color synaesthesia

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