Week #6 Synesthetic Solutions
J Burns -
This week I’ve been studying the binding problem with synesthesia. As I’ve stated in previous blogs, any synesthete’s colors they see are idiosyncratic, meaning their colors are unique to them. There have been associations between some synesthetes and things that they “imprinted” on to have the colors they connect with those graphemes. There are equivalents for other kinds of synesthesia as well.
Complicating matters, there seems to be little overlap between smell and taste synesthesia, despite how closely they are linked. Additionally, most of our language to describe smell, and the language that synesthetes will use to describe synesthetic smells, is borrowed from taste and feeling words like sweet and sharp. How is it that one taste can bind when we can’t even accurately describe it without the other?
This isn’t always the case, but it is an interesting way to get insight into when synesthesia happens. As I’ve said before, really synesthesia is a spectrum ranging from metaphors to things that innately we understand to memory associations then actual synesthetic experiences. For example, as a species from a surprisingly young age, people generally “know” that as the pitch of a note goes up, it would be brighter. Technically, to see that brightness, one would have to be a synesthete, but this pattern that seemingly follows common sense also holds true for synesthetes, despite not knowing precisely when or how the senses “bind” in each window of time that is hypothesized for types.
This is similar, as the author of Wednesday is Indigo Blue put it, to how any person would understand that sounds may elicit colors or shapes, but they understand that a synesthete would not see a whole scene including sheep, or otherwise complex image.
This means that non-synesthetes have some intrinsic knowledge of how it must work, including knowing higher pitched notes are brighter and other socially taught senses or concepts being tied. As suspected, some of these inherent ideas must be taught or passed down perhaps through culture (and some of these do seem subject to change based on the culture of the interviewees). This binding problem becomes increasingly more complex when you consider other aspects, too.
Research with children on the pitch and brightness front indicates that children are capable of making these connections, which we already assumed because of the age at which many kinds of synesthesia become evident, but it also validates the theory that children all start as synesthetes before those connections are pruned, so to speak. Scientists aren’t certain that all children start out this way and connections are pruned or whether everyone starts with non synesthetic levels of connection. The second would require that non synesthetes remain unaware of cross over between senses (at a memory or metaphor level) and that synesthetes’ brains continue to synthesize connections that overlap at a high rate.
However, everyone continues to synthesize connections and synesthesia is even known to be caused by hallucinogenics, intense and new experiences. These mechanisms are thought to be different, but it’s true that meditation, hallucinogenics, and new experiences that release many hormones at a time can cause one time synesthesia.
Further research is necessary to understand why the senses that are bound bind in the first place, why some are connected to sights while other synesthetes have been blind their whole lives and couldn’t have imprinted at all, and how non-visual senses even could’ve been bound together.
Although this isn’t directly hit on in other books, I wondered why, when the senses involved in a type of synesthesia do bind, is it not one concrete image, the way our brain would connect that a red round shape being thrown at us is an apple within an instant. Instead, the concepts, colors, and sensations are more basic.
However, synesthesia has been used as a solution, despite flaws in our understanding of it, in many areas of life. For example, it has enlightened scientists on certain aspects of being socialized, involving how society influences these innate synesthetic seeming things we understand such as “seeing” what someone means or how ideas that are presented in a way that makes sense are “clear”.
Other studies show that synesthetes are more likely to be open to new experiences and more creative as well as have better memories within specific categories. This coupled with the fact that synesthetes make up a higher percentage of those who have artistic occupations indicates that they contribute greatly to society in artistic ways.
As I was expecting to find, multiple synesthetes have already alluded in my studies to considering themselves artists at least in part as a direct result of their synesthesia.
Another interesting use of this synesthetic sensation that I found was a doctor with mirror touch synesthesia (experiencing the same feeling as those they are looking at) using his mirrored sensations as a means to help his patients. This is something I hadn’t anticipated seeing because firstly, it’s rare as a form of synesthesia. The second reason why I wouldn’t expect this to happen is because mirror touch in a hospital setting would be intense and likely painful. Prior to reading this book, I truly didn’t think that any mirror touch synesthetes would take this up as a job, but throughout the book, I see how he uses his senses to help those around him. I’m very glad that he decided to take that chance.
I have linked the article that colorized then ordered by notes to the periodic table as well as my readings.
Next week, I’m going to cover more about my interviews so far.
Periodic Table Article: Musical periodic table being built by turning chemical elements’ spectra into notes | News | Chemistry World
Cytowic, R. E. & Eagleman D. M. (2009) Wednesday is Indigo Blue. MIT Press
Nerenberg, Jenara . Divergent Mind. HarperCollin, 2020.
Robertson, L. C., & Sagiv, N. (Eds.). (2004). Synesthesia : Perspectives from cognitive neuroscience. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.
Salinas, Joel. Mirror Touch. HarperCollins, 18 Apr. 2017.
Wheeler, K. (2013). Understanding Synesthesia and Impact for Learning (Vol. 1). School of Education and Counseling Psychology Dominican University of California .
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