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Synesthesia
Published in Alexander R. Toftness, Incredible Consequences of Brain Injury, 2023
Synesthesia takes many different forms—in fact, new forms are still being described—so let's start with a general definition. Synesthesia is when one attribute of a stimulus (the inducer) leads to the conscious experience of an additional attribute (the concurrent), and this relationship is generally automatic (Ward, 2013). The attributes that make up the inducer and the concurrent can be any sort of conscious experience, such as hearing a sound or tasting a taste. Most typically, however, inducers are linguistic in nature such as letters and digits, while concurrents are visual in nature such as experiencing a color (Ward, 2013). A typical synesthesia pairing is that whenever a person sees a letter or number, their brain also generates a color, and therefore reading the letter or number and seeing the color are experienced together as linked qualia.
Spirituality
Published in Inge B. Corless, Zelda Foster, The Hospice Heritage: Celebrating Our Future, 2020
An act as simple as lighting a candle can be powerful. So can a container for tissues filled with tears-a small ritual that holds the hurt-and makes the tears in some small way, sacred. Intentional use of synesthesia, utilizing more than one sense at a time, enhances spiritual experience. Combining sights and sounds, for example, or sounds and aromas, powerfully reinforces healing memories.
Cosmetic Products: Science and Senses
Published in Heather A.E. Benson, Michael S. Roberts, Vânia Rodrigues Leite-Silva, Kenneth A. Walters, Cosmetic Formulation, 2019
John Jiménez, Vânia Rodrigues Leite-Silva, Heather A.E. Benson
Synesthesia is a condition where experiences related to perception, such as a colour or taste, are caused by stimuli that would not normally be associated with experience. Synesthetic experiences have three characteristics: they are provoked by a stimulus, they are conscious perceptions and they are automatic (Stein, 2012).
The evolution of the concept of synesthesia in the nineteenth century as revealed through the history of its name
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2020
Jörg Jewanski, Julia Simner, Sean A. Day, Nicolas Rothen, Jamie Ward
The condition we know today as synesthesia (UK spelling: synaesthesia) is a rare involuntary trait. People with synesthesia report extraordinary “phantom” sensations, such as colors or tastes, triggered by everyday activities such as reading or listening to music. Synesthesia is a phenomenon with many different forms. Sean A. Day (2019) listed 73 different types of synesthesia, based on self-descriptions of 1,143 persons. The five most frequent forms are graphemes to colors, time units to colors, musical sounds to colors, general sounds to colors, and phonemes to colors. Despite their variety, all kinds share certain defining characteristics: They tend to be automatic, are consistent over time, present from early childhood, run in families, and are experienced by approximately 4% of the population (for an overview, see Simner and Hubbard 2013; cf. Simner 2012a; Cohen Kardosh and Terhune 2012; Eagleman 2012; Simner 2012b).
The “golden age” of synesthesia inquiry in the late nineteenth century (1876–1895)
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2020
Jörg Jewanski, Julia Simner, Sean A. Day, Nicolas Rothen, Jamie Ward
These represent the first reported cases of synesthesia in history in which smell, touch, pain, and taste act as “inducers” (the term used today to denote what triggers synesthesia), and specific accounts of them are given in their appendices. For all specified types, Bleuler and Lehmann found 76 cases experienced synesthesia amongst 596 people (45 male, 31 female). This suggested a prevalence of about 12.8% (14.6% in the female sample and 11.7% in the male sample; Bleuler and Lehmann 1881, 49). This is far higher than contemporary estimates (Simner et al., 2006). However, Bleuler and Lehmann noted that this figure might have been inflated because of their sampling method (i.e., deliberating asking within the families of synesthetes). The female-male ratio (1.2:1) is the same as is now known from contemporary studies, but is in contrast to many studies from the mid- and late-twentieth century, which suggested a much stronger female bias (see Johnson, Allison, and Baron-Cohen 2013, 17). However, these twentieth-century studies had likely encouraged a false female bias by their recruitment methods, which advertised for synesthetes to come forward and self-refer (which disproportionately recruits women) rather than counting synesthetes from the general population using random sampling (for a discussion, see Simner et al. 2006; a ratio of 1.3:1 is discussed in Simner and Carmichael 2015).
Recognizing synesthesia on the international stage: The first scientific symposium on synesthesia (at The International Conference of Physiological Psychology, Paris, 1889)
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2020
Jörg Jewanski, Julia Simner, Sean A. Day, Nicolas Rothen, Jamie Ward
Synesthesia is a rare inherited trait in which sensory inputs (or cognitive concepts such as letters or numbers) trigger unusual additional sensations. For example, hearing music can trigger the sensation of color, and reading words can trigger the sensation of taste. There are numerous different forms of synesthesia, and at least 100 to 200 different variants have been recognized in the literature (Cytowic and Eagleman 2009; Day 2019). Synesthesia is found in at least 4% of the population (Simner et al. 2006) and brings advantages in perception and cognition (e.g., memory; Rothen et al. 2013) and at least some disadvantages in well-being (Carmichael et al. 2018). Research on synesthesia also affords insight into nonclinical populations (i.e., how the senses come to be integrated in all people), and it helps us to understand how different brains can perceive reality differently (Simner and Hubbard 2013). During the late twentieth century research on synesthesia increased exponentially (Lovelace 2013), similar to a wave of interest that had emerged in the late nineteenth century (Jewanski 2013; Jewanski et al. 2019, 2020). The first recorded synesthete was Georg Sachs in 1812 (Jewanski, Day, and Ward 2009). The first symposium dedicated to synesthesia was held at Paris in 1889 and this marked an important step towards the development of a science of synesthesia. This symposium and its impact have not been discussed in the literature before. We will provide an English translation of those paragraphs from the French conference proceedings that deal with the synesthesia symposium; we also will provide biographical details of the discussants, centered on their contributions on synesthesia.