. Therefore, the last question would be if there are any common properties between hearing and vision making their coupling possible. The present research is the outcome of desk research, documentary research and also credible scientific-research internet resources. Generally, to study synesthetic perceptions, three categories should be differentiated: genuine Synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon, found rarely among people. The next category is metaphoric Synesthesia, commonly used by artists by employing the idea of Synesthesia and bonding the senses creatively. Finally, the last category is cross-sensory perception which can be considered a kind of synesthetic experience (not in the neurological sense) found among most people to some extent. Perception is a multisensory process and this property not only makes the experience of synesthetic perceptions possible, but also provides the possibility of visual experience in the case of receiving an auditory stimulus by creating some subjective multi-sensory representation. In addition, vision and hearing also have some common intersensory attributes which makes the possibility of coupling them. Visual music is an appropriate field to study these attributes. Though the title “visual music” has many instances, the main elements common in all types include color, form and rhythm (motion). According to researchers, real synesthetes and ordinary people have a similar performance in recognizing the associations between visual color and tone color, visual form and timbre, and finally visual rhythm and musical rhythm in such a way that most of them associate the frequency of sound (low or high) to the brightness of color or relate timbre to the size and the overall form of abstract visual shapes. On the other hand, although it needs more effort and skill to associate visual rhythm to musical rhythm (on the basis of agogics and dynamics), making such associations is not far beyond one’s ability. So as Synesthesia and combination of the senses is the main characteristic of human kind in general, a work of art even without any obvious synesthetic properties can evoke cross-sensory perceptions in the audience.