Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia is the neurological mixing of the senses. A synaesthetic may for example hear colors, see sounds, and taste tactile sensations. While this may happen in a person who has autism, it is by no means exclusive to autistics.

Synaesthetics often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tone of sounds, and intensity of taste that they assosiate with an alternate sensation. For instance, a synaestetic may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make him taste a sweeter taste.

Synaesthesia has influenced many authors, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.

External links

• [1] Crétien van Campen, 'Artistic and psychological experiments with synesthesia' gives the historical background.
• [1] Richard Cytowic, 'Synesthesia: phenomenology and neuropsychology' emphasizes the involuntary nature of the cross-modal perceptions and "distinguishes it from metaphor, literary tropes, sound symbolism, and deliberate artistic contrivances that sometimes employ the term "synesthesia" to describe their multisensory joinings.
• [1] Crétien van Campen, 'Synesthesia and artistic experimentation' comments on Cytowic, adducing the examples of Scriabin's and Kandinsky's experiments as relevant for the study of synesthesia.
• http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0003014B-9D06-1E8F-8EA5809EC5880000