Crossmodal correspondences (CMC) systematically associate perceptual dimensions in different sensory modalities (e.g., auditory pitch and visual brightness), and affect perception, cognition, and action. While previous work typically investigated associations between basic perceptual dimensions, here we present a new type of CMC, involving a high-level, quasi-syntactic schema: music tonality. Tonality governs most Western music and regulates stability and tension in melodic and harmonic progressions. Musicians have long associated tonal stability with non-auditory domains, yet such correspondences have hardly been investigated empirically. Here, we investigated CMC between tonal stability and visual brightness, in musicians and in non-musicians, using explicit and implicit measures. On the explicit test, participants heard a tonality-establishing context followed by a probe tone, and matched each probe to one of several circles, varying in brightness. On the implicit test, we applied the Implicit Association Test to auditory (tonally stable or unstable sequences) and visual (bright or dark circles) stimuli. The findings indicate that tonal stability is associated with visual brightness both explicitly and implicitly. They further suggest that this correspondence depends only partially on conceptual musical knowledge, as it also operates through fast, unintentional, and arguably automatic processes in musicians and non-musicians alike. By showing that abstract musical structure can establish concrete connotations to a non-auditory perceptual domain, our results open a hitherto unexplored avenue for research, associating syntactical structure with connotative meaning.

中文翻译：

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色调层次和视觉亮度之间的跨模态对应：关联句法结构和跨模态的感知维度

跨模态对应 (CMC) 系统地关联不同感官模式中的感知维度（例如，听觉音调和视觉亮度），并影响感知、认知和行动。虽然以前的工作通常调查基本感知维度之间的关联，但在这里我们提出了一种新型的 CMC，涉及高级、准句法模式：音乐调性。音调支配着大多数西方音乐，并调节旋律和和声进行的稳定性和张力。长期以来，音乐家一直将音调稳定性与非听觉领域联系起来，但几乎没有对这种对应关系进行实证研究。在这里，我们使用显式和隐式测量研究了音乐家和非音乐家的音调稳定性和视觉亮度之间的 CMC。在显式测试中，参与者听到一个建立音调的上下文，然后是探测音，并将每个探测与几个圆圈中的一个相匹配，这些圆圈的亮度各不相同。在隐性测试中，我们将隐性关联测试应用于听觉（音调稳定或不稳定序列）和视觉（亮眼或黑眼圈）刺激。研究结果表明，色调稳定性与视觉亮度显式和隐式相关。他们进一步表明，这种对应仅部分取决于概念音乐知识，因为它也通过快速、无意识且可以说是自动的过程在音乐家和非音乐家中起作用。通过表明抽象的音乐结构可以为非听觉感知领域建立具体的内涵，我们的结果开辟了一条迄今为止尚未探索的研究途径，