How someone with synesthesia might perceive certain letters and numbers.

Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiæ or synæsthesiæ), from the ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation," is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.^[1][2][3][4] People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes. Recently, difficulties have been recognized in finding an adequate definition of synesthesia^[5][6], as many different phenomena have been covered by this term and in many cases the term synesthesia ("union of senses") seems to be a misnomer. A more accurate term for the phenomenon may be ideasthesia.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored,^[7][8] while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities.^[9][10] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise).^[11][12][13] Yet another recently identified type, visual motion → sound synesthesia, involves hearing sounds in response to visual motion and flicker.^[14] Over 60 types of synesthesia have been reported,^[15] but only a fraction have been evaluated by scientific research.^[16] Even within one type, synesthetic perceptions vary in intensity^[17] and people vary in awareness of their synesthetic perceptions.^[18]

While cross-sensory metaphors (e.g., "loud shirt," "bitter wind" or "prickly laugh") are sometimes described as "synesthetic", true neurological synesthesia is involuntary. It is estimated that synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants.^[19] Synesthesia runs strongly in families, but the precise mode of inheritance has yet to be ascertained. Synesthesia is also sometimes reported by individuals under the influence of psychedelic drugs, after a stroke, during a temporal lobe epilepsy seizure, or as a result of blindness or deafness. Synesthesia that arises from such non-genetic events is referred to as "adventitious synesthesia" to distinguish it from the more common congenital forms of synesthesia. Adventitious synesthesia involving drugs or stroke (but not blindness or deafness) apparently only involves sensory linkings such as sound → vision or touch → hearing; there are few, if any, reported cases involving culture-based, learned sets such as graphemes, lexemes, days of the week, or months of the year.

Although synesthesia was the topic of intensive scientific investigation in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it was largely abandoned by scientific research in the mid-20th century, and has only recently been rediscovered by modern researchers.^[20] Psychological research has demonstrated that synesthetic experiences can have measurable behavioral consequences, while functional neuroimaging studies have identified differences in patterns of brain activation.^[8] Many people with synesthesia use their experiences to aid in their creative process, and many non-synesthetes have attempted to create works of art that may capture what it is like to experience synesthesia. Psychologists and neuroscientists study synesthesia not only for its inherent interest, but also for the insights it may give into cognitive and perceptual processes that occur in synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike.

Definitional criteria[link]

Although sometimes spoken of as a "neurological condition," synesthesia is not listed in either the DSM-IV or the ICD classifications, since it most often does not interfere with normal daily functioning. Indeed, most synesthetes report that their experiences are neutral, or even pleasant.^[21] Rather, like color blindness or perfect pitch, synesthesia is a difference in perceptual experience and the term "neurological" simply reflects the brain basis of this perceptual difference (see below for associated cognitive traits).

It was once assumed that synesthetic experiences were entirely different from synesthete to synesthete, but recent research has shown that there are underlying similarities that can be observed when large numbers of synesthetes are examined together. For example, sound-color synesthetes, as a group, tend to see lighter colors for higher sounds^[22] and grapheme-color synesthetes, as a group, share significant preferences for the color of each letter (e.g., A tends to be red; O tends to be white or black; S tends to be yellow etc.,^[21][23][24]). Nonetheless, there are a great number of types of synesthesia, and within each type, individuals can report differing triggers for their sensations, and differing intensities of experiences. This variety means that defining synesthesia in an individual is difficult, and the majority of synesthetes are completely unaware that their experiences have a name.^[21] However, despite the differences between individuals, there are a few common elements that define a true synesthetic experience.

Neurologist Richard Cytowic identifies the following diagnostic criteria of synesthesia:^[1][2][3]

1. Synesthesia is involuntary and automatic.
2. Synesthetic perceptions are spatially extended, meaning they often have a sense of "location." For example, synesthetes speak of "looking at" or "going to" a particular place to attend to the experience.
3. Synesthetic percepts are consistent and generic (i.e., simple rather than pictorial).
4. Synesthesia is highly memorable.
5. Synesthesia is laden with affect.

Cytowic's early cases included individuals whose synesthesia was frankly projected outside the body (e.g., on a "screen" in front of one's face). Later research showed that such stark externalization occurs in a minority of synesthetes. Refining this concept, Cytowic and Eagleman^[3] differentiate between "localizers" and "non-localizers" to distinguish those synesthetes whose perceptions have a definite sense of spatial quality.

Experiences[link]

Synesthetes often report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them, while others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives, as has been documented in interviews with synesthetes on how they discovered synesthesia in their childhood.^[16] The automatic and ineffable nature of a synesthetic experience means that the pairing may not seem out of the ordinary. This involuntary and consistent nature helps define synesthesia as a real experience. Most synesthetes report that their experiences are pleasant or neutral, although, in rare cases, synesthetes report that their experiences can lead to a degree of sensory overload.^[21]

Though often stereotyped in the popular media as a medical condition or neurological aberration, many synesthetes themselves do not perceive their synesthetic experiences as a handicap. To the contrary, most report it as a gift—an additional "hidden" sense—something they would not want to miss. Most synesthetes become aware of their "hidden" and different way of perceiving in their childhood. Some have learned how to apply this gift in daily life and work. Synesthetes have used their gift in memorizing names and telephone numbers, mental arithmetic, but also in more complex creative activities like producing visual art, music, and theater.^[16]

Despite the commonalities which permit definition of the broad phenomenon of synesthesia, individual experiences vary in numerous ways. This variability was first noticed early on in synesthesia research^[25] but has only recently come to be re-appreciated by modern researchers. Some grapheme → color synesthetes report that the colors seem to be "projected" out into the world (called "projectors"), while most report that the colors are experienced in their "mind's eye" (called "associators").^[26] It is estimated that approximately one or two per hundred grapheme-color synesthetes are projectors; the rest are associators.^[26]

Additionally, some grapheme → color synesthetes report that they experience their colors strongly, and show perceptual enhancement on the perceptual tasks described below, while others (perhaps the majority) do not,^[17] perhaps due to differences in the stage at which colors are evoked. Some synesthetes report that vowels are more strongly colored, while for others consonants are more strongly colored.^[21] In summary, self reports, autobiographical notes by synesthetes and interviews show a large variety in types of synesthesia, intensity of the synesthetic perceptions, awareness of the difference in perceiving the physical world from other people, the way they creatively use their synesthesia in work and daily life.^[16][27] The descriptions below give some examples of synesthetes' experiences, which have been experimentally tested, but do not exhaust their rich variety.

Various forms[link]

Synesthesia can occur between nearly any two senses or perceptual modes, and at least one synesthete, Solomon Shereshevsky, experienced synesthesia that linked all five senses. Given the large number of forms of synesthesia, researchers have adopted a convention of indicating the type of synesthesia by using the following notation x → y, where x is the "inducer" or trigger experience, and y is the "concurrent" or additional experience. For example, perceiving letters and numbers (collectively called graphemes) as colored would be indicated as grapheme → color synesthesia. Similarly, when synesthetes see colors and movement as a result of hearing musical tones, it would be indicated as tone → (color, movement) synesthesia.

While nearly every logically possible combination of experiences can occur, several types are more common than others.

Grapheme → color synesthesia[link]

In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color. While different individuals usually do not report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies with large numbers of synesthetes find some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red).^[21][23]

As a child, Pat Duffy told her father, "I realized that to make an R all I had to do was first write a P and draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line." Another grapheme synesthete says, "When I read, about five words around the exact one I'm reading are in color. It's also the only way I can spell. In elementary school I remember knowing how to spell the word 'priority' [with an "i" rather than an "e"] because ... an 'e' was out of place in that word because 'e's were yellow and didn't fit."^[28]

Spatial Sequence Synesthesia[link]

A special form of the condition, in which people tend to see all numerical sequences they come across as points in space. For instance, the number 1 might be farther away and the number 2 might be closer. A new study shows that those with SSS have superior memories. They were able to recall past events and memories far better, and in far greater detail than those without the condition.

Sound → color synesthesia[link]

According to Richard Cytowic, sound → color synesthesia, or chromesthesia is "something like fireworks": voice, music, and assorted environmental sounds such as clattering dishes or dog barks trigger color and firework shapes that arise, move around, and then fade when the sound ends.^[3] For some, the stimulus type is limited (e.g., music only, or even just a specific musical key); for others, a wide variety of sounds triggers synesthesia.

Sound often changes the perceived hue, brightness, scintillation, and directional movement. Some individuals see music on a "screen" in front of their faces. Deni Simon, for whom music produces waving lines "like oscilloscope configurations – lines moving in color, often metallic with height, width and, most importantly, depth. My favorite music has lines that extend horizontally beyond the 'screen' area."^[3]

Individuals rarely agree on what color a given sound is (composers Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov famously disagreed on the colors of music keys); however, synesthetes show the same trends as non-synesthetes do. For example, both groups say that loud tones are brighter than soft tones, and that lower tones are darker than higher tones. Synaesthetes nevertheless choose more precise colours than non-synesthetes and are more consistent in their choice of colours given a set of sounds of varying pitch, timbre and composition.^[29]

Number form synesthesia[link]

A number form from one of Francis Galton's subjects.^[11] Note how the first 12 digits correspond to a clock face.

A number form is a mental map of numbers, which automatically and involuntarily appears whenever someone who experiences number-forms thinks of numbers. Number forms were first documented and named by Francis Galton in "The Visions of Sane Persons".^[30] Later research has identified them as a type of synesthesia.^[12][13] In particular, it has been suggested that number-forms are a result of "cross-activation" between regions of the parietal lobe that are involved in numerical cognition and spatial cognition.^[31][32] In addition to its interest as a form of synesthesia, researchers in numerical cognition have begun to explore this form of synesthesia for the insights that it may provide into the neural mechanisms of numerical-spatial associations present unconsciously in everyone.

Personification[link]

Ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP, or personification for short) is a form of synesthesia in which ordered sequences, such as ordinal numbers, days, months and letters are associated with personalities.^[9][33] Although this form of synesthesia was documented as early as the 1890s^[25][34] modern research has, until recently,^[1] paid little attention to this form.

For example, one synesthete says, "T’s are generally crabbed, ungenerous creatures. U is a soulless sort of thing. 4 is honest, but… 3 I cannot trust… 9 is dark, a gentleman, tall and graceful, but politic under his suavity."^[34] Likewise, Cytowic's subject MT says, "I [is] a bit of a worrier at times, although easy-going; J [is] male; appearing jocular, but with strength of character; K [is] female; quiet, responsible...."^[1]

For some people in addition to numbers and other ordinal sequences, objects are sometimes imbued with a sense of personality. Recent research has begun to show that alphanumeric personification co-varies with other forms of synesthesia, and is consistent and automatic, as required to be considered a form of synesthesia.^[9]

Lexical → gustatory synesthesia[link]

In the rare lexical → gustatory synesthesia, individual words and the phonemes of spoken language evoke taste sensations in the mouth. According to James Wannerton, "Whenever I hear, read, or articulate (inner speech) words or word sounds, I experience an immediate and involuntary taste sensation on my tongue. These very specific taste associations never change and have remained the same for as long as I can remember."

Jamie Ward and Julia Simner have extensively studied this form of synesthesia, and have found that the synesthetic associations are constrained by early food experiences.^[35][36] For example, James Wannerton has no synesthetic experiences of coffee or curry, even though he consumes them regularly as an adult. Conversely, he tastes certain breakfast cereals and candies that are no longer sold.

Additionally, these early food experiences are often paired with tastes based on the phonemes in the name of the word (e.g., /I/, /n/ and /s/ trigger James Wannerton’s taste of mince) although others have less obvious roots (e.g., /f/ triggers sherbet). To show that phonemes, rather than graphemes are the critical triggers of tastes, Ward and Simner showed that, for James Wannerton, the taste of egg is associated to the phoneme /k/, whether spelled with a "c" (e.g., accept), "k" (e.g., York), "ck" (e.g., chuck) or "x" (e.g., fax). Another source of tastes comes from semantic influences, so that food names tend to taste of the food they match, and the word "blue" tastes "inky."

Research history[link]

The interest in colored hearing dates back to Greek antiquity, when philosophers asked if the color (chroia, what we now call timbre) of music was a quantifiable quality.^[37] Isaac Newton proposed that musical tones and color tones shared common frequencies, as did Goethe in his book, "Theory of Color." Despite this idea being false, there is a long history of building color organs such as the clavier à lumières on which to perform colored music in concert halls.^[38][38][39]

The first medical description of colored hearing is in a German 1812 thesis.^[40] The father of psychophysics, Gustav Fechner reported the first empirical survey of colored letter photisms among 73 synesthetes in 1871,^[41][42] followed in the 1880s by Francis Galton.^[11][43][44] Research into synesthesia proceeded briskly in several countries, but due to the difficulties in measuring subjective experiences and the rise of behaviorism, which made the study of any subjective experience taboo, synesthesia faded into scientific oblivion between 1930 and 1980.

As the 1980s cognitive revolution began to make inquiry into internal subjective states respectable again, scientists once again looked to synesthesia. Led in the United States by Larry Marks and Richard Cytowic, and later in England by Simon Baron-Cohen and Jeffrey Gray, research explored the reality, consistency, and frequency of synesthetic experiences. In the late 1990s, the focus settled on grapheme → color synesthesia, one of the most common^[21][24] and easily studied types. Synesthesia is now the topic of scientific books and papers, Ph.D. theses, documentary films, and even novels.

Since the rise of the Internet in the 1990, synesthetes began contacting one another and creating Web sites devoted to the condition. These early grew into international organizations such as the American Synesthesia Association, the UK Synaesthesia Association, the Belgian Synaesthesia Association, the German Synesthesia Association and the Netherlands Synesthesia Web Community.

Prevalence and genetic basis[link]

Early estimates of prevalence varied widely (from 1 in 20 to 1 in 20,000). These studies all had the methodological shortcoming of relying on self-selection, meaning individuals reporting their experience to investigators. Random population studies later determined that 1 in 23 individuals have some kind of synesthesia, while 1 in 90 have colored graphemes.^[19] Colored days of the week and colored graphemes are the most common types.^[19][21]

Many studies noted that synesthesia runs in families, consistent with a genetic origin for the condition. Francis Galton's 1880 report noted a familial component. Studies from the 1990s^[45][46] that noted a much higher prevalence in women than men (up to 6:1) most likely suffered from a sampling bias due to the fact that women are more likely to self-disclose than men. More recent random samples find an equal sex ratio of 1.1:1.^[19]

At first, the observed patterns of inheritance were consistent with an X-linked mode of inheritance because there had been no verified reports of father-to-son transmission, whereas father-to-daughter, mother-to-son and mother-to-daughter transmission were readily observed^[1][46][47] However, the first genome-wide association study failed to find X-linkage,^[48] and furthermore verified two cases of father-to-son transmission.

Suggestive of incomplete gene penetrance is the situation of identical twins in which only one member of the pair is synesthetic,^[49][50] and the observation that synesthesia can skip generations within a family.^[51] It is furthermore common for family members to experience different types of synesthesia, suggesting that the gene(s) involved do not lead to invariably specific types of synesthesia.^[47] Developmental factors such as gene expression and environment must also play a role in determining which types of synesthesia an individual has (for example, children must interact with culturally learned artifacts such as alphabets and food names).

Objective verification[link]

The simplest approach is test-retest reliability over long periods of time, where synesthetes consistently score much higher—around 90% after years, compared to 30–40% after just a month in non-synesthetes even when they are warned they will be retested—using stimuli of color names, color chips, or a computer-screen color picker providing 16.7 million choices.^[1][46]

The automaticity of synesthetic experience. The panel on the left is how a non-synesthete perceives the matrix, while a given synesthete might perceive it like the panel on the right.^[31]

Modified versions of the Stroop effect are popular. In the standard paradigm, it is harder to name the ink color of the word "red," for example, when it is printed in blue ink than when the ink is red. Similarly, if a grapheme → color synesthete is shown the digit 4 (which he sees as red, say) in blue ink, he is slower to name the ink color than when it is printed in red. He sees the blue ink, but the same sort of conflict responsible for the standard Stroop effect occurs between the ink color and the automatic synesthetic color of the grapheme. The conflict is strongest when the ink color is the opponent color to the synesthetic one (e.g., red vs. green), indicating that synesthetic color perception uses the same mechanism as the perception of real colors.^[52]

Cross-sensory Stroop tests are possible: for example, a music → color synesthete must name a red swatch while listening to a sound that produces a blue sensation,^[53] or a musical key → taste synesthete must identify a bitter taste while hearing a musical interval that tastes sweet .^[54] Likewise, Stroop tests work even in those for whom merely thinking about a numeral elicits color. Take a person who sees 7 as yellow and 9 as blue, and make the task one of having to say a math solution out loud followed by naming a color square. In the illustration, having to answer "7" and then "yellow" is congruent with the subject’s synesthesia, which unconsciously primes him to respond faster than controls. The automatic blueness of 9, however, interferes with naming the green square, slowing him down compared to controls.

Synesthetic colors can also improve performance for some synesthetes. Inspired by tests for color blindness, Ramachandran and Hubbard presented synesthetes and non-synesthetes with a matrix of 5s in which embedded 2s formed a hidden pattern such as a square, diamond, rectangle or triangle.^[31] For someone who sees 2s as red and 5s as green, for example, synesthetic colors help zero in on the embedded figure. Subsequent careful studies have found substantial variability among synesthetes in their ability to do this.^[17][26] It certainly does not happen instantaneously; while synesthesia is evoked very early in perceptual processing, it does not occur prior to attention.^[55][56]

Possible neural basis[link]

Dedicated regions of the brain are specialized for given functions. Increased cross-talk between regions specialized for different functions may account for the many types of synesthesia. For example, the additive experience of seeing color when looking at graphemes might be due to cross-activation of the grapheme-recognition area and the color area called V4 (see figure).^[31] One line of thinking is that a failure to prune synapses that are normally formed in great excess during the first few years of life may cause such cross-activation.

An alternate possibility is disinhibited feedback, or a reduction in the amount of inhibition along normally existing feedback pathways.^[57] Normally, excitation and inhibition are balanced. However, if normal feedback were not inhibited as usual, then signals feeding back from late stages of multi-sensory processing might influence earlier stages such that tones could activate vision. Cytowic & Eagleman find support for the disinhibition idea in the so-called acquired forms^[3] of synesthesia that occur in non-synesthetes under certain conditions: Temporal lobe epilepsy, head trauma, stroke, and brain tumors. They also note that it can likewise occur during stages of meditation, deep concentration, sensory deprivation, or with use of psychedelics such as LSD or mescaline, or even, in some cases, marijuana.^[3] However, synesthetes report that common stimulants, like caffeine and cigarettes do not affect the strength of their synesthesia, nor do alcoholic beverages.^{[3]p. 137-140}

Functional neuroimaging studies using PET and fMRI demonstrate significant differences between the brains of synesthetes and non-synesthetes. fMRI shows V4 activation in both word → color and grapheme → color synesthetes.^[17][58][59] Diffusion tensor imaging allows visualization of white matter fiber pathways in the intact brain. This method demonstrates increased connectivity in fusiform gyrus, intraparietal sulcus and frontal cortex in grapheme-color synesthetes.^[60] The degree of white matter connectivity in the fusiform gyrus correlates with the intensity of the synesthetic experience.

The role of meaning[link]

Evidence has shown that concurrents in synesthesia may be operating at the level of the meaning of the stimulus (i.e. semantic representations), not at the level of the sensory inputs. For example, if presented with letter A, a synesthete would associated concurrent experiences only once the letter has been recognized and the meaning of the stimulus has been extracted. Hence, the basics for understanding synesthesia may be in the semantic structures that, uniquely for synesthetes, associate sensory-like experiences. It has been proposed that a more accurate definition of the phenomenon is within the context of ideasthesia.

Associated cognitive traits[link]

Little is known about what, if any, cognitive traits might be associated with synesthesia. As early as 1980, Richard Cytowic first noted mild difficulties in left-right confusion, arithmetic, and sense of direction.^[1] These observations await large-scale confirmation. What has been confirmed is elevated, sometimes photographic, memory.^[61] It was reading Alexander Luria's 1968 book The Mind of a Mnemonist that alerted Cytowic to the link between synesthesia and enhanced memory: Luria's subject had a 5-fold synesthesia that gave him extra hooks on which to hang and remember numerous facts.

Autism and epilepsy occur with synesthesia more often than chance predicts. Daniel Tammet, the savant who set a European record for reciting the digits of pi, has all three conditions indicating that they might share an underlying genetic cause. Synesthesia has so far been linked to a region on chromosome 2 that is associated with autism and epilepsy.^[48]

Synesthetes are likely to participate in creative activities.^[24][62][63] Individual development of perceptual and cognitive skills, and one's cultural environment likely determine the variety in awareness and practical use of synesthetic skills^[18][27] These are major topics of ongoing research.

Links with other areas of study[link]

Researchers study synesthesia raising questions such as how the brain combines information from different sensory modalities, referred to as crossmodal perception and multisensory integration.

Tests like this demonstrate that people do not attach sounds to visual shapes arbitrarily. Which shape would you call "Bouba" and which "Kiki?"

An example of this is the bouba/kiki effect. In an experiment first designed by Wolfgang Köhler, people are asked to choose which of two shapes is named bouba and which kiki. 95% to 98% of people choose kiki for the angular shape and bouba for the rounded one. Individuals on the island of Tenerife showed a similar preference between shapes called takete and maluma. Even 2.5 year-old children (too young to read) show this effect.^[64]

Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary.^[31] The rounded shape may intuitively be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound, while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to articulate kiki. The sound of K is also harder and more forceful than that of B. Such "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and actions in the world.

Given synesthetes' extraordinary conscious experiences, researchers hope that their study will provide better understanding of consciousness and its neural correlates, meaning what the brain mechanisms that make us conscious might be. In particular, synesthesia might be relevant to the philosophical problem of qualia,^[4][31][65] given that synesthetes experience extra qualia (e.g., a colored sound).

Artistic investigations[link]

The word "synesthesia" has been used for 300 years to describe very different things, from poetry and metaphor to deliberately contrived mixed-media applications such as son et lumière shows or odorama. It is crucial to separate artists using synesthesia as an intellectual idea—pseudo-synesthetes such as Georgia O'Keeffe who used such titles as "Music-Pink and Blue"—from those who had the genuine perceptual variety, such as Wassily Kandinsky or Olivier Messiaen.

Synesthetic art historically refers to multi-sensory experiments in the genres of visual music, music visualization, audiovisual art, abstract film, and intermedia.^{[16][20][66][67][68][69]} Distinct from neuroscience, the concept of synesthesia in the arts is regarded as the simultaneous perception of multiple stimuli in one gestalt experience.^[70] Only recently can science verify and study synesthesia in artists; for deceased artists, one must interpret (auto)biographical information.

Synesthetic art can refer to either art created by synesthetes or art that attempts to convey the synesthetic experience. It is an attempt to understand the relation between the experiences of born synesthetes, non-synesthetes, and an appreciation of such art by both groups. These distinctions are not mutually exclusive given that art by a synesthete might also evoke synesthesia-like experiences in the viewer.

Contemporary synesthetic artists such as Carol Steen^[71] and Marcia Smilack^[72] (a synesthetic photographer who waits until she gets a synesthetic response from what she sees, and then takes the picture,) have described in detail how they use their synesthesia to create their artworks. They demonstrate the complex interplay between personal experience and artistic creation.

Synesthesia has been a source of inspiration for artists, composers, poets, novelists, and digital artists. Nabokov writes explicitly about synesthesia in several novels. Kandinsky (a synesthete) and Mondrian (not a synesthete) both experimented with image-music correspondences in their paintings. Scriabin composed color music that was deliberately contrived and based on the circle of fifths, whereas Messiaen invented a new method of composition (the modes of limited transposition) to specifically render his bi-directional sound-color synesthesia. For example, the red rocks of Bryce Canyon are depicted in his symphony Des canyons aux étoiles ("From the Canyons to the Stars"). New art movements such as literary symbolism, non-figurative art, and visual music have profited from experiments with synesthetic perception and contributed to the public awareness of synesthetic and multi-sensory ways of perceiving.^[16]

Literary depictions[link]

Synesthesia is sometimes used as a plot device or way of developing a character's inner life. Author and synesthete Pat Duffy describes five ways in which synesthetic characters have been used in modern fiction.^[73][74]

1. Synesthesia as Romantic ideal: in which the condition illustrates the Romantic ideal of transcending one's experience of the world. Books in this category include The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov.
2. Synesthesia as pathology: in which the trait is pathological. Books in this category include The Whole World Over by Julia Glass.
3. Synesthesia as Romantic pathology: in which synesthesia is pathological but also provides an avenue to the Romantic ideal of transcending quotidian experience. Books in this category include Holly Payne’s The Sound of Blue.
4. Synesthesia as psychological health and balance: Painting Ruby Tuesday by Jane Yardley, and A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass.
5. Synesthesia as Young Adult Literature and Science Fiction: Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Many literary depictions of synesthesia are not accurate. Some say more about an author's interpretation of synesthesia than the phenomenon itself.

People with synesthesia[link]

Determining synesthesia from the historical record is fraught with error unless (auto)biographical sources explicitly give convincing details.

Famous synesthetes include David Hockney, who perceives music as color, shape, and configuration, and who uses these perceptions when painting opera stage sets but not while creating his other artworks.^[75] Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky combined four senses: color, hearing, touch, and smell.^[3] Vladimir Nabokov describes his grapheme-color synesthesia at length in his autobiography, Speak, Memory and portrays it in some of his characters.^[76] Composers include Duke Ellington,^[77] Franz Liszt,^[78] Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,^[79] and Olivier Messiaen, whose three types of complex colors are rendered explicitly in musical chord structures that he invented.^[3][80] Physicist Richard Feynman describes his colored equations in his autobiography, What Do You Care What Other People Think?^[81]

Other notable synesthetes include musicians Billy Joel,^{[82]p. 89, 91} Itzhak Perlman,^[82]p. 53 Ida Maria,^[83] Brian Chase^[84][85] and Patrick Stump; actress Stephanie Carswell (credited as Stéphanie Montreux); inventor Nikola Tesla; electronic musician Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin (who claims to be inspired by lucid dreams as well as music); and classical pianist Hélène Grimaud. Founder of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, is thought to have had synesthesia. Harpist and fiddler Tina Larkin experiences Music/color synesthesia. Although it has not been verified, Pharrell Williams, of the groups The Neptunes and N.E.R.D., claims to experience synesthesia,^[86] and to have used it as the basis of the album Seeing Sounds. Singer/songwriter Marina and the Diamonds experiences music → color synesthesia, and reports colored days of the week.^[87]

Some artists frequently mentioned as synesthetes did not in fact have the condition. Alexander Scriabin's 1911 Prometheus, for example, is a deliberate contrivance whose color choices are based on the circle of fifths and appear to have been taken from Madame Blavatsky.^[3][88] The musical score has a separate staff marked luce whose "notes" are played on a color organ. Technical reviews appear in period volumes of Scientific American.^[3] On the other hand, his older colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (who was perceived as a fairly conservative composer), was in fact a synesthete.^[89]

French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire wrote of synesthetic experience but there is no evidence they were synesthetes themselves. Baudelaire's 1857 Correspondances (text available here) introduced the notion that the senses can and should intermingle. Baudelaire participated in a hashish experiment by psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau, and became interested in how the senses might correspond.^[16] Rimbaud later wrote Voyelles (1871) (text available here), which was perhaps more important than Correspondances in popularizing synesthesia, although he later boasted "J'inventais la couleur des voyelles!" [I invented the colors of the vowels!].

In addition to being a natural mimic and polyglot, the lauded Cartoon-network voice actor, Brian Hamilton, is a self-ascribed synesthete.

Daniel Tammet, a well known savant who wrote a book on his experiences with synesthesia called "Born on a blue day".

Sean Day, synesthete and the President of the American Synesthesia Association, maintains a list of famous synesthetes, pseudosynesthetes, and non-synesthetes who used synesthesia in their art or music.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Baron-Cohen, S. and Harrison, J. (Eds., 1997). Synaesthesia: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19764-8.
• Bosch, P. (2007) The Name of This Book is Secret Little, Brown Young Readers. ISBN 978-0-316-11366-3.
• Bovi, O., Bocciolesi, E. (2010). "Dall'arte al cervello. Profili di un percorso interpretativo fra sinestesie ed emozioni." Perugia: Morlacchi University Press. ISBN 978-88-6074-274-2
• Córdoba M.J. de, Riccò D. (et al.), Sinestesia. Los fundamentos teóricos, artísticos y científicos, Ediciones Fundación Internacional Artecittà, Granada 2012. ISBN 978-84-939054-1-5
• Campen, Cretien van. (2007) The Hidden Sense. Synesthesia in Art and Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Leonardo Books. ISBN 0-262-22081-4
• Cytowic, R.E. (2003)The Man Who Tasted Shapes. Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 978-0-907845-43-0.
• Cytowic, R.E. (2002) Synesthesia: A Union of The Senses, second edition. Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-03296-4.
• Cytowic, R.E. & Eagleman, D.M. (2009) Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, with an afterword by Dmitri Nabokov. Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-01279-9.
• Dann, K. (1998). Bright Colors Falsely Seen. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-300-06619-8.
• Duffy, P. L. (2001). Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color their Worlds. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-7167-4088-5.
• Harrison, J. (2001). Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-263245-0.
• Jay, C. (2009) Breathing in Colour. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-7499-2978-7.
• Marks L.E., The Unity of the Senses. Interrelations among the modalities, Academic Press, New York, 1978.
• Riccò D., Sinestesie per il design. Le interazioni sensoriali nell'epoca dei multimedia, Etas, Milano, 1999. ISBN 88-453-0941-X
• Riccò D., Sentire il design. Sinestesie nel progetto di comunicazione, Carocci, Roma, 2008. ISBN 978-88-430-4698-0
• Robertson, L. and Sagiv, N. (Eds., 2005). Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516623-X.
• Rowedder, Anna K. (2009). Für Dich - For You - Pour Toi. Luxembourg: Synaisthesis. ISBN 978-9995962210.
• Sinha, Jasmin (ed.). 2009. Synästhesie der Gefühle (Emotional Synaesthesia). Luxembourg: Synaisthesis. ISBN 978-9995962265.
• Tammet, D. (2006) Born on a Blue Day: A Memoir of Aspergers and an Extraordinary Mind. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. ISBN 978-0-340-89974-8.
• Tornitore T., Storia delle sinestesie. Le origini dell'audizione colorata, Genova, 1986.
• Tornitore T., Scambi di sensi. Preistoria delle sinestesie, Centro Scientifico Torinese, Torino, 1988.
• Mass, W. (2003) A Mango-Shaped Space. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-52388-7
• Ward, J. (2008) The Frog who croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-43014-2.

External links[link]

Scientific resources[link]

• Richard E. Cytowic Downloads, videos, and information.
• David Eagleman's Synesthesia Battery: take the test to see if you are synesthetic.
• Houston synesthesia study: Click here for more information.
• Synesthetics by Cretien van Campen Artistic and scientific experiments, historical background.
• Synaesthesia Research Group at the University of Sussex Information and article links.
• Synesthesia in Art and Science Bibliography compiled by Cretien van Campen for Leonardo/ISAST
• Blue Cats Resource Center by Patricia Lynne Duffy

Synesthesia associations[link]

• American Synesthesia Association
• Australian Synaesthesia Association
• Belgian Synesthesia Association
• Russian Synaesthesia Web-Community (Anton Dorso)
• UK Synaesthesia Association
• German Synaesthesia Association | Deutsche Synästhesie-Gesellschaft e.V.
• synaesthesia.com: international synaesthesia community (synaesthesia-tests, workshops, Infos)

On the Web[link]

• Synesthesia: What it is and how to diagnose it.
• TED Blog, including video links to V. S. Ramachandran's TED talk.
• Cytowic's video lecture at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum Visual Music exhibit. Four-part YouTube version [2].
• Scientific American article Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes (PDF version) by Ramachandran & Hubbard, May 2003.
• Campen, Cretien van (2009), The Hidden Sense: On Becoming Aware of Synesthesia, TECCOGS, vol. 1, pp. 1–13.
• Synaisthesis Publishers, a Luxembourgish publishing house with focus on synaesthesia
• Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World a documentary short featuring, featuring David Eagleman and four synesthetes, from ResearchChannel.

Andrew Ross McMahon (born September 3, 1982) is a singer/songwriter. He is the vocalist, pianist and primary songwriter for the bands Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin; he also performs solo.^[1]

Early life[link]

McMahon was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He briefly lived in New Jersey until 1991, when his family moved to Bexley, Ohio where he attended Cassingham Elementary School. His family relocated frequently due to his father's occupation in retail. McMahon recalls that while he was in fourth grade, they briefly stayed in California to support his mother's family after the loss of her brother. The death had a large impact on the family, and Andrew has a tattoo on his forearm in his uncle's memory. Following the death of his uncle, who was a musician himself, McMahon became inspired to get involved with music, and began teaching himself piano very soon afterward.

McMahon's family decided to settle in California shortly before he entered eighth grade. He would later describe himself as "a pudgy, outgoing, artistic little kid who never quite fit into the California scene". He graduated from the public Dana Hills High School in 2000.

Career[link]

Early work[link]

He started playing the piano at age 8. The following year, he began performing piano solos before he could even read music. In an interview, McMahon states "my mother was a good player and I started playing by ear. After a year of that, I began writing songs, and found outlets to perform them at school assemblies. Eventually, I got lessons." ^[2]

McMahon started his first band Left Here with his high school friends and future Something Corporate bandmates Kevin "Clutch" Page on bass and Brian Ireland on drums in 1997.

Even though they won a local battle of the bands competition, they soon broke up. McMahon went on to record the self-released eponymous four-track demo CD Andrew McMahon with the aid of several friends of his, including guitarist Josh Partington, whom he had met his sophomore year in high school. Joined by rhythm guitarist Reuben Hernandez (who was later replaced by William Tell), the quintet formed the piano rock band Something Corporate in 1998.

Something Corporate[link]

Fronted by McMahon, Something Corporate recorded their self-released ten-song demo album Ready... Break in 2000, which led to a record deal with the indie record label Drive-Thru Records. Drive-Thru released the band's nationwide distributed debut EP Audioboxer the following year. McMahon's vocals, songwriting skills and especially the incorporation of the piano earned the CD rave reviews and caught the attention of Drive-Thru's distributor MCA (now Geffen). Due to the labels' distribution deal, MCA was able to sign over Something Corporate and released their major label debut Leaving Through the Window in May 2002.

The band promoted the album by playing concerts across the United States, which included the main stage at Vans Warped Tour as well as supporting New Found Glory, whose vocalist Jordan Pundik used to be McMahon's roommate, on their European tour. Something Corporate released their second full-length album North on Geffen Records in late 2003 and toured with 311, Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, and Jimmy Eat World. As of 2004, and the signing of Jack's Mannequin to Maverick Records, the band is no longer under contract to any label.

On December 4, 2009, Something Corporate announced one reunion show at Bamboozle Left 2010. An additional show was later added at Bamboozle Chicago 2010. After Bamboozle the band announced their reunion tour, which took place in August 2010.

Jack's Mannequin[link]

The initial impulse behind McMahon's solo project Jack's Mannequin was "Locked Doors", a song he recorded in December 2003, which he felt was too different from previous Something Corporate material. He realized that, if he would ever decide to release it, it would be on a solo album rather than a Something Corporate record.^[3] The idea seemed to be off the table until, in late summer 2004, both McMahon and his bandmates were exhausted from months of touring. They decided to take a temporary break. During his time off, McMahon laid down piano and vocal tracks for a song on Hidden in Plain View's Life in Dreaming and two songs on Tommy Lee's Tommyland: The Ride.

While Something Corporate's other songwriter and lead guitarist Partington created a side project of his own called Firescape, McMahon started writing songs, knowing they would not be released under Something Corporate. After Something Corporate dissolved, McMahon started working on his solo project, Jack's Mannequin, as an outlet for these songs. McMahon took a more therapeutic approach in writing these songs, resulting in a more personal and intimate testament of his songwriting. They dealt with "coming home, and having home be way different than I had remembered it [...], abandoning a lot of people, and things, that I had normally been so attached to [...], exploring and being okay with myself, and not having to make excuses for who I am, and accepting who I am", McMahon stated in an interview.^[4]

Over the next couple of months, McMahon began recording the newly written songs with producer Jim Wirt, who played guitar and bass over sampled drum tracks, while McMahon contributed vocals and piano. They later brought in additional musicians such as Bobby "Raw" Anderson (formerly of River City High) and Tommy Lee to add to the mix. In an eerily foreshadowing moment, the project's name, Jack's Mannequin, came from a friend of his whose brother was diagnosed with childhood leukemia. McMahon was soon diagnosed with leukemia himself, and later went on to write the song "Dear Jack" in tribute to the original Jack. In March 2005, Jack's Mannequin — now consisting of McMahon on vocals and piano, Jon Sullivan on bass, Anderson on guitar, and Jay McMillan (ex-River City High) on drums — played their first live show at Molly Malone's Irish pub in Los Angeles, California. The first album Everything in Transit was released in August 2005.

After the release and success of the first album, McMahon then proceeded to compose his second Jack's Mannequin album, The Glass Passenger, which was released in September 2008. The first single, "The Resolution", is the band's highest-charting song to date.

Following "The Glass Passenger," McMahon, began working on Jack's Mannequin's third album, People and Things. For this album, he wanted to touch on subjects other than his battle with leukemia. He stated that this new album "[would] probably have a bit of freeness" to it, distancing itself from "The Glass Passenger." ^[5] The album was released in October 2011 with the single "My Racing Thoughts" preceding it in July of the same year.

Personal life[link]

On May 27, 2005 (three months before the release of Jack's Mannequin's debut album Everything in Transit), McMahon was forced to cancel all of his upcoming concerts.^[6] After a medical examination in connection with a relentless case of laryngitis, McMahon was admitted to a hospital in New York City, where he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia on June 1, 2005, the same day he finished recording Everything in Transit.^[7] Since the illness was diagnosed in its early stages, McMahon's doctors had high hopes for a full recovery.^[8]

Over the following couple of months, McMahon received various types of treatment, all the while updating his blog to keep his fans informed on the progress of his condition. August 23, 2005 marked a very significant date for him for two reasons: it was the day his album Everything in Transit was released, debuting at #37 on the Billboard 200 with over 22,000 copies scanned within its first week, as well as the day he received a stem cell transplant, with his sister Katie McMahon serving as the donor.^[9] As a thank-you, he wrote and recorded a song called "There, There, Katie" for her. The song was finally played live at a Jack's Mannequin concert on 7/11/2006 in Cleveland, Ohio where Katie was in attendance for the performance.

On December 2, 2005, McMahon celebrated the 100-day anniversary of his stem cell transplant by playing his first concert in six months: a private invite-only show in a small venue in Los Angeles, California. His first public appearance followed ten days later at "Gimme Shelter '05", an acoustic cancer benefit concert at the Roxy in Los Angeles, California. Following these shows, Maverick Records finally started a promotion campaign for Everything in Transit, including TV appearances by McMahon on Jimmy Kimmel Live, One Tree Hill (in the episode "Just Watch the Fireworks"), Last Call with Carson Daly, Steven's Untitled Rock Show, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, as well as a second music video for "The Mixed Tape", which hit #1 on VH1's VSpot Top 20 Countdown on June 9, 2006. Simultaneously, Jack's Mannequin embarked on a two-month tour across the United States supporting Of A Revolution.

In July 2006, McMahon founded a non-profit charity, entitled The Dear Jack Foundation, to raise funds for cancer research. The organization's primary beneficiaries are the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the regents of the University of California, Los Angeles.^[10]

On July 9, 2006, McMahon announced at his Summerfest Jack's Mannequin concert that that night would be the last night he would have to take medication for his cancer treatment. Soon after, the second single from Everything in Transit, "Dark Blue", was released. This was followed by gaining an opening slot on Panic! at the Disco's "Nothing Rhymes With Circus Tour" throughout the United States and Canada, starting November 7, 2006 in Florida and ending December 12, 2006 in New Mexico.

A documentary entitled "Dear Jack" was released on November 3, 2009 on DVD by Warner Bros, and was shown at theatrical screenings in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.^[11] The film, which chronicles McMahon's struggle with leukemia, features self-recorded footage in the hospital and is narrated by his friend Tommy Lee. The documentary was directed by Corey Moss and Josh Morrisroe, two former MTV News producers who covered McMahon's story for the channel, although much of the intensely personal footage was shot by Andrew himself. Along with the "Dear Jack" DVD Jack's Mannequin also digitally released the Dear Jack EP, with a recorded version of the song "There, There, Katie" Andrew wrote for his sister, along with three other tracks, titled "Diane, The Skyscraper," "Dear Jack" and a music box version on the pre-released song, "Swim."

Recording Label[link]

Andrew started Airport Tapes and Records recording label in 2007. The label signed Chicago rock band Treaty of Paris in September 2007. The label dissolved in late 2008.

Discography[link]

For McMahon's releases with Something Corporate, see Something Corporate's discography

For McMahon's releases with Jack's Mannequin, see Jack's Mannequin's discography

• Andrew McMahon (1999)
• Hidden in Plain View - Life in Dreaming (2005, piano on "Halcyon Daze")
• Later Days - Catch This Epidemic... (2005, piano on "Evan's Epidemic")
• Tommy Lee - Tommyland: The Ride (2005, vocals on "Hello Again" and "I Need You")
• William Tell - You Can Hold Me Down (2007, piano on "Fairfax")
• The Spill Canvas - No Really, I'm Fine (2007, piano on "Saved")
• The Academy Is... - Fast Times at Barrington High (2008, piano on "After The Last Midtown Show")
• The Academy Is... - Lost In Pacific Time EP (2009, piano and vocals on "Sputter")
• Elliot Minor - Solaris (2009, lyrics on "Tethered")
• O.A.R. - King (2011, co-writer on "Over and Over")^[12]
• Erland - All I've Got EP (2011, producer)^[13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dear Jack Foundation against Leukemia, grounded by Andrew McMahon and Jack's Mannequin
• Jack's Mannequin's official website