Crossmodal correspondences: Looking for links between sound symbolism & synaesthesia, & their application to multisensory marketing

“Are lemons fast or slow?”; “Is carbonated water round or angular?”; Most people agree that the answers to these questions are fast and angular, respectively. These are examples of correspondences, that is, thetendency for a sensory feature, in one modality, either physically present, or merely imagined, to be matched (or associated) with a feature, either physically present, or merely imagined, in another modality. Crossmodal correspondences appear to exist between all combinations of senses, and have been shown to affect everything from speeded responses to people’s performance in unspeeded psychophysical tasks. While some correspondences are culture-specific, others are likely to be universal (e.g., the correspondence between auditory pitch and visual or haptic size). Intriguingly, the latest research has demonstrated that some animals (e.g., chimpanzees), as well as very young infants, appear sensitive to certain crossmodal correspondences.In this talk, I will discuss the various explanations that have been put forward to account for the existence of various crossmodal correspondences. I will also examine the relationship between crossmodal correspondences and sound symbolism, and tackle the thorny question of whether crossmodal correspondences should be thought of as a kind of synaesthesia that is common to us all. Finally, I will highlight some of the intriguing marketing applications that are now emerging from basic research on crossmodal correspondences in the design of everything from the labels of water and beer bottles through to the music you listen to while drinking your Starbucks coffee.

For reviews, see:

Spence, C. (2011). Crossmodal correspondences: A tutorial review. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73, 971-995.

Spence, C. (2012). Managing sensory expectations concerning products and brands: Capitalizing on the potential of sound and shape symbolism. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22, 37-54.

Spence, C. (in press). Synaesthetic marketing. Wired.

Charles Spence is Professor of Experimental Psychology, at Somerville College, Oxford.  He is particularly interested in questions relating to the role of attention in multisensory perception. Much of his work involves the investigation of multisensory illusions such as the 'rubber hand illusion'. He is also interested in investigating how our understanding of multisensory perception can be used in a consumer psychology setting to improve the perception of everyday objects.  Prof Spence supervises research in other applied settings, such as studying the attentional limitations on our ability to talk on a mobile phone while attempting to drive a car. Finally, one area of growing interest in his laboratory concerns the temporal processing of information, and the synchronization of sensory signals.