Intermingling of different modalities simultaneously making the person feel different senses at a time is what synesthesia is. In the late 19th and 20th century, synesthesia has become a hot topic for research in psychological field. The research process is undergoing renaissance. About 100 years ago, people were unable to understand the cause behind these synesthetic conditions. With the advancement in science and neural technology, the interest in the research of this area has gain momentum.
The major problem in synesthetes is that they generally do not expose their feelings in front of everyone due to some kind of inferiority complex. While some person feel this as a gift. Some major hypothesis has been found out which aims to explain the whole fundamentals of synesthesia. Some of them are NS Hypothesis and CMT Hypothesis.
However, synesthesia is just a condition and it should not be confused as a disease, disorder or a syndrome. A synesthete can easily sustain his life like a normal people do.
Contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………03 2. Experiences………………………………………………………………………………04 3. Primary Researches………………………………………………………………………04 4. Nature of Synesthesia……………………………………………………………………05 5. Modern Research and Findings………………………………………………………….05 6. Synesthesia and the Art of Comparison…………………………………………………06 7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….07 8. References………………………………………………………………………………..08
‘Until very recent years, it was supposed by philosophers that there was a typical human mind which all individual minds were like…Lately however, a mass of revelations have poured in which make us see how false a view this is.’
-William James, 1890
Every human brain has certain key functions to do. These functions regulate the functioning of the entire body. The here key functions of the brain are To create sensory stimulation, to assimilate the information with the help of the senses and data available and to react or respond to the gathered information. When we see people around us in a concert, our mind assumes that everyone is hearing the same tune and are reacting but it would never have assumed that there are some persons whose senses are somewhat intermingled with each other for which they are experiencing the same that we are experiencing. When they hear the drums, they perceive an entirely different shape with some different color. This is what Synesthesia is.
Synesthesia is not a disorder but it may be referred as a condition in which multiple sensations of a person get stimulated simultaneously. It does not interfere at all with the normal sustainability of the human beings. Even according to some synesthetic, it is an extra sense that they are gifted with and they are happy for having it. Synesthesia is not voluntary, it is automatic. It remains in the memory for a long time. The images that they saw often have a definite location. (Mass, 2003)
There are many types of synesthesia present in this world. They may be the combination of sound – color or may be the combination of color – taste etc. There is no boundary or limits for the amalgamation of senses to occur in the affected people. Synesthesia has always been thought of as idiopathic but there are certain things which have pointed as being the cause of it. It can happen with the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs. Also the people suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy are found to have this condition. It has been found that probability of having this condition is more in women than in men.
Experiences
When asked about their unusual experiences, a lot of synesthetes have answered that they were unknown about the fact that they perceived something unusual. They only came to know when other peoples surrounding them said that they were not feeling anything extra rather than just the normal music or temperature etc. A lot of synesthetes are happy with this extra type of sense which is nothing but the combination of a few senses at a particular time period. They do not want to change their life by doing any kind of treatment. (Dixon, 2004, pp.4) They do not want their gift to be taken away from them. According to some, the English vowels are more firmly colored than the consonants. Some people have even felt the brushing of their ankles as the beating of the drums. The Primary Researches
Synesthesia is not present in large group of population. It is confined to a very small percentage of persons. Due to this, this study has not seen many researchers along. Very few researchers have shown interest for doing some kind of research activities in this condition. S. Ramachandran, the Director of the Center of Brain and Cognition at the University of California has published many journals and articles describing the sensory combinations occurring in the people. He has also developed a few books explaining the concepts of synesthesia. Now, the scientists are gaining the interest in this field. They are trying to understand what causes this type of condition. They are trying to decode the mystery involved within the neural system of the body. They want to understand the root cause of synesthesia and how they can affect the functioning of the body as a whole. Now, the scientists are convinced about the existence of the Synesthesia and a lot of remarkable theories have been proposed recently.
Nature of Synesthesia
Scientists have done various researches to find out whether the synesthesia is cognitive or it is perceptual in nature. In one experiment what they did, they arranged a display containing 2’s and 5’s showing a grapheme to test whether the numbers or other symbols generate the exact response as the original grapheme. (Heer, 2006, 240) The experiment showed that the synesthesia is generally perceptual in nature.
Modern Research and Findings
After a lot of research activities it has been found out that the whole action takes place in the left side of the brain in the visual cortex region of the brain. This area contain various parts which are each responsible for a specific part of visual functioning which may include motion, color, perception etc. Here only the cross combination takes place. The senses get inter mingled with each other giving two or more simultaneous senses to the people.
Somewhat controversial, the neonatal hypothesis is generally accepted as one of the explanations of the causing of synesthesia. According to this hypothesis, every human being is born synesthetes but during the infanthood, this condition fades away in 90% cases. (Hubbard, 2005, 48) However, some people are left with this condition during the childhood which then remains for the entire life until some major treatment is done. The above theory is one of the most notable theories. Adults are very less prone to synesthesia in comparison to the infants. The babies experience the sensory signal inputs in a much undifferentiated way. They sense both the audio and the visual part just by the sound of something. Another theory which is also slightly controversial is the Cross – Modal Transfer Theory (CMT). According to this theory, objects can be perceived through one or two modalities simultaneously. For example, babies can differentiate one object from the other in the basis of their shapes.
Research in CMT hypothesis is going on and is expected to give better results. It has been found now that along with the infants, one month year old babies also show symptoms of synesthesia. Researchers have found that very les heart beat change occurs when white light is followed by noise. (Duffy, 2001) Although the CMS is widely accepted but the NS hypothesis is a new hypothesis but is slightly controversial.
Many synesthetes not only see colors when they hear music but also the vice - versa happens. They also hear the sound in their mind when they see certain images.
The above hypothesis just shows one of the ways how synesthesia must have been caused. One may be born with of these traits, i.e., they can imagine shapes or colors while talking about letters. Also, it has been found out that person starts feeling inferiority complex talking about it. They said that they have tried earlier in the childhood to explain about this to their parents and all but they ignored it by saying that this would be nothing more than just an imagination. (Whishaw, 2005)
One of the most interesting finding came out recently. This finding says that the synesthesia is genetic in nature which means that it passes from the mother to its child. This is some kind of redundant gene which has not died out as the redundant gene eventually phases out itself. Tis gene has remained in the off springs too rather them dying just like the sickle cell anemia situation.
Synesthesia and the Art of Comparison
The common combinations what synesthetes usually do perceive are ‘O’ as white, ‘me’ as blue. They tend to see and understand that these combinations are actually valid. They tend to notice that that only they are able to think like that and other peoples are deprived of the ability. But that truth is that very little but a bit of synesthesia is present in everyone. It is just a part which helps in imagination of anything that one wishes.
The part of our brain which is associated with the metaphor recognition and its comprehending is Angular Gyrus. This is a region where all sensory info converges. (Robertson, 2005) The person whose angular gyrus gets damaged loses the ability to recognize names, recognize objects etc. They also lose the ability to interpret metaphors.
In the field of philosophy, a long debate is going on to answer and explain about the human consciousness and its subjectivity. There are two types of problems here – the easy problems and the hard problems. |The easy problems are the ones that are directly susceptible to the basics of cognitive science whereas a phenomenon is described on the basis of neural mechanisms. Hard problems are the problems which cannot be expressed easily. It deals with the subjectivity of the personal experiences. It is now thought that the synesthesia may shed some light on the understandings of the hard problems.by kicking out the functionalism part and then re – verifying what exactly hard problems mean and how the persons can sense a combination of senses.
Conclusion
The amount of research which is being done in the area of synesthesia is overwhelming. We can expect a lot of more research and discoveries. But what the scientists are telling that they have lack of large subject base. With the advancement of this type of activities, it is expected to gain large information and to expect for many new discoveries is possible. We can also expect that more synesthetes will come forward with their conditions and everyone would be taken care of. The persons who want to get rid of these can undergo treatment and the others can get extra facilities. So, to some extent we can say synesthesia is good for some and for some it is equally horrible.
References
Dixon, M.J. et. al. (2004). Not all synaesthetes are created equal: projector versus associator synaesthete. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4 (3).
Duffy, P. L. (2001). Blue cats and chartreuse kittens: how synesthetes color their world. New York: Henry Holt.
Kolb, B. & Whishaw, I. (2005). An introduction to brain and behavior. New York: Worth Publishers
Mass, W. (2003). A mango-shaped space. New York: Little, Brown and Co.
Ramachandran , V.S. & Hubbard, E.M (2005, November 3) Neurocognitive mechanisms in synesthesia. Neuron, (48).
Robertson, L. C. and Sagiv, N. (Eds., 2005) Synesthesia- Perspectives from cognitive neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sagiv, N., Heer, J. & Robertson, L.C. (2006), Does binding of synesthetic color to the evoking grapheme require attention?, Cortex, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 232-242.
