Jump to content

Synesthesia: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Line 24: Line 24:


Likewise, [[Nick Carraway]], the narrator of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's [[party|parties]].
Likewise, [[Nick Carraway]], the narrator of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's [[party|parties]].

== Synaesthesia as a neurological disorder ==



Synaesthesia is a neurological condition, which occurs naturally in many individuals, but is also a common effect of some [[Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants|hallucinogenic drug]]s such as [[LSD]] or [[mescaline]]. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular [[song]] "[[Lake Shore Drive]]" by [[Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah]]:
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition, which occurs naturally in many individuals, but is also a common effect of some [[Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants|hallucinogenic drug]]s such as [[LSD]] or [[mescaline]]. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular [[song]] "[[Lake Shore Drive]]" by [[Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah]]:

Revision as of 23:41, 27 April 2006

You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|March 2006|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.

For other uses, see Synesthesia (disambiguation).
This picture is used as a test to demonstrate that people may not attach sounds to shapes arbitrarily: A remote tribe calls one of these shapes Booba and the other Kiki. Decide which is which and then click the image to check your answer.

Synaesthesia (also spelt synæsthesia, synesthesia); from the Greek (syn-) “union,” and (aesthesis) “sensation,” has been used to describe various phenomena. A person who experiences synaesthesia is called a synaesthete. Normally the term synaesthesia is used to indicate a condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality gives rise to an experience in another modality. In an auditory synaesthete, for example, an auditory experience may give rise to an experience in the visual modality.

Synaesthetes often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tones of sounds, and intensities of tastes that provoke alternate sensations. For instance, a synaesthete may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make one taste a sweeter taste. These experiences are not metaphorical or merely associations; rather, they are involuntary and are consistent throughout life, although some young synaesthetes seem to lose their ability by or during adulthood. Depressants tend to increase the depth of the perception.

Synaesthesia can even occur when one of the senses no longer functions properly, e.g., a person who can see colors when words are spoken can still see the colors if he becomes blind in later life. This phenomenon is known as "martian colors." The term originated from a case of a synaesthete who was born partially color blind, but saw certain 'alien' colors in his synaesthetic perceptions that he never saw (was incapable of seeing) in the 'real world.'

The most common forms of synaesthesia involve color being assigned to letters, numbers, days of the week or (especially for musicians) musical keys.

Richard Cytowic wrote a pop-psych book about this condition entitled The Man Who Tasted Shapes.

Some researchers and theorists have suggested that synaesthesia may have played a part in early humans' development of writing and written literacies.

Synaesthesia in art

Synaesthesia is an often-used poetic device. In a familiar example, Andrew Marvell characterized the fruitful and serene atmosphere of the garden as

Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade
( —"The Garden")

Likewise, Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's parties.

Synaesthesia as a neurological disorder

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition, which occurs naturally in many individuals, but is also a common effect of some hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or mescaline. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular song "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah:

Sometimes you can smell the green
When your mind is feeling fine
( —Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah)

Synaesthesia has influenced many artists in various fields, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud (specifically his poem Voyelles), and an ersatz synaesthesia has sometimes been overused since as a shortcut to "modernity."

Pink Floyd's once lead singer/songwriter Syd Barrett was known to experience synaethesia, which inspired many of the band's lyrics. Another musician, and a fan of Barrett's, is Robyn Hitchcock, who is also a synaesthete. Hitchcock uses particular chords depending on their "colours," describing some chords as green and others as yellow, blue, or red.

Keyboard tone-to-color mapping of Scriabin's clavier à lumières.

Composer Alexander Scriabin, in his orchestral work, Prometheus: Poem of Fire (1910), included a part for a "clavier à lumières." This instrument was played like the piano, but produced colored light instead of sound. Scriabin did not experience the physiological condition of synaesthesia. The color system he described and which he used in pieces such as Prometheus, unlike most systems and synaesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought-out system; it was also influenced by his theosophic readings and based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Many other artists have used fabricated synesthetic systems, such as the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the Russian abstract-painting pioneer Wassily Kandinsky.

Amy Beach was a synesthete, seeing different colors for different keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was reputed to be a synesthete as well as György Ligeti. Olivier Messiaen was a true synesthete; he discussed his condition to a great extent in his writings, going so far as to describe in detail the exact colorations evoked by particular chords. Jean Sibelius was also synesthetic, claiming even in his early childhood that G major was 'green' and being able to convert images he saw in nature directly into music. Contemporary postminimal composer Michael Torke is a synesthete who perceives colors for various time units. French drummer Manu Katché and world-renowned oboist Jennifer Paull are both synesthetes, Katche seeing various images with music, and Paull seeing an expanded unexplainable spectrum to various sounds, the sensation of the oboe compelling her to take it up.

Franz Liszt, when conducting, confused the musicians by describing timbres or sonorities in chromatic terms.[1] Ludwig van Beethoven considered B minor to be "the black key," and Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast."[2] In such cases of long-dead people, it is difficult to tell whether they were describing their synesthesia or using figures of speech such as those from Marvell and Fitzgerald above.

In his autobiography, writer Vladimir Nabokov described his synaesthetic experiences. The American physicist Richard Feynman admitted to seeing the algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in color.

Jimi Hendrix, who knew little music theory, would attempt to describe chords and harmony in terms of color. For example, the chord E7#9 (often referred to by guitar players as the 'Hendrix chord') gave him a strong sense of the color purple. The chord is played under the words 'purple haze' in each verse of the song of that name.

Keiran Heilbron of the band Sum 41, is probably the most curious case of synaesthesia, as instead of associating colours with sounds, he associates fruits/vegetables with sounds. The G Chord is a strawberry according to Heilbron.

In Ozzy Osbourne's song Flying High Again, he talks about "Swallowing colors of the sound I hear"

Electronic music artist Richard D. James (better known as Aphex Twin) is said to be a synaesthete, as is Stephen Hargreaves, whose Children of Laudanum titled their first LP Synesthesia.

British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree has a song called "Synesthesia," and Adam Jones, guitarist/sculpter of the band Tool is allegedly able to enter a synaethesiac state where sculpting brings musical inspiration and music similarly induces artistic images. AFI have also released a song called Synesthesia which appeared as the B side to Sing the Sorrow.

Andy Summers, guitar player for The Police, released a solo album called "Synaesthesia."

Synaesthesia Jackson is the name of a synaesthete detective in the comic book series Top 10, written by Alan Moore. She claims her talent helps her to solve crimes.

Blue Man Group recorded a song called "Synaesthetic" on their debut album, Audio.

Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber of the industrial group Front Line Assembly, released several ambient albums under the name Synæsthesia during the 1990's.

The artist Judifer Yellich, who also worked at the J. Paul Getty Museum, painted an entire series of abstract paintings, known as 'The Wave & Particle Series', devoted completely to painting or "composing" music with colors and shapes.

As digital entertainment becomes more developed, the possibility of synaesthesia through technology has begun to be considered. Several video games already use the term in their advertising, most notably the 2001 Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 game REZ (which does have some elements of synaesthesia in its gameplay, notably the interaction of controller vibration, music, player interaction and graphics).

Clinical description

Synaesthesia is a real phenomenon: indeed, some people see colors when they hear or read letters and numbers (the most common form). Others taste and feel sounds, colors, and so forth.

A genuine type of Synaesthesia shows the following qualities:

  • it works like a dictionary: one stimulus always evokes a certain perception
  • the perception occurs involuntarily
  • the perceptions are individual: every Synaesthete has their "own" colors and shapes
  • the perceptions are irreversible: a 7 might evoke the color blue, but the color blue doesn't evoke a 7
  • the perceptions are permanent: they begin at child age and don't change throughout life.

Researchers think the phenomenon might derive from child age. Babies are said to perceive the world like a Synaesthete, with mixed senses, because their brains are not completely developed. Getting older, the senses are separated from each other. For some people the separation does not take place and therefore they stay Synaesthetes their whole life. Synaesthesia occurs eight times more often in women than in men, and also has a disproportionate occurrence in homosexuals and left handed people. Often relatives of Synaesthetes are Synaesthetes as well. It is therefore likely that the phenomenon is passed on on the X-Chromosome. It is estimated that 10% of people are Synaesthetes. But only those perceiving their Synaesthesia can recognize the inner colors. [3] Synaesthetes have been studied by neurologist V. S. Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego, who remarked that "processes similar to synaesthesia might also underlie our general capacity for metaphor and be critical to creativity."[4][5] Ramachandran has said it is "not an accident" that the phenomenon is noted eight times more frequently in writers and artists than in the typical population, and is more common in creative people.[6] Synaesthesia often runs in families. About one-third of synaesthetes report that another family member experiences similar phenomena.[7]

Another leading psychologist, Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen, the cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen and currently a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, is also undergoing research into the topic.

File:Wiki synaesthesia.PNG
How someone with synaesthesia might perceive (n.b., not 'see') certain letters and numbers.

In synaesthesia's most common form (Grapheme-color synaesthesia), individual letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers, are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color.[8] The alphabet color pattern is different for every individual. Many synaesthetes report that they were unaware their abilities were special or unusual until they realized other people didn't have them. Writer (and synaesthete) Patricia Lynne Duffy remembers the experience: "'one day,' I said to my father, 'I realized that to make an 'R' all I had to do was first write a 'P' and then draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line.'"[9]

From another grapheme-color synesthete: "I often associate letters and numbers with colors. Every digit and every letter has a color associated with it in my head. Sometimes, when letters are written boldly on a piece of paper, they will briefly appear to be that color if I'm not focusing on it. Some examples: "S" is red, "H" is orange, "C" is yellow, "J" is yellow-green, "G" is green, "E" is blue, "X" is purple, "I" is pale yellow, "2" is tan, "1" is white. If I write SHCJGEX it registers as a rainbow when I read over it, as does ABCPDEF." (From a slashdot discussion)

Another account: "I have synesthesia, and as a child I thought it was normal until I realized other people didn't see numbers and letters as colors. I believe synesthesia can link any kind of sensory input to abstract forms like letters and numbers, but in my case (and in most), it's simple colors. This makes it easy for me to remember trivial information like phone numbers, account numbers, historical dates, and pi (3.141592653589 is how far I remember without looking it up). Every string of numbers and letters forms a composite color based on those of its individual characters. I've studied Japanese for a few years and now find that Japanese syllable characters also have colors for me now. I imagine that with extreme synesthesia, a person might understand abstract notions like numbers and math in a completely different way. I remember once showing my sister two Smarties and telling her they were '3' and '6' instead of yellow and green. It took me a moment to realize why she didn't understand." (From a slashdot discussion)

There are a lot of different types of Synaesthesia, of which the connection between grapheme and color is the mostly distributed type, followed by the connection between time units and color and musical sounds and color. For an overview on the different types and their distribution see http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/html/types.htm.

Synesthesia associations

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Synesthesia&oldid=50501405"