Now, however, modern behavioral, brain-imaging and molecular genetic tools hold exciting promise for uncovering the mechanisms that drive synesthesia-and, researchers hope, for better understanding how the brain normally organizes perception and cognition. But until recently, researchers could only speculate about the causes of synesthesia. The condition runs in families and is more common among women than men, researchers now know. Studies have confirmed that the phenomenon is biological, automatic and apparently unlearned, distinct from both hallucination and metaphor. Often, people with synesthesia describe having been driven to silence after being derided in childhood for describing sensory connections that they had not realized were atypical.įor scientists, synesthesia presents an intriguing problem. The condition is not well known, in part because many synesthetes fear ridicule for their unusual ability. And many synesthetes experience more than one form of the condition. Some, who possess what researchers call "conceptual synesthesia," see abstract concepts, such as units of time or mathematical operations, as shapes projected either internally or in the space around them. Others taste shapes, and still others perceive written digits, letters and words in color. Some synesthetes hear, smell, taste or feel pain in color. The phenomenon-its name derives from the Greek, meaning "to perceive together"-comes in many varieties. Steamed gingered squid produces a large glob of bright orange foam, about four feet away, directly in front of me."Ĭrane and Day share an extraordinary sensory condition called synesthesia. "Mango sherbet appears as a wall of lime green with thin wavy strips of cherry red. "The taste of beef, such as a steak, produces a rich blue," says Day, a linguistics professor at National Central University in Taiwan. And for her, units of time each have their own shape: She sees the months of the year as the cars on a ferris wheel, with July at the top, December at the bottom. In addition to feeling the sounds of musical instruments on her body, Crane sees letters and numbers in brilliant hues. Trumpets make themselves known on the back of her neck. When she hears violins, she also feels them on her face. Guitar music doesn't just tickle Carol Crane's fancy-it also brushes softly against her ankles.
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