In This Feature
Synesthesia: Fusion of the Senses
Does the taste of chicken feel pointy to you? Does the letter W seem red or the number 7 yellow, regardless of its print color? Exact responses may differ, but if you’ve ever associated words or numbers with colors or tastes, you might have synesthesia.
What is Synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a harmless condition defined by the UK Syneasthesia Association as the “union of the senses whereby two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and automatically joined together.” A synesthesia page for kids from the University of Washington explains the basics of the condition, while a paper from a fourth-year psychology student at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, provides a somewhat more advanced overview.
A Scientific American article answers many of the more common questions about synesthesia, including “Is a given number always linked to the same color across different synesthetes?”
Source: Scientific American
No one knows just how many forms synesthesia may take; scientist-synesthete Sean A. Day names about 54 types.
Source: Sean A. Day’s Synesthesia page
What is Synesthesia Like?
In Vladimir Nabokov’s 1966 autobiography, “Speak, Memory,” he shared his own auditory synesthetic alphabet (excerpt reprinted in “Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why” by Ellen Dissanayake):
“The long a of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood…but a French a for me evokes polished ebony … Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o, take care of the whites … Passing on to the blue group there is steely x, thundercloud z and huckleberry k.”
“The long a of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood…but a French a for me evokes polished ebony … Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o, take care of the whites … Passing on to the blue group there is steely x, thundercloud z and huckleberry k.”
Source: Google Books [“Homo Aestheticus”]
Alison Bukholtz, a writer for Salon.com, remembers how much she enjoyed her synesthesia as a child: “I’d turn my eyes to a teacher halfway through class to bask in her lavender glow. I’d allow her color to soothe me for a few moments, then turn back to the assignment at hand.”
Source: Salon.com
But the sensations of synesthesia are no mere fantasy of color; they have direct implications on a person’s ability to process information. For example, synesthetes who assign colors to numbers can quickly pick out the few number 2s scattered among a field of similar-looking number 5s; the colors they perceive cause the 2s to “pop out.”
Source: The Dana Foundation
Who Has Synesthesia?
Estimates of the number of synesthetes average between 1 in 200 individuals to 1 in 100,000. It is also more common in left-handers and women. There may be as many as 6 females for every male synesthetes.
Nabokov is just one of many famous synesthetes. Others include Duke Ellington, Richard Feynman, David Hockney and Charles Baudelaire. Synesthesia expert Vilayanur Ramanchandran asserts that synesthesia is eight times more prevalent among creative professionals like artists, poets, and novelists than among the general population. He argues that the neural crosswiring that could account for the fused sensations engendered by synesthesia might also result in an increased propensity for “metaphorical thinking,” and, as such, could inspire great works of art.
History of Synesthesia
Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, was one of the first people to study synesthesia in detail. In 1881, he wrote, “These strange visions which are extremely vivid in some cases, are almost incredible to the vast majority of mankind, who would set them down as fantastic nonsense."
Source: Galton.org [PDF]
Causes of Synesthesia
Dr. Richard Cytowic rekindled interest in synesthesia in the 1980s after decades of neglect. In an entry for the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, Cytowic discusses the hypothesis that in early life, we are all synesthetic. As we develop, a process of “pruning” kills off various neural connections among our senses. A genetic mutation prevents this process from occurring in true synesthetes.
Source: Cytowic on Synesthesia and the Brain [“Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 3rd Ed.”]
Vilayanur Ramanchandran notes that areas of the brain associated with numbers and color lie adjacent to each other, which could create “accidental cross-wiring in the brain … So that every time you see a number, you see a color.” Learn more about his research into synesthesia by watching a video lecture on the TED Web site (drag the red slider at the bottom of the video window to the “synesthesia” section of the talk).
Source: TED
The Implications of Synesthesia
Some researchers believe that a better understanding of how synesthesia works may benefit patients with certain kinds of brain damage. In addition, research on synesthetes may help scientists better understand consciousness, the reality of the world we perceive, and the complex bond of reason and emotion.
Source: Madison.com
Do You Have Synesthesia?
Take a short online test to see whether or not you are a true synesthete.
Source: Synesthesia
To join a forum to discuss the condition with those who have it, visit the Mixed Signals Web site.
Source: Mixed Signals
Books About Synesthesia
Read more about synesthesia in Richard Cytowic’s “The Man Who Tasted Shapes.” If your taste is for YA fiction (and not shapes), try the novel “A Mango-Shaped Space” by Wendy Mass.
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