CHROMATIC SYNESTHESIAS: COLOR AND THE PERCEPTION OF DIFFERENT SENSORIAL CONTINUA José Luis CAIVANO University of Buenos Aires, and National Council for Research, Argentina caivano@fadu.uba.ar
SYNESTHESIA phenomenon by which stimuli received through a sensory channel produce sensations of a different perceptual nature. from Greek:
syn (together, simultaneous) aisthesis (sensory perception) It refers to “melted”, “confused” or “crossmodal” sensory perceptions.
This phenomenon has been studied from: psychology of perception neurology linguistics and semiotics music: Scriabin plastic arts: Kandinsky poetry: Rimbaud From neurology, 2 classes: Genuine synesthesia: a neurological abnormality in a minority of persons. Pseudosynesthesia: a normal phenomenon of association produced by similitude of qualities between sensations.
genuine synesthesia: the associations are: involuntary stable unidirectional projected outside the individual “It denotes the rare capacity to hear colors, taste shapes, or experience other equally startling sensory blendings whose quality seems difficult for most of us to imagine. A synesthete might describe the color, shape, and flavor of someone's voice … Seeing the color red, a synesthete might detect the ‘scent’ of red as well.” (Richard Cytowic 1995)
pseudosynesthesia: refers to: metaphoric associations similitude of qualities the associations are: twodirectional multidirectional stable consistently repeated Roman Jakobson (1960): if people are asked to relate the phonemes /i/ and /u/ with the sensations of lightness and darkness nobody would say that /i/ is the darkest one.
Hypothesis: In the first months of babies the senses work in a synesthetic way. When they grow, the sensory channels undergo a progressive separation, becoming more specific and tuned to certain kind of stimuli.
An adult genuine synesthete would be a person whose sensorial channels, remained as in the initial stage (BaronCohen 1996). It seems logical to think that in normal persons some vestiges from this stage could remain.
ORDER SYSTEMS OF SENSORY CONTINUA sight, hearing, taste, olfaction, touch
Color order systems are the best known. Models that organize other perceptual variables: visual textures, spatial shapes, cesias, Nonvisual sensory continua: tactile sensations, tastes, odors, sounds, etc.
color: order systems
Lambert
Munsell
Runge
Hickethier
CIELab
oriented towards the chromatic sensation Natural Color System
different distributions of light in space mirrorlike matte dark
transparent
cesias translucent
variables: darkness difussivity permeability
cesias: order system  (Caivano)
2D shapes: order system (Jannello)
variables: formmatrix size saturation
2D shapes: order system
(Jannello)
visual textures: order system cubic model (Jannello) variables: directionality size density
density
visual textures: order system (Caivano)
directionality size density
ti c e dir
ity l a on
directionality
variables:
e z i s
touch sensations: order system model by KatzHesselgren
odors: lists of categories
Hendrik Zwaardemaker (18571940) Carolus Linnaeus (17071778) 1. Champhoraceus 2. Musky 3. Floral 4. Pepperminty 5. Ethereal 6. Pungent 7. Putrid
1. Ethereal 2. Aromatic 3. Fragrant 4. Ambrosiac 5. Alliaceous 6. Empyreumatic 7. Hircine 8. Putrid 9. Nauseous
odors: order system prism by Henning
taste sensations: order system tetrahedron by Henning
bitter
sour
saline sweet
HYPOTHESIS • If we understand synesthesia in a wide sense, as similarities among sensations of different kind that all persons can perceive (not as a neurological anomaly); • and if the order systems for the sensory continua represent how humans perceive and organize the sensations; • it seems plausible to find a relationship between synesthesia and order systems. The positions of the sensations in the different order systems should exhibit a correlation of the synesthetic associations that are consistently produced. For instance, opposite or complementary colors should correlate to opposite shapes, opposite odors, etc.
VERIFICATION by SURVEYS
2D SHAPE – COLOR
Kandinsky
Itten
KandinskyItten
results of the survey
52%
red = circle
63%
blue = square
67%
yellow = triangle
29% 19%
23% 14%
25% 8%
red = square red = triangle
blue = circle blue = triangle
yellow = circle yellow = square
We could imagine particular cases of association, and verify if they appear at a high rate in normal persons. The variation of hue in color would be similar to the variation of formmatrix in 2D shapes.
Kandinsky associated three basic hues (yellow, red, blue) to three basic shapes (triangle, square, circle).
The lightdark opposition in color could resemble the smallbig pair in shape.
The chromaticachromatic opposition (e.g., pure red opposed to gray) would resemble the opposition saturatedunsaturated in 2D shapes (e.g., square opposed to line).
Linnaeus’ seven olfactory categories could be compared with the division of the spectrum in seven colors by Newton, who, on the other hand, was searching for a correlate with the seven tones of the musical scale.
Linnaeus (17071778)
Newton (16421727)
1. Champhoraceus 2. Musky 3. Floral 4. Pepperminty 5. Ethereal 6. Pungent 7. Putrid
1. Red 2. Orange 3. Yellow 4. Green 5. Blue 6. Indigo 7. Violet
light COLOR CESIA
light light
heavy dark
SOUND
high
SHAPE
small
big
VISUAL TEXTURE
small
big
ODOR
ethereal
TASTE TOUCH SENSATION soft
sweet
dark low
resinous hard
bitter
COLOR CESIA
saturated
unsaturated
chromatic
achromatic
regular
diffuse
SOUND
pure sound
noise
2D SHAPE
surface
line tasteless
VISUAL TEXTURE dense
sparse
TASTE
tasteful
TOUCH SENSATION
rough
smooth
qualitative variable COLOR
hue:
(chromatic circle: yellow, red, blue, green, yellow...) (oppositions: yellowblue; redgreen)
CESIA permeability (transparent opaque) 2D SHAPE
formmatrix (triangle circle)
VISUAL TEXTURE
directionality (directional nondirectional)
VERIFICATION by SURVEYS: colorsoundshapetaste
SOUND
pitch of sound
with lightness of color 43% with dark colors with light colors
low sounds high sounds
COLOR
94%
loudness of sound
with spatial extension of color 51%
quiet sounds loud sounds
with with
timbre of sound
with hue of color
noise pure sounds
with with
duration of sound
with spatial extension of color 57%
short sounds long sounds
with with
small color extensions large color extensions
100% 62%
violet (end of the spectrum) red (beginning of the sp.)
small color extensions large color extensions
48%
100%
VERIFICATION by SURVEYS
TASTE
sour
sweet bitter saline
resembles
resembles
resembles
resembles
COLOR
yellow
(81%)
red blue green
(81%)
(56%)
(50%)
CONCLUSION
This kind of surveys could be extended to the other associations that we hypothesized. If we verify that there is a consistent tendency to associate certain qualities of a sensory continuum to certain qualities of another, this would suggest that: • Either the associations through similarity among perceptions of different sensorial nature are rather universal and shared by the majority of humans; • Or the neurological links that provoke synesthesia are not contingent or a privilege of a few rare individuals, but are shared by most humans, perhaps as a trace of the initial stage of sensorial development in the first months of life.
Basic color terms
RED
GRAY GREEN
WHITE
ORANGE
YELLOW BLUE
BROWN BLACK
PURPLE
PINK
The 11 basic color terms, displayed in a random order.
CONCLUSIONS COLOR TASTE
sour
yellow
sweet
bitter
blue violet green
saline
red rose orange
green turquoise yellow