The Emotional Bridge: Exploring the Association Between Color and Western and Chinese Music

Two prominent hypotheses have been proposed to explain the intriguing connection between music and color. The Direct Link Hypothesis posits a direct correlation between the two domains based on their intrinsic physical properties. In contrast, the Emotion Mediation Hypothesis suggests that individuals form associations between colors and music based on shared emotional experiences. In this study, we recruited sixty-three college students to match six different colors with ten distinct music excerpts derived from both Western and Chinese cultural contexts. Participants also evaluated the emotional responses to both the music and the colors. Our findings uncovered considerable variation in color preferences associated with most music excerpts, challenging the Direct Link Hypothesis. Instead, we observed significant correlations between the emotional responses evoked by the music and the corresponding colors. This underscores the fundamental and universal role of shared emotion in bridging the gap between color and music across different cultural contexts. This study yields valuable insights for optimizing the presentation of coherent information in cross-modal design.