New research offers evidence that our visual perception can be altered by our sound environment. (Envato Elements pic)
Research has previously demonstrated that our senses can influence one another: for example, ominous music can make a horror movie scene feel even scarier. But until now, little attention has been paid to the effect of musical pitch on visual perception.
Researchers at Seoul National University addressed this issue by conducting an experiment with 30 university students, with an average age of 24, who had no vision or hearing problems.
The participants were positioned about 1m away from an LCD screen and asked to rate the brightness of various objects on the screen on a scale of 1 (dark) to 7 (bright).
Throughout the task, the volunteers listened to various sound extracts through headphones. Each piece of music conveyed specific emotions to the listener, according to PsyPost.
The scientists found that musical pitch had a significant influence on the volunteers’ perception of brightness. Participants perceived visual objects as darker when they heard lower-pitch music; conversely, they perceived them as brighter when they listened to higher-pitch music.
“These findings suggest the influence of musical pitch on biases in our evaluations of visual brightness, within the context of concurrent music-visual experiences,” the experts wrote.
While this research offers some evidence that our visual perception can be altered by our sound environment, it does not precisely explain the origins of this phenomenon. Is it linked to genetics? Or to brain development?
For the time being, the mystery remains unsolved. Researchers continue to study how brains process all the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory information they receive, and how they give meaning to what is perceived.
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Music appears to affect our perception of brightness
