Anecdotal Evidence Theater, Essay Version

[corivax]

There have been three interesting public posts on my friends list about synaesthesia of late. ( 1, 2, 3), plus two interesting friends-locked ones. Far be it from me to do anything other than mindlessly follow the cool kids!

I think "synaesthesia" as the official medical definition goes is reasonably uncommon, but most people I've talked to have

Comments

[king_chiron]

I'm a bit jealous that I *don't* have synaesthesia, it seems more and more people I know have some aspect of it.

[corivax]

I doubt you have none, though. One of the posts this week mentioned this image (or one like it) and pointed out that when people are asked which of the two shapes is the 'kiki' and which is the 'boba,' 19 in 20 people picked the same set. :) That's a sound/shape thing, at least.

It's not "clinical" synaesthesia, but most people have something along these lines. Do certain pieces of music remind you of colors or scenes? Do certain people seem to fit with certain colors? Certain moods with scenes or colors? Stuff like that.

[urox]

But is that due to the shape of the english letters translating to the shapes shown? It would be interesting to do the same for people who don't use a latin alphabet.

[corivax]

The official explanation goes like this:

"The kiki visual shape has a sharp inflection and the sound ‘kiki’ represented in your auditory cortex, in the hearing centers of your brain, also has a sharp sudden inflection. Your brain performs a cross-modal synesthetic abstraction, recognizing that common property of jaggedness, extracting it, and so reaching the conclusion that they are both kiki." -V. S. Ramachandran.

I don't know enough to comment intelligently on it.

[caladri]

I think you're perhaps getting the relationship backwards there :) It's more likely (if you agree with the bulk of the research that the UCSD people are doing, anyway) that the latin shapes reflect our recognition of the sounds. Likewise, if you believe [researcher whose name I forget], this all started because 'shrooms got introduced to our diets a few evolutionary leaps back and hallucinated our way into self-awareness and communication.

[caladri]

Er, I wish to retract my 'some researcher.' It was Terence McKenna, hardly a legitimate researcher. Ah well.

[lyonesse]

i like to think of terence mckenna as a completely legitimate inventor of mythology :)

[caladri]

I think even more than mythology, it's a good philosophical/psychological abstraction for the same thing that VS Ramachandran is going on about, and it uses something that more people can relate to. My "I want to see letters in color!" urge has lead me to buying drugs a few times, even if I didn't end up using them for that purpose. I should really give in to the urge to try mescaline some time.

Terence McKenna gets bonus points for his work with The Shamen. I'm not a huge fan of theirs, but I can appreciate it :)