[HN Gopher] Experience synesthesia: Google tool lets you 'hear' ...
___________________________________________________________________
Experience synesthesia: Google tool lets you 'hear' colors and
shapes
Author : lazycrazyowl
Score : 44 points
Date : 2021-02-11 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (artsandculture.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (artsandculture.google.com)
| ddingus wrote:
| I often "see" and get the feeling of motion from music, but it is
| way more abstract than this. Those videos showing a moving shape
| or character in time with a baseline, or percussion are familiar
| to me, in this sense, if that helps to understand what I am
| trying to convey.
|
| Smells will also invoke shapes, and maybe odd colors when they
| are very strong.
|
| I get the impression this work was done by someone who has not
| experienced synesthesia. Or perhaps a very different kind.
|
| Smells and sounds triggered other impressions for me as a kid.
| For a long while, it grew more dormant. Muted.
|
| An acid trip with musicians one weekend in my early 20's brought
| most of it back. And the experiences have endured since then.
|
| Almost seems like my mind was congealing in some basic way,
| interrupted by the trip. Epic trip, BTW. Great people, trust and
| all the basics were there and experiencing music with those
| people under such an influence was amazing. I treasure that
| weekend. Have never seen reason to repeat it.
|
| Down deep, I know that was one of those, "all things in
| moderation" tests. I plan on passing. And am glad I had the
| experience.
| arxpoetica wrote:
| As a musician and artist who experiences mild synesthesia, this
| is throwing me off. I don't associate the colors illustrated in
| the example with the sounds I'm hearing.
|
| I don't have anything other than personal experience to back this
| up, but I would be surprised if it's not a completely subjective
| experience--one person's synesthesia probably doesn't match
| another person's, per se.
|
| Just curious for any musician's out there, when you're playing in
| the key of D dorian, for example, what colors go through your
| mind? F major? E minor?
|
| All these have specific colors that tend to dominate my
| imagination.
| steverb wrote:
| Question, is the association for you with a singular sound or
| with a series of sounds (as found in the simulator)?
| arxpoetica wrote:
| Not to be a bit evasive, but...both?
|
| Part of it is very abstract and arbitrarily associative. As
| well, it can certainly morph. I wouldn't say there's any
| specific rhyme or reason to it.
|
| If you ever watched the movie Soul--that spoke to me pretty
| well, even though they didn't focus specifically on
| synesthesia, per se.
| iamsomewalrus wrote:
| Key of D is typically black for me. For dorian F-natural is a
| soft shade of red. The B natural is purple.
|
| F major is red. E-minor is a desert sand color.
| dehrmann wrote:
| You also have perfect pitch? Is this common for people with
| synesthesia?
| iamsomewalrus wrote:
| I don't have perfect pitch so it's not that I hear a note
| and see the color it's more like when I think of a note,
| chord, or mode I see a color in my minds eye. When I'm
| playing I am aware at a high level the notes I'm playing
| and their colors.
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| Exactly. Now, what would be really cool is if you could build a
| questionnaire, similar to a personality test, that would match
| you up with the right color/sound scheme. So at the end of the
| questionnaire, you can verify the results by listening to the
| Kandinsky piece and see if we got your associations right.
| armoredkitten wrote:
| >I don't have anything other than personal experience to back
| this up, but I would be surprised if it's not a completely
| subjective experience--one person's synesthesia probably
| doesn't match another person's, per se.
|
| From what I recall from the literature (it was a while ago, so
| details elude me), that while there does seem to be some
| relatively common experiences (many people associating a
| particular number with a particular colour), there's definitely
| a lot that's very idiosyncratic. I recall some people
| speculating that some of these associations could be shared
| because of common books/teaching materials, that maybe many
| children grew up with the same books showing letters and
| numbers in various colours. But that's just speculation as far
| as I'm aware.
| pantelisk wrote:
| Agreed, violins are green not red (not a joke, I 'm
| synaesthetic)
| molbioguy wrote:
| This is exactly what my wife said when she went to that site.
| Synethesia is personal in its details.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Is this super laggy for anyone else in FireFox?
| mlang23 wrote:
| synaesthesia is such a cool thing to experience. I am _blind_ and
| still synaesthetic. It all started out with me realizing as a
| child that every digit (I later found out it works for small
| numbers as well) has a dedicated colour. Helped me a lot learning
| to deal with numbers in my head. I (as most synaesthetics do)
| originally thought this is the way it works for everyone. Took a
| while until I figured out that you 're being treated weirdly if
| you mention numbers and words having colours.
|
| With music, I tend to get a carpet of all sorts of visual
| effects. I cant even begin to name specific colours or patterns.
| It is not very defined, as most of my visualisations are these
| days. Edges tend to blur from year to year once you finally lost
| your sight completely. But the myriad of colour and shapes is
| still there.
| thesz wrote:
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevsky
|
| Quote:
|
| "For example, when thinking about numbers he reported:
| Take the number 1. This is a proud, well-built man; 2 is a
| high-spirited woman; 3 a gloomy person; 6 a man with a swollen
| foot; 7 a man with a moustache; 8 a very stout woman--a sack
| within a sack. As for the number 87, what I see is a fat woman
| and a man twirling his moustache."
|
| Can I say you are in good company?
| marcodiego wrote:
| Makes me miss flash.
| cybervegan wrote:
| It's totally over my head. The final screen needs a button for
| "don't get it" or "annoyed at the pretentiousness".
| ppod wrote:
| There was always a bit of cynicism and criticism on Hacker News,
| but lately it is at a completely different level. Almost every
| comment on every submission is negative, if not of the work
| itself then of some tenuous political implication, and usually
| not a very original or interesting one. Overall the attitude of
| valuing progress and working towards invention is completely
| gone, replaced with the dominant cynical, pessimistic and
| conservative tone of academia and legacy media.
| jshevek wrote:
| I agree. Curious, I started looking at the specific comments
| and commentator's post histories to see when they became
| active. As the tone changed, like minded people became
| comfortable and emboldened.
|
| (By the way, your use of the word conservative, while correct,
| is likely to be misunderstood by some.)
| colpabar wrote:
| Maybe people here are annoyed at google (and other big tech
| companies) for their recent (and not so recent) actions, and
| just don't care about stuff like this? Imagine if any other
| group of people, who continually screw other people over and
| have enough money to get away with it, came together and made
| something like this. Imagine they continued to not address any
| of the things people are upset at them for not addressing, and
| instead just said, "but look, we did an art."
|
| I can only speak for myself, but I strongly believe I'm not
| alone in my refusal to look past google's bad actions because
| they made something neat. I'd much rather they start providing
| real customer support for their products and stop trying to
| ruin the open internet.
|
| Also,
|
| > _conservative tone of academia and legacy media_
|
| Can you explain what you mean by this? I have heard people deny
| there is a liberal bias in these things, and I have heard
| people say that these things indeed have a liberal bias, but
| only because "reality tends to have a liberal bias". But I have
| never heard anyone actually claim it's biased the other way. I
| know it's off topic, but I am just so curious. It feels like
| that Slate Star Codex piece about people subjected to the same
| things coming to exact opposite conclusions, with each person
| being totally clueless about how the other person could
| disagree. (I cannot remember what he called it.)
| ppod wrote:
| Maybe not the best choice of word, but I think that people
| who call themselves "liberals" actually have very
| conservative goals, in the sense of being against change.
| They might come around to a type of 'yimby' when it comes to
| building apartments or whatever, but e.g. the opposition to
| meritocratic selection processes in guise of equality among
| identities is actually about preserving inherited wealth and
| social capital. This manifests in lots of areas as a default
| dislike of any major technological change, because that
| usually implies the risk of mobility between socioeconomic
| strata.
| mempko wrote:
| The negativity might be warranted because we are actually
| running out of time with the climate emergency. It's a
| pessimism rooted in something very real and something very
| terrifying.
|
| So sorry if I seem a bit negative. I'm going to work on my
| garden as soon as it warms and enjoy my family.
|
| P.S.
|
| It's not academia that has conservative views, but the
| workplaces most people here occupy as they crush any radical
| idea quickly and efficiently.
| aasasd wrote:
| So: if you mention 'machine gimmick'--errrr, 'learning'--enough
| times then you get to reinterpret Kandinsky with an orchestra on
| Google's time.
|
| So from now on I'm waiting for a new Therion: with machine
| learning, a band, an orchestra and two choirs. Let's put the
| advertising money to good use.
| bitwize wrote:
| I think I got my synaesthesia on more from playing Rez (also
| inspired by Kandinsky) than from this.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| Rez = ?
| bitwize wrote:
| This is Rez: https://youtu.be/9_E5hCau8Hk
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Transforming colors or shapes into sounds is trivial, and there
| are an infinite numbers of ways to do it (e.g. for each RGB value
| assign a tone, or set of tones, and bam! there ya go.) So it's
| not like that by itself this project very interesting. Or maybe
| I'm missing something?
| jfengel wrote:
| The point is that some people experience that naturally, and
| those who don't are intrigued. This is a way of simulating that
| experience for them.
| oksurewhynot wrote:
| I have mild-strong synesthesia and it's fascinating to see how
| someone else sees sounds - and also how physically uncomfortable
| it made me.
| greyandgreen wrote:
| While I don't experience synesthesia, colors and places resonate
| emotion, both good and bad, to the point where I don't go certain
| places. I cannot stand being in large conurbations or in heavy
| traffic. It's emotionally draining. Moreover, I cannot deal with
| hot, sunny days. I find them somewhat disturbing, and always get
| excited when there is overcast and/or rain for days on end.
| Trying to get my partner to see the benefits of the PNW over
| Texas is not working very well.
|
| Editing to say that people who prefer overcast/rain are
| pluviophiles. Nothing better to me than a misty day. I find this
| delightful to relax or nap with:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gCiCxLkXOk
| Baeocystin wrote:
| My best friend feels exactly as you do. While I agree on the
| urban aspect, nothing makes me feel better than living in a
| desert. Yes, it makes my breathing and allergies better, but
| the real reason is the sense of well-being I get in hot, dry,
| sparse environments that I get nowhere else. It really is
| sublime.
| trianglem wrote:
| Same, I feel absolutely alive in a hot, dry desert
| environment. I wake up with no issues, I fall asleep
| immediately and feel my best creatively in a desert. I feel
| like I'm sleep walking in any place with a damp, cold
| environment.
| greyandgreen wrote:
| Interesting. We appreciate the same things, but in different
| environments. I desperately want to move to the forested
| mountains of the PNW for the lack of sun and heat, but my
| partner is opposed. Allergies are a thing for me, too, and
| Texas is horrible for me along with the 9 months of pregnant
| humidity (pun intended) that often reaches close to 100%.
|
| When we honeymooned to Washington state a number of years
| ago, I felt like I had come home and it was my first time
| visiting the area. The forests and mountains are fantastic.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Is this really synesthesia or just association? Blue is water
| sounds, yellow is brass instrument, red is slow groove?
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I have mild synesthesia for letters, numbers, shapes and scale
| degrees. At least in my case (and this is _wildly_ personal and
| subjective) I 'd agree that synesthesia basically is
| association. It's kindof hard to put into words, like for
| example
|
| > Apple
|
| I can see plain as day that the text above is black font on a
| light tan background. But the "A" is obviously yellow, each "p"
| is pink, the "l" is lightish grey, and the "e" is green. The
| word as a whole takes on the yellow from the A it begins with,
| but is tinted based on the other sounds it contains. I don't
| "see" these supplementary signals so much as strongly feel
| them, like it's a side effect of the language processing that's
| going on when I read.
|
| I don't know the underlying mechanics that trigger this
| association, but it's quite consistent. I'm guessing that it's
| a side effect of how my memory of language is organized, some
| processing trick my mind is using to make the storage more
| efficient. I was surprised to learn later in life that this is
| unusual, like, "doesn't everyone see the association in their
| mind's eye like this?" Apparently not. :)
|
| The mind is a _fascinating_ thing.
| brmgb wrote:
| > I don't know the underlying mechanics that trigger this
| association, but it's quite consistent. I'm guessing that
| it's a side effect of how my memory of language is organized,
| some processing trick my mind is using to make the storage
| more efficient.
|
| Your description seems closer to what I read about
| synesthesia than the Google Art experiment. From my reading,
| it seems to be directly linked to the way the brain process
| stimulus rather than to memory. Brain scans show that for
| people experiencing synesthesia some stimulus activate parts
| of the brain unrelated to their processing. Some drugs (LSD
| notably) seem to be able to trigger this effect temporarily
| for people not usually experiencing it.
| arxpoetica wrote:
| What you describe echoes with my experience.
|
| I've had conversations with family members that confirmed I
| was somewhat unique in experiencing this way too. Most didn't
| relate, though one brother is waaaay more synesthetic than I
| am.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-11 23:02 UTC)