Emotional Mediation through Colour Sonification: A Preliminary Study

Research by Silvia Dini supervised by María J. Valero Gisbert and Luca A. Ludovico

The goal of this research is to conduct a test on a sample of volunteers in order to receive initial feedback on the degree of correspondence between colours and timbres. This study will form the basis of a project that aims to make non-figurative artworks accessible to a visually impaired audience by conveying the emotions that a certain colour can arouse.

Instructions

The test is about 10-15 minutes long. Headphone listening is strongly suggested.

During the experimental activity, you will listen to a number of short sound stimuli. You can listen to them as many times as you want. Each round of the test, corresponding to a new sound stimulus, is composed of two subparts:

1. You will be asked to associate the sound to one of the colors proposed. Do not focus on the specific shade but only on the macro-category (e.g., red, green, blue, etc.);
2. You will be asked to evaluate the level of valence (negative to positive), arousal (low to high intensity), and dominance (controlled/submissive vs. controlling/dominant) for that sound. These levels will be graphically depicted through a Self Assessment Manikin (see the figure below) and will be selected on a 9-point Likert scale.