Auditory-visual synaesthesia using dynamic sounds with changing pitch and timbre

Previous studies of sound-colour associations identified some common trends in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes (e.g., Marks, 1974,1987; Ward, Huckstep, & Tsakanikos, 2006). While most of the past research utilised static stimuli - singles notes or vowels, the rich synaesthetic experience that music can induce in some individuals is obviously evoked by a more dynamic stimulus. I will discuss sound-colour matching experiments using dynamic sounds with changing pitch and spectral brightness generated using FM synthesis. These experiments were a part of a large scale online survey (which we will report here for the first time). I will also describe an interactive audio-visual installation making use of similar methods to let users manipulate sound and visual animation through the use of sensors.