Crossed senses.
Is a high-pitched sound small or big? Is sweet round or angular? What color is sour? How much do we share the hidden matches between our senses?
Original study
- Spence, C. (2011). Crossmodal correspondences: A tutorial review. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73(4), 971–995. Source
- Mondloch, C. J., & Maurer, D. (2004). Do small white balls squeak? Pitch-object correspondences in young children. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4(2), 133–136. Source
- Marks, L. E. (1974). On associations of light and sound: The mediation of brightness, pitch, and loudness. The American Journal of Psychology, 87(1/2), 173–188. Source
- Dolscheid, S., Shayan, S., Majid, A., & Casasanto, D. (2013). The thickness of musical pitch: Psychophysical evidence for linguistic relativity. Psychological Science, 24(5), 613–621. Source
- Dolscheid, S., Çelik, S., Erkan, H., Küntay, A., & Majid, A. (2020). Space-pitch associations differ in their susceptibility to language. Cognition, 196, 104073. Source
- Adeli, M., Rouat, J., & Molotchnikoff, S. (2014). Audiovisual correspondence between musical timbre and visual shapes. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 352. Source
- Velasco, C., Woods, A. T., Marks, L. E., Cheok, A. D., & Spence, C. (2016). The semantic basis of taste-shape associations. PeerJ, 4, e1644. Source
- Spence, C., Wan, X., Woods, A., Velasco, C., Deng, J., Youssef, J., & Deroy, O. (2015). On tasty colours and colourful tastes? Assessing, explaining, and utilizing crossmodal correspondences between colours and basic tastes. Flavour, 4, 23. Source
- Woods, A. T., & Spence, C. (2016). Using single colors and color pairs to communicate basic tastes. i-Perception, 7(4), 1–15. Source
- Bremner, A. J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., de Fockert, J., Linnell, K. J., & Spence, C. (2013). “Bouba” and “Kiki” in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape–sound matches, but different shape–taste matches to Westerners. Cognition, 126(2), 165–172. Source
Our adaptation
Fifteen matches on crossmodal correspondences (Spence, 2011). In four dimensions a sound plays and one of two images is chosen: a high or low pure tone with a small or large ball, a light or dark disc, a thin or thick line; a soft or harsh timbre with a round or spiky shape. Two dimensions have no sound: sweet, sour and bitter are matched with a shape, and sweet, sour, salty and bitter with one of ten colors. A silent version with taste questions only exists for those who cannot hear audio.
Differences from the original study
- Correspondences are relative; since one sound is played per trial, answers may depend on earlier sounds.
- The 'typical direction' is not a correct answer but the direction most often reported in research.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
t | JSON | Trials: [[trial no, choice (0/1 for two options, 0–9 for colors), time ms], …]. |
audio | integer | Sound version (1) or silent version (0). |
align | JSON | Matches with the typical direction per dimension: {dimension: [matching, asked]} (size, light, thick, timbre, tshape, tcolor). |
taste_colors | JSON | Color chosen for each taste: {sour, sweet, salty, bitter: 0–9}. |
score | integer | Number of answers matching the typical direction. |
total | integer | Number of answers evaluated. |
score_pct | number | Percentage matching. |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server checks that every trial expected for the version arrived once and computes matches itself.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
This experiment has no leaderboard score. The crowd result is the match rate with the typical direction per dimension.
Version notes
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.