Do you hear anything when viewing the moving dots? Play the movie repeatedly for best effect.

Some people hear sounds when seeing this movie. The sounds are simple such as whooshing or bubbling, and non-linguistic. The sound perception occurs automatically, not requiring effort or imagination.

We are studying this phenomenon of hearing motion in the Koch Lab at Caltech in Pasadena, California USA. It is a previously undescribed form of synesthesia, a benign neurological condition associated with cross-activation of the senses. People with auditory synesthesia hear sounds associated with moving objects throughout their normal daily experience, not only with this particular computer generated movie. We don't know yet how common "auditory synesthesia" is, but preliminary estimates are in the range of 1 in 100.

Thanks for your interest,

Melissa Saenz
Post-doctoral Scholar in Biology
saenz 'at' caltech.edu