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Synaesthesia Research Laboratory Brunel University, Department of Psychology Lab Director: Dr. Noam Sagiv PhD Students: Alireza Ilbeigi, Monika Sobczak MSc Students: Sean
Williams Lab Alumni: Giles
Hamilton-Fletcher, Maina Amin,
Olufemi Olu-Lafe. Collaborating
Researchers: Dr. Adrian Williams (Brunel), Dr. Jamie Ward
(Sussex).
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Synaesthesia on BBC Horizon
(available until Nov 23, 2010):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/vhw1d/?t=25m18s
What is Synaesthesia?
What is the colour of the letter M, the number 6, or a prelude in
E-minor? How do red circles taste or sound? If you know the answer to one of
these questions you probably have synaesthesia. Most of us, however, do not!
We rarely
stop to think about it and typically assume that everyone sees the world just
like we do, but some people’s perceptual experience is richer than others’. In
some individuals, the senses are linked in such a way that stimuli in one sense
also evoke a sensory experience in another sense. This unusual linking of the
senses is called synaesthesia. Some examples include visualising colours when
listening to music, experiencing different tastes associated with different
words, or other sensory combinations. Seeing black and white letters and
numbers as coloured is also considered a type of synaesthesia (although this
often happens within 
one sense – vision).
We used to
think that synaesthesia is quite rare, but according to a recent survey, 4% of individuals
may have one variant of synaesthesia or another. It is quite common to
experience synaesthetic colour induced by sequences like letters, numbers, days of the week or months of the year. Some people also
associate gender/personality with letters/numbers (e.g. 4 is a shy boy) or
objects (we are currently studying these variants – so please get in touch in
you’d like to take part in research and fill out our questionnaire). At least 1
in 10 individuals will associate letters, numbers or time units with a spatial
pattern (such as circular or spiral calendars, straight number
lines, or more complex ones.
Synaesthesia
can be thought of as a union of the senses, as suggested by the origin of the
term (Greek, syn = together + aisthesis
= perception). We often use synaesthetic metaphors to describe sensations, for
example, we might describe colours as warm, or music as bright. Having
synaesthesia is taking it one step further and actually experiencing it this
way (for example visualising brighter colours when the violin plays higher
pitch notes; or experiencing other sensory combination). Individuals who have
synaesthesia will experience this automatically and do not have to make an
effort to visualise/imagine these extra images/experiences.
Although synaesthesia
is sometimes referred to as a condition, it is not harmful and synaesthetes
(individuals who have synaesthesia) would not want to give it up... In fact,
given how common it is, you probably know someone who has synaesthesia. There
are many famous synaesthetes including Pythagoras, David Hockney,
Kandinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Vladimir Nabokov, and
Nobel laureate – the physicist Richard Feynman. We now think that synaesthesia
should not be thought of as an abnormality but rather as reflecting cognitive
processes common to us all. For a review of the scientific evidence supporting
this position, please see this review.
The specific
sensory combinations each synaesthete perceives are
usually stable and consistent across time, although synaesthetes may disagree
(e.g., which colours go with which sounds). The following animations demonstrate this
well (the visual experiences perceived by 5 different synaesthetes in response
to the same sounds).
Taking part in research
Please follow this link to find out
more about current research projects and whether you can take part.
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Synesthesia links |
Articles and books of interest |
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·
Monika’s
homepage (including links to videos on synaesthesia) ·
American Synesthesia Association ·
Richard Cytowic's Synesthesia Page ·
Synaesthesia in Brighton – Jamie Ward’s page ·
Synaesthesia in Hanover, Germany. ·
Synaesthesia in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada ·
Synesthesia in Nashville: Ed Hubbard's Page |
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A review of our recent work (full text available) ·
Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience (2005) Find out what scientists have learned about synesthesia in the last few years. See also Table of Contents or read the blurbs. ·
Synesthesia Resource Center -
links to many articles ·
Leonardo bibliography 'Synesthesia
in Art and Science' ·
Wednesday Is Indigo Blue (2009). ·
The Frog Who Croaked Blue (2008) ·
The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia
in Art and Science (2007) ·
Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens (2001) ·
Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its
Development (1907) |
