7 A Model for Levels of Linkage

The principles of multimodal integration and intermodal analogy outlined here are, of course, just two elements in the interaction of hearing and seeing. We should recall that our perception is characterized above all by the complex interaction of all the senses in countless independent processes on different levels and by means of massive parallel processing. Although even today — despite the valuable contributions of neurology, physiology, psychology, sociology, and so on^[17] — we understand only a small portion of these connections, only rarely do we attempt to emulate our perception and integrate information from different strands into a harmonious overall picture. On the contrary, the literature often speaks of synesthesia in a relatively undifferentiated way whenever the interplay of the senses is discussed. This essay is intended to encourage people to differentiate at least between genuine synesthesia, multimodal integration, and intermodal analogy, although it was not possible to discuss in greater detail associative, symbolic, and metaphorical ways to link the senses. To that end, the reader is referred to the work of Michael Haverkamp, whose model of linkage levels represents an effort to systematize specific mechanisms of linkage between different sensory modalities and make them useful for synesthetic design in particular.^[18].

This model represents a first step toward raising representations of human perception to a more complex level.