Music-colour synaesthesia: Concept, context and qualia.
Consciousness and Cognition May 1, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.04.005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Chromesthesia Concept Ideaesthesia Music-colour/color Qualia Synaesthesia/synesthesia |
| Key findings | Traditional perceptual explanations for synaesthesia may not directly apply to music-colour synaesthesia, and the concept of ideaesthesia suggests a role for conceptual and semantic inducers. |
Abstract
This review provides a commentary on coloured-hearing arising on hearing music: music-colour synaesthesia. Although traditionally explained by the hyperconnectivity theory (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001a) and the disinhibited feedback theory (Grossenbacher & Lovelace, 2001) as a purely perceptual phenomenon, the review of eight coloured-hearing neuroimaging studies shows that it may not be assumed that these explanations are directly translatable to music-colour synaesthesia. The concept of 'ideaesthesia' (Nikolić, 2009) and the role of conceptual and semantic inducers challenge the likelihood of a single mechanism underlying the cause of synaesthesia and argue for a move away from a purely sensory to sensory explanation. Finally, music-colour synaesthesia forms a challenge for established philosophical theories and the position of synaesthesia is considered within the larger context of musical qualia.