Multisensory semantization of color in the framework of designing comfortable urban environments

The paper aims to analyze and systematize color meanings in the framework of cross-modal correspondences and to outline their potential for sensory urbanism. The field of cross-modal correspondences involving colors and their semantics is the paper’s subject matter; its scope covers the mechanisms and patterns behind the formation of multisensory-perception-based color meanings. Multisensory perception is considered as uniting biological and sociocultural factors; the respective approach to designing urban environments is viewed as restoring the “man–city” connection. The principles of human commensurability and intramodal and cross-modal sensory harmony are emphasized as vital for enhancing public space comfort. The theoretical research methods employed are analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, classification, generalization, and elements of the semiotic method. Non-conventional meanings are illustrated via synesthesia; their semiotic structure is analyzed through examples from the author’s synesthetic color terms database collected from synesthetes’ online comments (110 color terms in total). The research identifies a special, biosocially conditioned category of “multisensory" color meanings, analyzes their specifics comprehensively, forms their classification, and assesses their practical application potential, especially for social purposes. Meanings are determined to stem from individual, group, and universal cultural experiences and be formed at the respective levels. The main meaning types are: socioculturally conditioned; biologically conditioned; non-conventional. Their borders are bridged by means of metaphor. Spacetime serves as both the framework of multisensory experiences and their constituent. The author concludes that combining cross-modal harmony principles with overlapping color meanings maximizes the positive effects of urban environments; non-conventional meanings are essential in developing spaces for neurodivergent people (due to their increased physical and emotional color sensitivity and specific responses). The concept of multisensory color semantics enables developing color coding systems that convey ideas via the color fields of cities and interpreting the latter as “multisensory texts.”

urban environment, comfort, color, color perception, color semantics, semantization, sensory urbanism, biosocial phenomenon, cross-modal harmony, multisensory perception