The perception of the world of someone with synesthesia is a world unlike any other. There’s many different variations of synesthesia, causing each synesthete to experience their everyday lives differently. How does this phenomenon work? Does this interesting way of seeing the world lead to a more artistic lifestyle? Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which a person experiences “crossed” response to stimuli. It occurs when stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (such as hearing) leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (such as vision) (Ward, 2015). The most usual form of synesthesia is grapheme-color synesthesia, in which seeing particular letters or numbers evokes the experience …show more content…
Bargary and Mitchell (2008) presented a review of the anatomical origins of synesthesia that considered possible molecular mechanisms for structural differences between synesthetic and non-synesthetic brains. They concluded that these structural differences are the primary cause of developmental synesthesia. But researchers by the name of Kadosh and Walsh (2008) challenge that conclusion by stating the study done by Bargary and Mitchell only shows the correlation between anatomy and synesthesia, but does not establish a casual relationship. They hypothesis that cortical disinhibition could be the primary cause of synesthesia. They stated that molecular mechanisms might affect the level of inhibition in synesthesia during early development stages. Developmentally speaking, these molecular differences can also lead to a lack of relative neuronal specialization during sensitive periods. Electroencephalography studies found that compared to non-synesthetes, synesthetes who see color when hearing tones or spoken utterences (hearing-color synesthesia) showed differences in auditory-event related potentials in response to letters, words, pseudo-words or tones (Bargary & Mitchell, 2008). The differences evoked potentials as early as 100 ms after stimulation …show more content…
However, because this claim is based on subjective reports and has never been verified with objective measures, it was Rothen and Meier’s (2010) aim to test whether there really is a higher prevalence of grapheme-color synesthesia in artists. Their sample was a group of fine-art students. Participants were individually presented with 36 graphemes (A^Z; 0^9), one at a time, in random order. Each grapheme was accompanied, on the same screen, by a palette of 13 basic colors, the same each time but randomly arranged on each trial. Participants were required to select the ‘best’ color for each grapheme. After an initial presentation, an immediate surprise retest followed, in which the graphemes were presented again in a re-randomized order. The consistency score was calculated as the number of identical grapheme-color associations. In simpler terms, they showed a number on the screen then the participants picked which color suited the number best from a palette. They were then tested again in a different order and a consistency score was calculated to verify the participant had synesthesia. They found the proportion of synesthetes was significantly higher for the art students (seven synesthetes in the art students group, two in the control) (Rothen & Meier, 2010). Ward, Thompson-Lake, Ely and Kaminski (2008) also did a study to see what the link was between art,
...ut a 7 years old girl which loss her ability to understand speech. She had a normal hearing and understood various environmental sounds. Her brain was computerized using axial tomography but the result was normal. But electroencephalogram showed wave activity from her left side of the temporal leads. She was diagnose as having verbal auditory agnosia. The treatment consisted of diazepam therapy. Diazepam therapy orally began with taking 2 mg diazepam every day. Diazepam is commonly used to treat anxiety,panic attacks,insomnia and some other medical issues. One year later, her impaired auditory was dramatically improved. The dichotic listening test revealed a left ear advantage for both environmental sounds and spoken words. The results seemed to suggest that in this patient the right hemisphere might be functioning as a speech center instead of the left one.
In this paper, I will argue that it is more likely that the qualia of colour could be explained by physicalism rather than by property dualism. Qualia are subjective experiences, such as our senses (pg. 3). Physicalism views every property as physical, and can be explained by science (pg. 29). Property dualism refers to the philosophical view that minds are made out of one substance, but contain physical properties, and a non-physical mind (qualia) that are not related to each other (pg. 29).
In this essay I outline Casey O’Callaghan’s liberal view of multimodality. I suggest that our current understanding does not justify such an extensive view on the multimodality of the senses, and I critique his stance on the prevalence of crossmodal interactions between the senses as an over interpretation of the current experimental data. I argue for a more conservative account of crossmodal interactions between the senses, and hypothesize that perception is best described in terms of distributions. To support this hypothesis, I provide evidence in the form of Jonathan Cohen’s account of synesthesia.
The 2's and 5's were arranged in such a way that one number formed a distinct shape in the midst of the jumble of the other number. A non-synesthetic would be incapable of distinguishing any pattern due to the close resemblance of the numbers. But, in 90% of the cases where people claimed to see colors they were easily able to discern the shape because it registered stood out for them as a completely different color.
The philosophical theory of dualism holds that mind and body are two separate entities. While dualism presupposes that the two ‘substances’ may interact, it contrasts physicalism by refusing to denote correlation between body and mind as proof of identity. Comparing the two theories, dualism’s invulnerable proof of the existence of qualia manages to evade arguments from physicalism. While a common argument against qualia—non-physical properties defined in Jackson’s Knowledge Argument—targets the unsound nature of epiphenomenalism, this claim is not fatal to the theory of dualism as it contains claims of causation and fails to stand resolute to the conceivability of philosophical zombies. This essay argues that epiphenomenalism, while often designated as a weakness when present in an argument, can remain in valid arguments from qualia.
“…as I lay in a dazed condition with eyes closed there surged up from me a succession of fantastic, rapidly changing imagery of a sticking reality and depth, alternating with a vivid, kaleidoscope play of colors. This condition gradually passed off after about three hours.” (Acid Dreams, Prologue)
In a study done by V. S. Ramachandran and Zeve Marcus, seven synaesthetes and thirteen non-synaesthetes were tested on their personal effects of the McCollough effect (2017). Collectively, this study showed that the observations made could prove the possibility that the McCollough effect can take advantage of the color connections that synesthetes already possess to strengthen the effects.
Further research of the Paulesu study reveals activity observed in the synaesthetes resembles what was found in studies of color imagery of that in non-synaesthetes. They asked their synaesthetes, but not the controls, to let the color perception occur automatically. This would let them observe the neural correlates of color imagery instead of the synaesthesia. On the other hand, they might suggest that synaesthesia itself is similar to color imagery.
Humans have five senses. Sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing are what paint reality, but the lack of one these senses, particularly sight, can enrich the remaining four. The remaining senses become a crutch, or prosthetic leg that constitute the gateway to one’s environment. Yet for these senses to construct one’s environment non visually, the four senses left must work
Being a psychology student, one learns many amazing things that can happen to people. One of them includes synesthesia. Synesthesia is a natural occurrence where a person experiences multiple senses at one time. For example, somebody with synesthesia may see a color when somebody is talking to them. Another example is when they touch something, they also experience smell. This happens without the person trying at all. One of the most popular types of synesthesia is Grapheme. This means that people see letters and numbers in colors automatically without any effort. Most people with synesthesia experience it their whole life, so what implications does it have on synesthetes childhood, especially when being and school with other children who are considered typical students? We will look at several studies that have observed children with synesthesia and their experiences in the education system.
Lynch, Grace Hwang. "The Importance of Art in Child Development." pbs.org. PBS, 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
It is an incredibly common phenomenon, something so common that it is rarely ever defined. Michael Tye, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, states that when an individual experiences something with the senses, he is “the subject of a mental state with a very distinctive subjective character” (“Qualia”). Color, taste, mood, and sound are all considered to be qualia, according to Tye. He also elucidates the standard definition of qualia, stating that it is “the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives.” Qualia is experienced only subjectively, and it is essentially impossible to say what it is. Tye references a thought experiment about the exact nature of qualia that makes this clear; one can know all objective knowledge about a color, but until one actually sees a color, one knows nothing of it. The essence of the thought experiment can be expressed in this rhetorical question: is it possible to explain what a color is without using examples? This seems like a simple question, but it boggles the mind. We must conclude that qualia is a strange
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Imagine yourself in an art museum. You wander slowly from cold room to cold room, analyzing colored canvases on stark white walls. When you reach a particular work, do you prefer to stand back and take everything in at once? Or do you move so close to the painting that the individual brushstrokes become apparent? Several different sensory processes occur in your brain during this trip to the art museum; the majority of them involve visual inputs. How does your brain put together all the information that your eyes receive? This raises questions ranging from depth of field to color. The ideas of color perception and color theory are interesting ones. How do humans account for color and does it truly exist? I think that by examining not only the neurological on-goings in the brain, but by learning about color through philosophy, and even art, a greater understanding of it can be reached.
Aziz-Zadeh, L., Liew, S.-L., & Dandekar, F. (2013). Exploring the neural correlates of visual creativity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(4), 475–480. doi:10.1093/scan/nss021