synesthesia the BRIEF INTORUDCTION TO PERCEPTION of colors
Š 2015 Understanding Synesthesia Published in 2015 by Elisa A www.theaugustchild.net All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Designed by Elisa A Cover Design: Elisa A Cover Photography: Internal Photography: Printed in Indonesia
synesthesia when colors are more than just shades
cont ents
06
08
10
preface
introduction
characteristics
what this is all about, why this book, why the images
a brief summary to define what is synesthesia
projecting and associative forms of synesthesia
12
24
36
types of synesthesia
the mechanism
synesthesia in art
grapheme to color, sound to color and other variations
neurological assumptions of how it works
introduction to synesthetic art
44
54
60
case study
problems
reference
four case studies, one extra
it is not always a pleasant gift
credits and the likes
foreword This book is a compilation of brief information and includes four case studies regarding synesthesia, its world and the people who were naturally born with this condition. With the purpose to share, educate and correct misconceptions regarding the phenomenon, the information used in this book are referenced and paraphrased accordingly. The photographs in this book belong to their respective owners with credits listed at the very last page of this book. By combining lomography - a method of analog photography - this book aims to communicate with readers through the clashing of colors and multiple exposures found in this photographic method, using them to convey the meaning of synesthesia.
introduction A strange but unique neurological phenomenon,
synesthesia (also spelled synaesthesia) refers to a neurological
phenomenon when two individual senses bleed and blend together
which leads to a series of compulsively involuntary experiences. People with synesthesia –known as synesthetes –experience a
stimulation of one modality simultaneously leading them to a
different modality.
The unity of the senses, as proposed by psychologist Erich von
Hornbostel in his 1927 paper entitled the same, an individual is
not limited to a single sense, indicating an argument that perhaps what we came to know as basic senses are not very individualistic
after all. Though it is true that the Seen differs from the Heard,
Hornbostel playfully described how senses are able to coalesce –
more dramatically expressed in a condition known as synesthesia, a
demonstration to breach the traditional senses of human
perception beyond conventional calculation.
CHA RAC TER IST ICS
PROJECTING
Like its name suggests, people who project see actual
colors, forms or shapes when stimulated; the first and
most common form of occurrence is the color-graphemic
synesthesia. This category is then further sub-divided into two: surface projectors who experience color projected by
written typeface (or whatever the stimulus might be) and space projects who project color onto some externalized near-space.
a ssociative
Unlike projectory synesthesia, the associative feels strong emotional and involuntary impact and connection
between the stimulus and the sense it triggers. One of the most common form of associative synesthesia is
chromesthesia where X, the stimulus, is sound and Y is the feeling projected when coming in contact with X.
type
synest
es of
thesia
G C
rapheme to
olor
grapheme to color
One of the most common form of synesthesia, grapheme to color refers to when an individual’s perception of numbers and letters is associated with the experience of seeing colors projected. This form of synesthesia is involuntary, consistent, memorable and because it is one of the most common forms of synesthesia and due to the extensive knowledge of the visual system, it is the most widely researched and studied form.
most likely to be red. This, however, may not be the same for all synesthetes. Early studies assumed that grapheme to color synesthesia may have been induced by associative learning, such as from playing with colorful refrigerator magnets. A recent study has documented a case in which synesthesia could be induced by this, however, majority of s ynesthetes do not seem to be driven by this sort.
Though it is extremely unlikely that any two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters - for instance, the alphabet A is
For this type of synesthetes, some have reported that they are able to see two colors on one subject. For example, they can see that the letter A projects red even if its original color is black.
I realized that to make an ‘R’ all I had to do was first write a ‘P’ and then 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. - Patricia Lynne Duffy
photography Š laura makabresku
C
hromes thesia
sound to color Chromesthesia, easily known as sound to color synesthesia, is a type of synesthesia in which sounds heard automatically and involuntary evoke an experience of color. Individuals with sound to color synesthesia are consciously aware of their perceptions in daily lives. Synesthetes that perceive color while listening to music experience the colors in addition to the normal auditory sensations that would be triggered in the average person. Individuals are triggered and will experience different variation, however, chromesthesia is commonly affected and associated with sound, tone or pitch. Although it may differ from one synesthete to the
next, it is usually consistent over time. Even so, studies nowadays have reported that synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike match high pitched sounds to lighter or brighter colors and low pitched sounds to darker tones, indicating that there may be some common mechanism that underlies the associations present in normal adult brains.
For some, chromesthesia is triggered by sound speeches while others may be affected by any auditory stimuli. Studies show that 40% of subjects with synesthesia for spoken words reported that voice pitch, accent, and prosody influenced the synesthetic concurrent.
“The song appears as light filament once I’ve cracked it. As long as I’ve been doing this, which is more than thirty-five years, I’ve never seen a duplicate song structure. I’ve never seen the same light creature in my life. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever.” - Tori Amos, “Piece by Piece”
S pat i a l se q u en ce
Those with spatial sequence synesthesia (SSS) tend to see numerical sequences as points in space. For instance, the
number 1 might be farther away and the number 2 might
be closer. Synesthetes of this condition are thought to have great memories. Case prove, they are able to recall past events and memories far better and in far details.
nu mb e r f o r m
A number form is a mental map of numbers that
automatically and involuntarily appears whenever someone who experiences number forms thinks of numbers. This
type of synesthesia is considered to be very, very minimal hence it is not a form that is often discussed.
A u d i to r y - tactile
In auditory tactile synesthesia, certain sounds can induce
sensations in parts of the body. Auditory tactile synesthesia may sometimes originate from birth or be acquired
sometime later in life. It is one of the least common form of synesthesia.
Or d i n a l l i ngu is tic pe rso n i fi c ation
Ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP, or personification for short) is a form of synesthesia in which ordered sequences are associated with personalities.
Ordinal personification normally co-occurs with other
forms of synesthesia such as grapheme-color synesthesia.
M i so p h o n i a
Contrary to the definition that synesthesia is not a disorder, misophonia is, however, categorized as one. It is, however, perceived to be linked towards synesthesia by Richard
Cytowic. A hypothesis that “a pathological distortion of
connections between the auditory cortex and limbic struc-
tures could cause a form of sound-emotion synesthesia� has been proposed by Miren Edelstein and her colleagues.
M i rr o r - t o u ch s yn e st h e si a
A rare form of synesthesia where individuals literally
feel the same sensation that another person feels (such
as touch). For instance, when such a synesthete observes someone being tapped on their shoulder, the synesthete involuntarily feels a tap on their own shoulder as well.
This type of synesthetes have been shown to have higher empathy levels compared to the general population.
There is no definite answer as to how synesthesia affects a very rare number of people. Since it is classified as a neurological phenomenon, it is also not a disorder that requires medication. In fact, there won’t be any medication prescribed. What you are going to read after this page are hypothetical statements, indefinite research studies and explorations made by researchers who are still constantly studying about this case.
photography Š hodachrome
MEC HAN ISM
neural basis of synesthesia
There have been two types of theories proposed concerning the neural basis of synesthesia. Both theories start from the observation that there are dedicated regions of the brain which are specialized for certain functions. Some researchers have suggested that increased cross-talk between different regions specialized for different functions may account for different types of synesthesia. The theory of cross-activation within the brain function is an idea that have been deducted to induce the occurence of synesthesia. Cross-activation is believed to be caused by a failure in neuron development, in which connections between brain regions are partially eliminated. An alternate possibility is disinhibited feedback, or a reduction in the amount of inhibition along normally existing feedback pathways.
photography Š hodachrome
uncertain origin
Synesthesia may help us to understand how the concept of similarity is embedded within the nervous system
Daphne Maurer, PhD, a psychologist at McMaster University, has further speculated that all humans may be born with the neural connections that allow synesthesia, but that most of us lose those connections as we grow.
“The trouble with theorizing in this area is that we’re underconstrained by data. There isn’t the right kind of data, yet, to differentiate between these different theories.”
Implications
For psychologists, interest in synesthesia extends far beyond just the study of the few individuals who experience the phenomenon Yale University psychologist Larry Marks, PhD, thinks synesthesia “taps into a lot of other domains that are more familiar to many psychologists” , telling us something about the natural perceptions and what makes things peculiarly similar to one another. In fact, he made a hypothesis that synesthesia may help us understand how the concept of similarity is embedded within the nervous system. Some researches think that if synesthesia were to occur due to genetic roots, this particular gene will be something new to learn about. ““It would be a gene that, in either of its forms, results in a healthy human but has a profound effect on the organization of the nervous system.”
“Unlike patients who exp synesthetes are not med that confounding factor. our experiences. We offer s
perience hallucinations, icated, so you don’t have . We’re able to talk about something very valuable.”
syne sthe s society an
sia in art nd culture
some synesthetes would reject the idea of synesthesia being removed from them.
artistic intervention Synesthesia in art refers to multisensory experiments in the genres of visual music, audiovisual art, abstract film and intermedia. Distinct from neuroscience, the concept of synesthesia in the arts is regarded as the simultaneous perception of multiple stimuli in one gestalt experience, a psychological theory of the mind in trying to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in a chaotic world. Neurological synesthesia and the curiosity as well as study surrounding it has served as an inspiration for
artists, composers, authors and digital artists. For example, novelist Vladimir Nabokov has written about synesthesia in several novels. Other known synesthetes include Kadinsky, a synesthete artist is widely known to experiment with and implement image - music congruence in his paintings. In today’s world, people are trying to connect findings on neurological synesthesia and use them as vivid influences on their work, as seen from artist, writer and curator Carol Steen who feels the sound of musical instruments when listening to them.
“When listening to music, I see colors and shapes, either angular or circular, and get a sense of whether the piece is horizontal or vertical...� - Anne Patterson
in 1940, synesthesia was brought to big screen by disney One of the most famous work to depict synesthesia-like experiences was brought to screen by Disney in a 1940 animated film entitled Fantasia, though it is unknown if this was intentional or not. In the film we can see how Disney artist and illustrator Mary Blair, who was born in 1911 - 104 years ago! - depicted everything through her innovative use of colors which is what her visual style was best known for. In there we can also see that music was depicted in colors which is something we can linked to chromesthesia.
C A s t u
IN A B
S E u d y
BRIEF
LO LI TA !
I don’t think in any language. I think in images. “It’s called color hearing,” Nabokov once told BBC in 1962, “Perhaps one in a thousand has that. But I’m told by psychologists that most children have it, that later they lose that aptitude when they are told by stupid parents that it’s all nonsense, an A isn’t black, a B isn’t brown—now don’t be absurd.” He further replied that the alphabet V in his name is a “kind of pale, transparent pink : I think it’s called, technically, quartz pink” saying that it is probably the closest color he can associate with the said letter. The letter N, on the other hand, is a “grayish, yellowish oatmeal color.” The phenomenon did not stop there for Nabokov could also hear colors in different languages. Surprisingly, his wife Vera and son were also synesthetes.
vl ad i m i r nab o k ov 189 9 - 1977
wa s si l y kan d i n sk y 18 6 6 - 19 44
The man who heard his paintbox hiss Born in Moscow, Russia, Kandinsky grew up as a boy who’s fascinated with colors. Nicknamed the father of abstraction, Kandinsky wanted to evoke sound through vision and pitch through colors. He further wrote: Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. Although he was never really medically proven to have born with the condition, as a young boy, Kadinsky is said to have heard a peculiar hissing sound when mixing different colored paints in his childhood paintbox.
I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.
I found it fascinating that this is a documented phenomenon and not just me being a weirdo
For instance the letter ‘F’ for me is green A man in his 30s and the vocalist and rhythm guitarist of a band from hometown Chicago, Fall Out Boy, Patrick Stump was born with the condition grapheme to color and sound to color synesthesia. Like most synesthetes, he was not aware of this phenomenon and thought it was rare, that he was a weirdo at some point until he met other musicians and figured out that it, too, happened to them. For him, this sentence that looks nothing and feels nothing but black may trigger and envoke other effect such as the letter F feels green or that S is red. According to him, most of the alphabets and numbers from the scale of 1-10 are associated with different colors.
p atr i ck stump 19 8 4
duk e e l l in gto n 189 9 - 1974
If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin Born Edward Kennedy Ellington, he was an American big band leader, composer and pianist. Ellington was a composer and a monolithic figure in jazz although his compositions also covered other genres such as blues, classical and gospel. With the ability of chromesthesia (sound to color) synesthete, he saw colors and textures the moment he listened to musical tones. The color projected from a note played by a fellow band member is not the same as the note played by someone else. His synesthesia was said to have contributed in his creative uses of orchestration. Today, many of Ellington’s compositions are now considered to be jazz and popular standards.
If Harry Carney is playing, D is dark blue burlap
And I see colors when I hear your voice And I see colors, I don’t hear the noise
I can see the colors running, when they hear the music playing Singer-songwriter Andrew McMahon was hospitalized and battling against leukemia when he first heard of the word synesthesia. It was in 2005 that he met another patient who acquired the cross-sensory trait, as it sometimes happen, during brain surgery to remove a malignant tumor. The young man was said to suddenly see colors that weren’t there before. The man then became an artist to share his vision to the world. Sadly, McMahon lost track of his identity despite not forgetting the incident. After recovering from leukemia, McMahon wrote the EP single “Synesthesia” which he published himself. The chorus of Synesthesia was inspired by the man from the hospital and the note in his journal. The song has been said to have touched synesthetes all over the world for being an inspiration.
and rew mc m a ho n 19 8 2
underlying problems
invalid perceptions To a synesthete, life is all about seeing colors from a series of numbers or feeling tickles when listening to the sound of strumming guitar. To them, the descriptions of colored voices or angry numbers are natural, however, to non-synesthetes, this can be seen as strange and overwhelming to the point where they think synesthetes are weird or worse, abnormal. Because of this, when someone first learns that numbers do not project colors, they start to doubt about themselves, thinking that there is something wrong with them. This can lead to them being alienated, feeling that their perceptions of the world as invalid. In some cases, children born with synesthesia may even think themselves as crazy. In today’s world, it is no surprise that there are hidden synesthetes among us who feel that they aren’t supposed to admit their condition. For children, this can be a problem especially if they receive no support from friends and family members. Furthermore, this can cause a disturbance for their development.
sensory overload Sensory overload occurs when one or more of the body’s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment. For a synesthete who can face multiple senses all at once, the possibility of experiencing sensory overload due to clashes of senses is a high possibility. For instance, synesthetes with sound to color synesthesia may have a difficulty when it comes to musical abilities in a way that their musical abilities may be countered by their synesthetic abilities. Although most musicians think synesthesia as a pleasant gift, it may give them a hard time to actually process the real music itself. For an individual who is part of a choir group, they could find themselves overwhelmed by their perceptions when everyone is singing together which can lead to symptoms of sensory overload such as headache and nausea. When it comes to children, sensory overload can disturb their daily activities such as avoiding physical contact or people in general.
SYMPTOMS Someone who experiences sensory overload can temporarily “shuts down” for quite some time. This can happen for minutes, hours or even days. By “shutting down”, the person will refuse to participate in activities such as interacting with others, opting to be kept alone and in silence. Said individuals will also avoid physical contact and will feel irritated when physical contact is involved - e.g being touched. Angry outbursts, restlessness, fidgeting and muscle tension are also symptoms of sensory overload. At the same time, extreme fatigue and difficulty in concentrating are also common symptoms of sensory overload, including physical impact such as headache and nausea. As such, one symptom can be said to lead onto another with no limitation to how many impact the individual will feel.
loss of senses One life changing experience faced by synesthetes is when they fall sick to what we assume as nothing but common, temporary illness such as fever. To synesthetes, elevated body temperature may cause an alteration to their perceptions of the world. For them to perform daily activities while feeling feverish may cause their synesthesia to either feel stronger, weaker or just “off.” This, of course, returns back to normal after some time. In some cases, a bad ear infection, for example, may cause synesthetes to experience difficulty in listening, leading to temporary loss of hearing - “deafened.” Similarly, a synesthete with sound to color condition may not only lose their sense of hearing but may also experience color alteration as long as the infection occurs.
rEF ERE NCE
Content http://lomography.com http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx http://www.synesthesiatest.org/blog/wassily-kandinsky-abstraction http://listverse.com/2012/09/02/10-disadvantages-to-synesthesia/ http://archive.larouchepac.com/node/17200 http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2009/Synesthesia__Another_World_of_Perception/ http://sdl.granthazard.com/exhibits/show/famous-synesthetes/famous-synesthetes-closer-look/duke-ellington
Photography Hodachrome Laura Makabresku Lomography Community Nicholas Hendrickx Sigma-1 Images used in this book belong to their respective owners. I take no credit whatsoever and only use them as a mean to influence, inspire and share. Some images are found on Google so thank you, Mr.Google!
This is a non-profit book made and designed by Elisa A, a student of Interactive Digital Media stream for the completion of her Experimental Final Project. This book was highly inspired and influenced by Andrew McMahon’s single of the same name and the curiosity she felt towards said phenomenon. In this book are brief information about synesthesia and synesthetes, the world as viewed from their perspective and the validity of their perception. Images used in this book belong to their respective owners and are copyrighted accordingly. Everything in this book are paraphrased and referenced.