The Synesthesia Experience by Seaberg Maureen;

Author:Seaberg, Maureen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 30684136
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Published: 2023-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Across the pond in London, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues developed the Test of Genuineness (TOG) in 1987. It measures how consistent subjects' responses are when they hear a sound or look at a number or letter, for example. Synesthetes will almost always see the same color or feel a similar sensation for each stimulus (for example, always seeing a flash of teal when listening to a G note) and therefore score very high, in the 70- to 90-percent range. Non-synesthetes typically score in the 20- to 38-percent range. This test is most effective when it is repeated several months later in order to confirm a consistency in the associations (is that subject's G note always teal, or does it change?).

At the University of California at San Diego, Dr. V S. Ramachandran and Dr. Ed Hubbard used Stroop interference to create another clever test. They would show the word yellow written in red ink to a subject and ask that subject to read it. What they found is that the non-synesthetes typically had slower response times. In synesthetes, however, if the color “matched” the subject's own particular association for that word, his/ her reaction time was much faster. In another similar test, the doctors created a field of 5s in which a small triangle of 2s was hidden and showed it to both synesthetes and non-synesthetes. As might be expected, the synesthetes were much quicker than the non-synesthetes in finding the hidden triangle of 2s because their number-to-color associations made the different number stand out. Finally, an even larger study group was found through the use of the Internet. Dr. David Eagleman created the Synesthesia Battery, an online test that takes advantage of the custom color bars on computers so that synesthetes can find exactly the right shade of indigo for their Hs or that perfect persimmon for their Rs. And exacting brain scans can now be done that show locations of the brain actually “lighting up” when synesthetes are stimulated with various sensory inputs.

Finally, it is real. Scientists with their inventive diagnostics have made the intangible tangible. Galton and his synesthetes would be amazed to see this very private experience actually quantified and verified in this way. And now that we have such tools, it appears that synesthesia may be more universal than was initially thought. Some researchers believe that it is widespread in infants, although this theory is currently being hotly contested. For example, in their 1988 book The World of the Newborn, Daphne and Charles Maurer theorized that “the newborn does not keep sensations separate from one another.” Instead, it “mixes sights, sounds, feelings and smells into a sensual bouillabaisse.” This theory was based on their behavioral observations of newborns and still remains unproven. However, it is still an exciting and fascinating thing to contemplate that we all may have been synesthetes at one time! Further, synesthesia has been found to be widely present in adept meditators and has even been induced in hypnosis.

Despite all of

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