Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing Book

Synthaesia, meaning "union of sensations", is generally experienced as "coloured hearing", that is an intimate and automatic association of sight and sound. For most of us, hearing and sight are quite separate sensory processes but for one in every 2000 people, this separation has either broken down or was never established. John Harrison, a Cambridge and now Oxford research psychologist and author of Synthaesia is in no doubt that sounds have visual attributes for some people. Synthaesia describes an intriguing and complex condition and will be of interest to all those fascinated by the workings of the brain. For example, the name Daniel, when spoken to the painter and synaesthete Elizabeth Stewart-Jones, "...is deep purple, blue, and red, and is shiny" but the letter "H" is also purple, while "U" is yellow etc. Elizabeth is just one of many of those who have been assessed by John Harrison and colleagues and is a typical sufferer in that she is female, has had the condition as long as she can remember and her colour associations do not vary. As a condition, it does not really cause suffering and there are no other disturbing side effects. Although it is often embarrassing for synaesthetes when they first discover that the rest of the world does not share their experience and can even regard them with suspicion and disbelief. John Harrison can measure a synaesthete's ability to describe accurately their colour experience for specific sounds. Investigation clearly shows that the brain activity of a synaesthete during their synaesthetic experience is different to that of a non-synaesthete. The problem is understanding the cognition that links the brain to the behaviour. In order to explain the phenomenon Harrison takes us on a fascinating tour of the brain and of what we do and do not understand about its workings. Inevitably, in trying to explain such a complex subject there is a problem with the technical language but the glossary helps explain everything unfamiliar from AC-PC line to Wernicke's area and, there are references, further reading and an index. As John Harrison shows and indeed subtitles his book, synthaesia is the strangest thing. -- Douglas PalmerRead More