My research explores how people experience, interpret and imagine music, with particular interests in music–colour synaesthesia, mental imagery, embodied cognition and musically evoked narratives. More recently, my work has extended to questions about musical creativity and the ways audiences experience human- and AI-generated music.
Musically Evoked Narrative Imaginings in Synaesthetic and Non-Synaesthetic Expert Musicians
Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship | Durham University | 2024–2028
Music can evoke vivid imagined scenes, characters and unfolding events, even in the absence of words or an explicit storyline. My Leverhulme-funded research investigates how music–colour synaesthesia influences these experiences, known as musically evoked narrative imaginings (MENI), in expert musicians.
The project examines whether the colours, shapes, textures and movements experienced by music–colour synaesthetes influence how they construct and organise imagined narratives while listening to music. In particular, it considers whether synaesthetic experiences provide perceptual or conceptual anchors that help listeners identify meaningful changes in music and structure their imaginative responses.
Research objectives
The study compares expert musicians with and without music–colour synaesthesia to investigate:
- Whether synaesthesia influences the vividness, coherence and temporal organisation of musically evoked narratives.
- How listeners identify meaningful musical events and whether synaesthetic experiences are associated with differences in event segmentation.
- How changes in perceived musical tension relate to narrative development and the identification of musical boundaries.
- Whether relationships between musical tension, event segmentation and narrative engagement differ between synaesthetic and non-synaesthetic musicians.
Research approach
Following an initial pilot study, the main study began in June 2026 and involves approximately 80 expert musicians with and without music–colour synaesthesia.
Participants listen to short excerpts of film and media music while completing tasks designed to capture different aspects of their experience. These include tracking perceived musical tension, describing any narratives or mental imagery evoked by the music, and identifying significant moments or changes as the music unfolds.
The study also incorporates measures of musical expertise, visual imagery and synaesthetic experience, including colour-consistency testing.
Together, these approaches allow the relationships between musical structure, synaesthetic perception and narrative imagination to be examined.
Research progress and outputs
The main study is now approaching completion, with data collection undertaken remotely to enable participation by expert musicians internationally.
A theoretical framework underpinning the project was published in Psychology of Music in December 2025:
Curwen, C. (2025). Seeing sound, shaping stories: The role of ideasthesia and event segmentation in musically evoked narratives. Psychology of Music.
The project aims to advance our understanding of how listeners construct meaning through music and how individual differences in multisensory experience may influence the organisation of musical imagination.
Related Collaborative Research
Music and Imagination in Live Performance
Durham University | 2026
In collaboration with Nao Toyama and Professor Kelly Jakubowski, I contributed to an exploratory study examining audience experiences of human- and AI-composed music during Cyber Eastern Music Festival II in London in August 2026.
The project adapted measures of narrative engagement developed through my Leverhulme Fellowship to investigate the thoughts, images and imaginative experiences elicited by music in a live performance setting.
This collaboration extends my research beyond synaesthesia and provides an opportunity to examine how different forms of musical creation influence listeners’ experiences.
Future Research Directions
AI, Musical Creativity and Listener Experience
My developing research interests extend the study of musical imagination to questions concerning artificial intelligence and creativity.
As AI-generated music becomes increasingly sophisticated, an important question is whether listeners experience it in the same way as music composed by humans.
I am developing a programme of research investigating how the structural, emotional and imaginative qualities of AI-generated music compare with human composition, placing the listener’s experience at the centre of the evaluation.
