Mimicking Synesthesia for Passive Augmentation of Music Memory Aug 2019 - Present
** This project has been accepted for publication **
This
study is an exploration of whether simulating a synesthesia-like
experience on non-synesthetes can enhance their musical memory. Synesthesia is
a condition of the human mind where seemingly unrelated senses are
experienced simultaneously [1]. An example of this is seeing color when
you hear sound or seeing written words and numbers in color. The current
data shows that 2% of the population has some degree of this condition,
with a larger concentration in artistic communities. This suggests that
there might be a correlation between creative skill and sensory
experience.
In our study, we presented participants with
two songs that contain a melody and a chord progression. For one of the
songs, there is a direct correlation between chords and color; which is
presented in a Head-Up Display (HUD). The songs are displayed in a
repetitive loop for a total of 10 mins of exposure. Participants were
instructed to focus on their task at hand, whether it is reading an
article or homework, and not turn their attention to the music or
colors. At the end of the listening period, participants were given the
melody of both songs and asked to rebuild the chord progression. Our
experiments revealed that there is not a generalized significant
difference in performance between the song with color and the one
without. However we did see that for some participants the HUD did help
them have a stronger memory of the chord progression and provided a sort
of reassurance when trying to rebuild the song.
While we
weren't able to demonstrate that chord-color association using our HUD
could help all participants remember a chord progression better, we
believe this idea could work and are encouraged to test it in different
ways.
References [1]
Ramachandran, V.S. and Hubbard, E.M., 2001. Synaesthesia--a window into
perception, thought and language. Journal of consciousness studies,
8(12), pp.3-34.
Team Santiago Arconada Alvarez Kevin Key Sumedha Raman Russell Strauss Rikesh Subedi