One melody seems silvery. Another is thick, dark blue. A high sound seems to rise upward, a low one feels heavy. A soft timbre resembles touching silk, and a sharp chord almost leaves a taste on the tongue.
We are used to speaking about music in figurative language: bright voice, velvety timbre, sharp sound, sweet melody. But behind beautiful metaphors lies a real mystery: is there a direct connection between hearing and other senses, or is it just the most convenient way to describe sound?
A new systematic review published in August 2026 offers an answer — and it turns out to be more complex than many thought.
What the review of studies showed
On 29 August 2026 in the prestigious journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications an article was published with the intriguing title: Music Synesthesia or Cross-Modal Correspondences? A Systematic Review of Terminology and Findings in Multisensory Research on Chinese Music.
The authors — Kanghao Chen, Yi Ta Wang, and Wenjun Huang — analyzed English-language studies on the perception of Chinese music. The search covered a twenty-year period: from 2002 to 2022.
Finding information took a long time. The researchers checked the largest scientific databases: Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. From hundreds of works, they selected only eight studies from the fields of psychology, cognitive science, and computer technology — those that met strict inclusion criteria.
These eight works analyzed connections between sound and other sensations:
- sound and color;
- sound and visual image;
- sound and taste;
- sound and touch.
The main discovery of the review turned out to be not sensory, but terminological: the researchers found that different phenomena are often called by the same word — synesthesia. This has led to confusion in the scientific literature and makes it difficult to compare the results of different experiments.
True synesthesia: what it really is
In synesthesia, a stimulus perceived by one sense organ involuntarily evokes a sensation in another sensory system. A person may consistently see a certain note as blue or feel a specific timbre as a touch, and this connection remains unchanged throughout life.
Synesthesia has four key properties:
- it occurs automatically, without conscious effort;
- it persists over time — the same connection repeats always;
- it is specific to a particular person — most other people cannot share it;
- it does not require imagination or conscious decision.
A synesthete does not choose a color for a sound. The connection appears by itself. It is this inevitability, stability, and individuality that distinguish synesthesia from ordinary associations and cultural conventions.
Cross-modal correspondences: when different people feel similarly
There is a completely different phenomenon that is often confused with synesthesia. It is called cross-modal correspondences — these are connections between senses that coincide in many people regardless of cultural background.
Examples are well known: a high sound often seems brighter, smaller, or directed upward, while a low sound seems darker, heavier, or located below. Such correspondences can occur between a wide variety of sensory pairs:
- pitch and color brightness;
- timbre and visual shape;
- loudness and size;
- rhythm and movement;
- sound and tactile sensation;
- music and taste association.
A person does not necessarily see a real color before their eyes. They intuitively feel that one sound corresponds better to a certain color or shape than another. This experience can be vivid, but it fundamentally differs from synesthesia: it is not individual, not spontaneous, and not inevitable.
Where the error occurred in science
Of the eight studies included in the review, five used the word "synesthesia" incorrectly. The authors of these works described phenomena experienced by entire groups of participants—that is, precisely cross-modal correspondences, not individual synesthesia.
The difference may seem like a detail, but for science it is critical. When different studies use the same term for different phenomena, the results become impossible to compare. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews lose their meaning. Scientific knowledge accumulates more slowly than it could.
The authors of the review believe that this confusion arose not from ill will, but from objective reasons.
Why scientists were mistaken
First, the historical reason. Ideas about multisensory perception have changed over time. The word "synesthesia" was used more broadly in different periods than it is today. At one time, it denoted any connections between the senses—both individual and common, and even artistic metaphors.
Second, the language barrier. Scientific concepts do not transfer perfectly between Chinese and English. One term may combine several close meanings that are usually separated in another scientific tradition.
Third, the psychology of word choice. The expression "cross-modal correspondence" sounds cumbersome and awkward. The word "synesthesia" is shorter, brighter, more recognizable. Even scientific authors sometimes choose a more attractive concept, even if it is less precise.
Why Chinese music is relevant for such a study
The perception of music is determined not only by the physics of sound. It is influenced by language, cultural memory, artistic traditions, and the symbolic meaning of colors. The same sound can evoke completely different images in people from different cultures.
Chinese music is especially interesting for such an analysis because for centuries it existed in close dialogue with poetry, calligraphy, painting, and ideas about natural elements. Sound and visual image in Chinese aesthetics are connected at a deep, often unconscious level.
This means that the connection between hearing and vision may depend not only on how our sensory system is wired, but also on the cultural experience a particular person has accumulated. The review authors emphasize an important conclusion: future research should take this context into account, rather than seeking a single universal sensory code for all of humanity.
How sound travels between the senses: four explanations
Studies have proposed different mechanisms to explain multisensory correspondences. Most likely, all of them are true simultaneously.
Structural similarity in perception
Some properties of different sensations have a similar internal structure. Rising pitch and upward movement, increasing loudness and growing size are perceived as changes in the same direction. The brain may spontaneously link these similar structures, even if they belong to different senses.
Emotional underpinning
Sound and color can connect through a shared mood. A melody and an image seem to correspond not because there is a direct sensory link between them, but because both evoke a similar emotional state—sadness or joy, calm or excitement.
Neural integration
Auditory, visual, and tactile information does not exist in isolation in the brain. Human perception is shaped through constant interaction among different sensory systems. The brain integrates information from the earliest stage of processing.
Cultural learning
Connections between music, color, and imagery can be acquired through language, art, traditions, and recurring symbols. We learn that certain sounds "look" a certain way, and over time these associations become almost automatic.
The review does not choose a single final explanation. Most likely, multisensory perception operates simultaneously on several levels: sensory, emotional, neural, and cultural.
Where the boundary of metaphor lies
When we call a voice velvety, a sound cold, or a melody bright, we are not necessarily describing synesthesia. Yet these expressions are not mere ornaments of speech.
A metaphor becomes understandable precisely because people are able to find connections between different senses. Language captures these connections and allows us to convey them to one another. We cannot literally touch a melody, yet we intuitively understand what a soft sound means. We do not see physical light inside music, yet we recognize bright music.
Perhaps poetic language does not invent connections between the senses, but notices what our perception already does within us—unconsciously and naturally.
What this review does not answer
It is important to understand that this work is not a new experiment or the discovery of a universal "color dictionary" of Chinese music.
The sample is small: eight works over twenty years. Their methods, terms, and research objectives varied considerably. Therefore, one cannot claim that all Chinese music evokes the same colors, tastes, or touches in all listeners.
The review shows something else: the field exists, but it needs more precise concepts, comparable methods, and attention to cultural differences. Before asking what color music sounds like, scientists must first agree, what exactly they are measuring: individual uncontrolled synesthesia, a general association, an overlap of emotions, or an artistic metaphor.
When the senses cease to be separate
We are used to imagining the five senses as separate rooms. The eye sees. The ear hears. The skin feels. The tongue tastes. But reality is more complex.
Sound can awaken an image, color can change the feeling of music, rhythm can become movement before a person has time to make sense of it. Music begins as a vibration of air, but inside us it continues its journey: it becomes light, form, movement, sometimes almost physical touch.
And yet the main question remains: with what do we perceive music even before we manage to divide it into sound, color, image, and feeling?
