Synesthetes can do things like "hear" colors and "taste" words. Scientists call this visual and emotional experience of numbers or words "synesthesia," a rare neurological condition that results in an intermingling of the senses. The 27-year-old Englishman perceives numbers as having shapes, colors, textures, even personalities: "The number 11 is friendly and 5 is loud," he says, "whereas 4 is shy and quiet-it's my favorite number, perhaps because it reminds me of myself." Tammet knows this because in his mind, Wednesdays are always blue. Cytowic reminds us that each individual's perspective on the world is thoroughly subjective.Coming-of-Age Tale Describes Living with Synesthesia and Asperger's Syndromeĭaniel Tammet was born on a blue day-a Wednesday, to be exact. Yet synesthetic or not, each brain uniquely filters what it perceives. Cytowic, who in the 1980s revived scientific interest in synesthesia, sees it now understood as a spectrum, an umbrella term that covers five clusters of outwardly felt couplings that can occur via several pathways. One synesthete declares, “Chocolate smells pink and sparkly” another invents a dish (chicken, vanilla ice cream, and orange juice concentrate) that tastes intensely blue. Other manifestations include tasting food in shapes, seeing music in moving colors, and mapping numbers and other sequences spatially. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Richard Cytowic, the expert who returned synesthesia to mainstream science after decades of oblivion, offers a concise, accessible primer on this fascinating human experience.Ĭytowic explains that synesthesia's most frequent manifestation is seeing days of the week as colored, followed by sensing letters, numerals, and punctuation marks in different hues even when printed in black. A synesthete might hear a voice and at the same time see it as a color or shape, taste its distinctive flavor, or feel it as a physical touch. Not a disorder but a neurological trait-like perfect pitch-synesthesia creates vividly felt cross-sensory couplings. One in twenty-three people carry the genes for the synesthesia. If you can’t find the resource you need here, visit our contact page to get in touch.Įstablished in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design.Īn accessible, concise primer on the neurological trait of synesthesia-vividly felt sensory couplings-by a founder of the field. The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for over two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell’s City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition.Ĭollaborating with authors, instructors, booksellers, librarians, and the media is at the heart of what we do as a scholarly publisher. Today we publish over 30 titles in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and technology. MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. International Affairs, History, & Political Science.MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide.
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