For other uses, see Synaesthesia (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 spelled synæsthesia, synesthesia); from the Greek (syn-) “union,” and (aesthesis) “sensation,” is a neurological rarity in which two or more of the senses are interconnected, resulting in a more holistic experience. For example, music may be seen as colour or a forest may be heard as a poem. Synaethesia should not be mistaken for artistic interpretation; synaethestes are not simply interpretting but actually perceive reality on a fundamentally different level than non-synaestheses. Because synaethesia is rare, occuring in only 1 % of the population, many synaetheses don't realize that their experiences are abnormal. Clinical synesthetic studies show: Look up expert in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Synaesthesia may refer to one of the following. ... Image File history File links BoobaKiki. ... Image File history File links BoobaKiki. ...

• Synesthesia is genetic but it is not hereditary. It is consistent throughout life and often sets the synesthetic child apart from non-synesthethic parents, by which the child will begin displaying vastly different thought processes as young as adolescence. A synesthete is born with the ability to perceive numerous concepts on alternative levels.

• Synesthetes have an excellent memory for the triggers of synesthetic experience, such as music, literature and science. They are, on average, more intelligent than then general population, scoring high in IQ and cognition testing.

• Approximately 20 percent of synethese suffer from a severe mental disorder such as bipolar disorder, major depression or schizophrenia. Synesthesia itself is not a disorder; why people with mental illness are more likely to experience synesthesia is unknown, but brain research has suggested that the development of neurotransmitters has much to do with it.

• Synesthetes are prone to hypersensitivity toward light, sound and smell (eg. they might feel violently overpowered by even a small amount of perfume). Normal amounts of stimulation are excessive because their sensory input is advanced.

• Despite displaying more advanced cognitive skills than the general population, Synesthetes often have difficulty remembering numbers, such as home phone numbers and street addresses. This can be attributed to their unfamiliarity with concrete situations.

• Synesthetes are essentially solitary individuals. This could be partially due to hypersensitivty but many researchers have claimed that because their brains function on a fundamentally different plane, they prefer personal isolation to communicating with non-synesthetes.

• Synesthetes excel in advanced trains of thought such as philosophy and writing, as well as in music. This can be largely attributed to the lack of boundaries and the faster electro-neurological connections within their brains.

People with synaesthetic experiences

Synaesthesia has influenced artists in many fields as well as other gifted individuals. Look up artist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• Syd Barrett, lead singer/songwriter of Pink Floyd.
• Thom Yorke, lead singer/songwriter of Radiohead.
• Vincent Van Gogh, painter
• Andrew Joseph Graves, composer
• Julian Casablancas, composer, singer, songwriter of the Strokes.
• Albert Einstein, physicist
• William Butler Yeats, poet.
• Richard Feynman, physicist
• Vladimir Nabokov, author
• Arthur Rimbaud poet (specifically his poem Voyelles).
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer.
• Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast."^[1]
• Alexander Nikolayevich Skriabin, composer
• Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
• Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, claimed to hear music sometimes while designing buildings.
• Michael Torke, composer

Roger Keith Syd Barrett (January 6, 1946 – July 7, 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. ... Pink Floyd are a British progressive rock band noted for philosophical lyrics, classical rock compositions, sonic experimentation, innovative cover art, and elaborate live shows. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Radiohead are an English band from Oxfordshire, comprising five musicians. ... Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853–July 29, 1890) was a Dutch painter, classified as a Post-Impressionist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Albert Einstein ( ) (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-Jewish theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century and one of the greatest physicists of all time. ... W.B. Yeats in Dublin on 24 January 1908. ... Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) (surname pronounced FINE-man; in IPA) was an influential American physicist known for expanding greatly on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, quark theory, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. ... Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Набоков; pronounced ) (April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1899, Saint Petersburg – July 2, 1977, Montreux) was a Russian-American author. ... Arthur Rimbaud at seventeen Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (October 20, 1854 – November 10, 1891) was a French poet, born in Charleville. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Portrait of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov by Valentin Serov (1898) Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian: , Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov), also Nikolay, Nicolai, and Rimsky-Korsakoff, (March 6/18, 1844 – June 8/21, 1908) was a Russian composer and teacher of harmony and orchestration. ... Franz Schubert. ... Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин, Aleksandr Nikolaevič Skrjabin; sometimes transliterated as Skryabin or Skrjabin) (6 January 1872 – 27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. ... Ludwig van Beethoven (pronounced ) (baptized December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827) was a German composer and pianist. ... Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent and influential architects of the first half of the 20th century. ... American composer Michael Torke (born September 21, 1961 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), studied at the Eastman School of Music and at Yale University, and writes accessible music influenced by jazz and minimalism. ...

Synesthesia associations

• American Synesthesia Association
• Australian Synaesthesia Association
• Belgian Synesthesia Association
• UK Synaesthesia Association

See also

• Cognitive neuroscience
• Noise health effects
• Over-illumination
• Parosmia
• Perception
• Kinesthesia
• Schmidt Sting Pain Index (A good example.)
• Multiple Intelligence (Learning using multiple senses)
• Visual thinking
• Tele-synaesthesia

The field of Cognitive neuroscience concerns the study of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and is a branch of biological psychology which, in turn, is part of the wider field of neuroscience, the most comprehensive interdisciplinary discipline studying the brain . ... Environmental noise can produce irreversible hearing loss Noise health effects, the collection of health consequences of elevated sound levels, constitute one of the most widespread public health threats in industrialized countries. ... This cosmetics store has lighting levels over twice recommended levels and sufficient to trigger headaches and other health effects Over-illumination is the presence of lighting intensity (illuminance) beyond that required for a specified activity. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... PSYCHOLOGY In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ... Proprioception (from Latin proprius, meaning ones own and perception) is the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The theory of multiple intelligences is a theory proposed by developmental psychologist Howard Gardner in 1983. ... Picture thinking, visual thinking or visual/spatial learning is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing, where most people would think with linguistic or verbal processing. ...

External links

• The Synesthesia Battery: take the tests to discover if you are synesthetic. Developed by David Eagleman, PhD.
• Synesthesia in Chinese
• A forum with discussions concerning many different types of synesthesia
• A community of synesthetes on livejournal.com, for discussion and sharing of personal experiences and theories
• Interview with a Synesthete
• Scientific American article Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes (PDF version) by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard, May 2003.
• ColorOfMySound.com Upload your own audio track and let the world weigh in on what color it looks like. A community driven version of the Color Of Sound experiment below.
• Cortex: Special Issue on Cognitive Neuroscience Perspectives on Synesthesia The neuroscience journal Cortex presents a special issue focusing on modern scientific research of synesthesia.
• The Color of Sound Flash experiment where you can assign colors to sounds and see how other people voted.
• Synaesthesia and MigraineSynaesthesia may occur as a visual migraine aura.
• People who feel color gets scientific acceptance
• [2] Crétien van Campen, 'Artistic and psychological experiments with synesthesia' gives the historical background.
• Synaesthesia and Education: a research project at the University of Cambridge investigating the effects of grapheme-colour synaesthesia on numerical processing in children.
• Museums of the Mind, a synesthesia portal by Dr. Hugo Heyrman, more specific on the interaction between art and synesthesia.
• A Brief History of Synaesthesia and Music
• A Mango-Shaped Space, a novel about a 13-year-old with synesthesia by Wendy Mass
• Synaesthesia - union of the senses (from Kuro5hin)
• Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens by Patricia Lynne Duffy
• Why some see colours in numbers at BBC News, 24 March 2005
• Artificial synesthesia (for the blind)
• Infantile synaesthesia
• Synesthesia Music Music generated from any pictures in 5 seconds
• Draw your music?!! Software plays what you draw
• Visualising Music?!! Software displays your music to animation
• The synesthesia battery
• Mirror Writing could be linked to Synaesthesia
• Shem Booth-Spain, Synesthesia, Cybernetic culture, Artist/Producer
• synesthesia and psychic auras