Human brains are wired to make music-colour connection

When listening to music, human brains are wired to make music-colour connections depending on how the melodies make people feel, US researchers say. Vision scientist Stephen Palmer of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues found people in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of classical orchestral music with the same colours suggesting humans share a common emotional palette - when it comes to music and colour - that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers. "The results were remarkably strong and consistent across individuals and cultures and clearly pointed to the powerful role that emotions play in how the human brain maps from hearing music to seeing colours," Palmer said in a statement. Using a 37-colour palette, Palmer and colleagues found people tended to pair faster-paced music in a major key with lighter, more vivid, yellow colours, whereas slower-paced music in a minor key was more likely to be teamed up with darker, greyer, bluer colours. For example, Mozart's jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his dour Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray, Palmer said. "Surprisingly, we can predict with 95 percent accuracy how happy or sad the colours people pick will be based on how happy or sad the music is that they are listening to," Palmer said in a statement. The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, might have implications for creative therapies, advertising and even music player gadgetry, UPI reports. The findings are scheduled to be presented at the International Association of Colour conference at the University of Newcastle in England July 8.