High levels of synesthetic endorsement in a study on music listening styles
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
This presentation focuses on the discussion of a surprising result in a study investigating the association between endorsed synaesthetic experiences and music engagement and cognitive styles, in response to music listening: namely, the unusually high level of synaesthetic endorsement in a population of young adults. The sample comprised of 310 individuals aged 18-34 (M = 20.03, Mdn = 19, SD = 3.06), with 237 identifying their gender as female (76.50%). Participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire that included demographics, the musicianship module of the MUSEBAQ, the Music Engagement Test (MET), the short version of the Music-Empathizing-Music-Systemizing Inventory (MEMS Inventory), and items from the Synesthesia Battery. Only complete responses were considered. In total, when asked directly about whether they had synaesthesia (n = 302), 196 participants said no (64.90%), 89 (29.50%) said they were not sure, and 17 (5.50%) said they were completely confident that they had synaesthesia. However, 61 of the people who were 'not sure' and a further 31 of the people who said 'no', did select 'yes' to at least one of the synaesthesia type questions. Therefore, for subsequent analyses, a binary classification based on whether the participants had endorsed none (n= 193) or at least one of the synaesthesia types (n= 109) was created. This unusually high endorsement of at least one type when presented with a full list of currently known types of synaesthesia suggests that one explicit question may not best capture individuals' experiences of synaesthesia or synaesthesia-like experiences in self-report measures. This finding also compels reflection on both population awareness of synaesthesia and how we, as researchers, classify synaesthetic experiences.
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First Joint UKSA and ASA International Synaesthesia Conference
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2
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Oxford, UK
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American Synesthesia Association
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Oxford, UK
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