Audiovisual Associations in Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals: A Cross-Cultural Investigation on the Role of Timbre

Several studies have investigated crossmodal associations involving audiovisual stimuli. To date, however, far fewer studies have explored the relationship between musical timbre and visual features (e.g., soft/harsh timbres with blue/red colours). To fill this gap in the literature, 249 participants were invited to judge the match between different coloured images and musical excerpts. The images depicted seven characters from Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”; the audio stimuli consisted of the music the composer created to represent each character. To test the effect of timbre and culture, the audio stimuli were presented either in the original orchestral version or in the piano transcription, while the participants were recruited from various countries, encompassing both Western and non-Western nationalities. The results demonstrate that timbre influences crossmodal associations between musical excerpts and drawings, while these associations remain consistent across cultures, languages, and levels of musical background.