History of Synesthesia
History of Synethesia
July 11,2006 History of Synesthesia
Synesthesia has been known to medicine for almost three hundred years. After interest peaked between 1860 and 1930, it was forgotten, because psychology and neurology were premature sciences. Psychological theory was full with associations, and concepts of nervous tissue were insignificant. Subjective experience, such as synesthesia, was believed not a proper subject for scientific study.(pg3)
Synesthesia's history is interesting but also important if we are to understand its neurological basis, because the word was used to describe diverse phenomena in different eras. Central to the initial approach in 1980 was a sharp separation of synesthesia as a sensual perception as distinct from a mental object like cross-modal associations in non-synesthetes, metaphoric language, or even artistic aspirations to sensory fusion. By contrast, the perceptual phenomenon is unheard-of in literary and linguistic circles, where the term "synesthesia" is understood to mean rhetorical tropes (figures of speech) or sound symbolism. Whether such a division remains warranted is considered.(pg10)
Synesthesia attracted attention in art, music, literature, linguistics, natural philosophy, and theosophy. Most accounts emphasized colored hearing, the most common form of synesthesia.
This imbalance in the types of synesthesia is fascinating. The five senses can have ten possible synesthetic pairings. Synesthetic relationships are usually unidirectional, however, meaning that for a particular synesthete sight may induce touch, but touch does not induce
Visual perceptions. This one-way street, therefore, increases the permutations to twenty (or thirty if you include the perception of movement as a sixth element), yet some senses, like sight and sound, are involved much more often than others. To people with gifted colored hearing, for example, speech and music are not only heard but also a visual melange of colored
July 11,2006 History of Synesthesia
Synesthesia has been known to medicine for almost three hundred years. After interest peaked between 1860 and 1930, it was forgotten, because psychology and neurology were premature sciences. Psychological theory was full with associations, and concepts of nervous tissue were insignificant. Subjective experience, such as synesthesia, was believed not a proper subject for scientific study.(pg3)
Synesthesia's history is interesting but also important if we are to understand its neurological basis, because the word was used to describe diverse phenomena in different eras. Central to the initial approach in 1980 was a sharp separation of synesthesia as a sensual perception as distinct from a mental object like cross-modal associations in non-synesthetes, metaphoric language, or even artistic aspirations to sensory fusion. By contrast, the perceptual phenomenon is unheard-of in literary and linguistic circles, where the term "synesthesia" is understood to mean rhetorical tropes (figures of speech) or sound symbolism. Whether such a division remains warranted is considered.(pg10)
Synesthesia attracted attention in art, music, literature, linguistics, natural philosophy, and theosophy. Most accounts emphasized colored hearing, the most common form of synesthesia.
This imbalance in the types of synesthesia is fascinating. The five senses can have ten possible synesthetic pairings. Synesthetic relationships are usually unidirectional, however, meaning that for a particular synesthete sight may induce touch, but touch does not induce
Visual perceptions. This one-way street, therefore, increases the permutations to twenty (or thirty if you include the perception of movement as a sixth element), yet some senses, like sight and sound, are involved much more often than others. To people with gifted colored hearing, for example, speech and music are not only heard but also a visual melange of colored
References: Hearing colors, Tasting Shapes by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard http://www.sciam. com Scientific American What is The process of Perception http://www.argi.com.my/whatispage/perception.htm Journal of Counsciouness Studies, 8, No. 12, 2001 Synaesthesia A window into perception, thought and language pp. 3-34 V.S. Ramachandran and E.M. Hubbard Perception 1976, volume 5, pages 217-223 Implicit labeling and readiness for pronunciation during the perceptual process http://www.perceptionweb.co.uk/perabs.html