
Are We All Synesthetes? - rglovejoy
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=545
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joeyo
Synesthesia, at first blush, seems to be something that would be very
difficult to study, since it involves the subjective experience of the
subject. If you claim to see certain numbers in color, I either have to take
your word for it or declare you crazy. But actually there are some very clever
tests that have been developed that provide some confirmation that synesthesia
is a real effect. Number-color synesthetes can very rapidly identify a shape
hidden in this image: <http://mindbluff.com/syn3.gif> while non-synesthetes
must do a very slow manual search (the shape is hi-lighted here:
<http://mindbluff.com/syn4.gif>).

The theory of cross-wiring as the neuronal basis of synesthesia very
suggestive and there may be other instances of it in other domains. For
example, on the human sensory homunculus, the representation for the feet and
toes are located right beside the representation for the genitals. Some degree
of cross-wiring in that region could explain foot fetishes. Likewise the
sensory-cortical representation of the nipple is adjacent to the earlobe, and
so on and so forth.

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jsdalton
Interesting. I have number-color synesthesia but that test does nothing for
me; I couldn't make out the image at all. For that test to work I would think
that one would literally have to "see" the color of a number almost as though
it were a hallucination.

I can only speak for myself obviously, but for me a number just invokes a
certain color in my mind, almost as though the number has an aura. Two, for
example, is blue-green, whereas five is just sort of black on white. But
looking at a grey 2 on a background, I just see a grey 2 on a background...
nothing more, unfortunately.

It was interesting nonetheless, just thought I'd share my own experience.

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joeyo
I suspect that there are varying degrees of synesthesia that range from the
aura you describe to full-on hallucination. I have a friend that has an aural-
color synesthesia who tells me that listening to music in the car (or for that
matter having a conversation) is very difficult because the colors get in the
way of her driving.

In any event, perhaps even in your case you could perform that test (or
another like it) statistically significantly faster than persons without
synesthesia.

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vomjom
For the bouba and kiki example, maybe the reason we associate shapes with
sounds is because we already have words in our vocabulary that are associated
with similar shapes?

For example, bouba is similar to bubble, which has no sharp edges. Kiki is
similar to cut.

It'd be more interesting if you found similar associations in people who speak
a completely different language with different origins.

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Radix
If I were to graph myself speaking those two words I expect I would have two
spikes on the k's of kiki, but bouba would be generally flatter.

We probably have abstractions, connotations, that these sounds share with the
physical ideas of sharpness and soft-formed-ness (what word am I looking for).
Then, we likely choose our words against these abstract connotations.

That's what I guess before I would look at your explanation as right.

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baddox
Wow, I've never thought of this as synesthesia, or really given it much
thought at all, but I think I exhibit the visual motion to sound symptom
sometimes. It's rare, seemed to be more common during high school years (I'm
21 now). If it was really quiet and usually when I was relaxed and alone, it
was almost as if the ambiance would get progressively louder. I'm not sure if
it was associated with visual motion or repositioning my eyes, but I would
also hear whooshing sounds. It seemed like I could also hear faint sounds
louder, like typing or the creaking of a chair. At times it would actually get
annoying, but it would go away when I went about and did something to take my
mind off of it. Since the beginning of the year, I can only remember it
happening once, for about half an hour .

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DougBTX
> Are We All Synesthetes?

Well, probably. See taste vs smell. But on the whole, not the interesting
types, since by definition the interesting types are rare.

~~~
baddox
I don't know if that's actually an example. While the perception of flavor is
derived from both taste and smell, I don't think the two actually overlap.
Although, you can certainly smell and taste something at the same time.

