Abstract

Two musicians with chromesthesia were the subjects of an intensive case study. Musical and neuropsychological interviews and testing were conducted to determine the extent of the participant’s aural acuity and synesthesia characteristics, as well as possible concurrent neuropsychological characteristics. One participant had aurally-based chromesthesia elicited only by sound for a variety of musical phenomena, while the other had chromesthesia and grapheme-colour synesthesia for days of the week, letters, and numbers. Musical phenomena where photisms were elicited for instrument fingering, musical scores and musical sound when the pitch was known. Both demonstrated relative deficits in visuoconstruction, attention, and executive functioning on neuropsychological tests, reported attention deficit and compulsive symptoms, and acknowledged auditory-language processing dysfunction, and social, emotional and self-regulation dysfunction.

Bio

Stephen F. Zdzinski (Ph.D., Indiana University) is professor of Music Education at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. He teaches graduate courses, directs research, and is program director for graduate music education. With more than 40 published articles in various professional journals, Zdzinski has made presentations at international, national and state music education conferences in in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Finland, Norway, China, and Japan. He has been on the editorial boards of Journal of Research in Music Education, Research Perspectives in Music Education, Contributions to Music Education, and Psychology of Music. His research centres on home musical environment, social issues in music learning, musical assessment, and research methodology.