Iris: The Blog

Beauty Reeks of Rot

samprimary — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 22:29:36 -0400

A contribution from an anonymous source, who we shall call Trevor.

Trevor has the most bizarre synesthesia. It overlaps. It is hard to keep track of what senses are overlapping with other senses overlapping with themselves. His most potent synesthetic response is that he ends up ‘smelling’ an aura of scents — each one unique and associated with a person. It does not appear for a while. He must get to know someone first. Eventually, they build up an aura. Scents correlate themselves fixedly with individuals, and this scent sticks. It will never go away. That is that person’s scent forever. It overrides other scents they may actually have.

Trevor gets in a whirlwind romance with a girl. It is amazing. They are in love. It is perfect. They are great for each other. They move in together.

Girl’s synesthetic “scent” appears for Trevor. It is inexplicably vile.

He does everything he can to think ‘over’ the scent. He is not very good at it. He cannot willingly change her scent. He experiences it as a bland, ugly, vegetation rot and cottage cheese smell. He actually begins gagging if he looks at her (and gets the full force of the ‘aura’) before steeling himself for it. It creates problems. He becomes physically withdrawn, and looks pained when having sex. He avoids eye contact but tries to be cavalier about it.

She notices. He has no explanation, because he thinks the real reasons why would sound absolutely insane were he to express it truthfully. “I’m sorry, your aura smells like rotted plants and cottage cheese.” He doesn’t consider it. He waffles. He struggles over it but it is causing very real and serious problems with intimacy. He is in anguish about it in private, trying to remember her real scent. Trying to drown it out.

It’s getting a little close to the end. He asks a doctor about it. Doctor gives a strange look but otherwise contributes nothing except that perhaps he should see a psychologist, especially if he is also hearing voices.

He does, at one point, do a google search, over strange things like “why do I smell people’s auras.” Gets a hit on Synesthesia. Is amazed. Brings it up delicately. Starts with the Wikipedia article. Shares it. Girlfriend is at first skeptical.

The story, hopefully with followup, continues.

glorix: How some Chinese characters look in my head if anyone...

amberying — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:11:36 -0400

glorix:

How some Chinese characters look in my head if anyone was wondering. The first ones are names and the third is China.

So neat! It appears that this type of synesthesia is triggered by the radicals rather than the words themselves. Apparently brightness and hue and saturation are all determined by radicals.

A Gathering of Synesthetes

samprimary — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:03:51 -0400

Over the past month, I have slowly seeded the entire nation with requests for synesthetes to step up and share their stories and their artistic imagery with us. Finally, these requests have started to come in, and the replies are encouraging. Of course, the journey is incomplete without asking on the blog itself, so here goes:

Are you a synesthete? Would you like your words, tales, or imagery about synesthesia to appear on Iris? Over the course of the next two months, I’m a dedicated interviewer and chronicler. Please drop off an email about your synesthesia experiences, and you get in line to contribute to a collective of stories and sketches.

Rhythm Synesthesia In Irish Dance

samprimary — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:05:57 -0400

Rhythm Synesthesia In Irish Dance:

Kate Spanos is a dancer who once worked with Martin van der Berg on the study of synesthetics. She has incorporated synesthesia into some of her works and has demonstrated sound and rhythm synesthesia as part of a dance performance for the American Synesthesia Association.

I have said that I experience rhythm-induced synesthesia, but I’ve never been able to elaborate on this experience. In Irish dance, for me hornpipes are dark brown earthy colors, light jigs are bright green and yellow, slip jigs are purple and pink pastels, reels are bright primary colors (treble reels are the same, but with some black inky undertones), and treble jigs are uplifting blues and green.

I’ve never elaborated because I didn’t know if these colors were actually rhythm-induced, or if they were just my personal associations about how dance steps should be performed to these rhythms. For example, slip jigs are typically meant to be feminine, elegant, light and airy, so my pretty-pastel association makes sense.

However, the other day I was thinking about my set dances. All my hornpipe sets are typically dark browns, such as the Ace & Deuce of Pipering, the Roving Peddler, the Rambling Rake, etc. The Drunken Gauger is a treble jig, and is very light blue and green.

Kitkit And Woobul

samprimary — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:42:00 -0400

Let’s say you are analyzing a newly found language. You have to piece together one last piece of the puzzle, and know that one of the following symbols is called a “Woobul” and the other is called “Kitkit.” Take your best guess as to which is kitkit and which is woobul.

90% of people asked this question will guess the same way. Vilayanur Ramachandran, Director of the Brain and Cognition center at University of California in San Diego, explains that the reason why is because the mechanisms of synesthesia are common in all brains, and it’s only a matter of degrees of expression that turn some into true synesthetes. More importantly, he argues and attempts to demonstrate that those expressions involve the fundamental properties of our minds that allow us to use and understand artistic and creative language concepts, and that being a synesthete corresponds quite significantly with the talented expression of many types of artistic ability.

The above example demonstrates that you—and most other people—understand that the symbol that had the sharper, more abrupt shape was more closely related to the symbol whose pronunciation had the more abrupt sounds. This is because the underlying mechanisms that create synestheseia are the same mechanisms that enable us to make comparisons and connections between concepts across disparate sensory modalities, such as sounds and shapes. In similar fashion, you will understand what is meant when cheese (which is physically soft) is described as sharp. These are low-level metaphors, which we understand because our brains make these connections between various types of sensory stimuli.

Dr. Ramachandran further speculates (very convincingly) that these same mechanisms are what underlie our ability to use and understand analogy, simile, and metaphor. He posits that these differences form a continuum in the population, and explains that creative people, such as poets and artists, are eight times more likely to be synesthetes than are the rest of us.

Synaesthesia: not a mental anomaly, a mental characteristic

Nearly every trippy visual accompaniment to a song I’ve...

samprimary — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:10:00 -0400

Nearly every trippy visual accompaniment to a song I’ve seen is distracting, because it contests with the ‘right’ colors. This one, on the other hand, syncs well enough with the motions in my head that they end up playing along very nicely. Almost like old friends.

Soundscapes 3 ♦ Petrichor by Opiuo on Slurp and Giggle This...

samprimary — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:14:00 -0400

Soundscapes 3 ♦ Petrichor by Opiuo on Slurp and Giggle

This song dances and wiggles. I couldn’t animate the specific motion if I tried, and it’s difficult to describe more … specifically. Opiuo is actually pretty good at evoking that kind of odd motion experience. The best way to describe Petrichor’s specific motions is to imagine all the visual resonance of this song as existing like small white blobs of electric light that flit about in an azure haze. Wobbly, but somehow synchronized in a way analogous to schools of baitfish. It’s beautiful! And makes it come as no surprise to me that some sound to color / sound to shapes synesthetes get dizzy when exposed to the wrong kind of music.

Photo

amberying — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:10:06 -0400

Evan Shinners is a Julliard-trained pianist who is also a sound...

amberying — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:03:34 -0400

Evan Shinners is a Julliard-trained pianist who is also a sound → color synesthete. To promote his tour, Shinners makes a video where plays the Prelude from Bach’s English Suite in D-minor and then paints the colors he sees over the visual field.

Ideasthesia

amberying — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:59:00 -0400

Ideasthesia:

Though related to synesthesia, ideasthesia is very different. The idea, not just the experience, would induce a sensory experience. Grapheme → color synesthetes are also ideasthetes because the association to color is not strictly tied to seeing a letter.

My synesthesia is also ideasthesia because I experience colors with people and emotions, with some intersection of both.

Colorshifting

amberying — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:04:00 -0400

The more I talk about my personality → color synesthesia, the more I realize that it may be more emotionally mediated than I realized. Everyone has three colors: 1) Their “base” color, 2) the color that pairs with the first color, and 3) a “secret” color that only appears when they do something unexpected. People’s colors change—very briefly—depending on my impression of them.

Given that there is emotionally mediated synesthesia, I am not surprised that people have more than one color for me. It sounds, however, unique. I wonder if colors change for other people, too.

The Beauty Of Neural Crosstalk: An Unusual Cooperation Of The Senses

samprimary — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:48:00 -0400

The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science

Cretien van Campen explores synesthesia from both artistic and scientific perspectives, looking at accounts of individual experiences, examples of synesthesia in visual art, music, and literature, and recent neurological research.

Van Campen reports that some studies define synesthesia as a brain impairment, a short circuit between two different areas. But synesthetes cannot imagine perceiving in any other way; many claim that synesthesia helps them in daily life. Van Campen investigates just what the function of synesthesia might be and what it might tell us about our own sensory perceptions. He examines the experiences of individual synesthetes—from Patrick, who sees music as images and finds the most beautiful ones spring from the music of Prince, to the schoolgirl Sylvia, who is surprised to learn that not everyone sees the alphabet in colors as she does.

Prince, huh? Well, as a fellow sound to color synesthete, I guess I will have to take a look at his music (said here a little more literally than usual).

The book is described as a delightfully written interplay of social sciences, neuroscience and the case study of synesthetes. A copy will be acquired, devoured, and reported on by me.

Also don’t miss a MIT press podcast interview with the author.

We Just Got Off On The Wrong Colors!

samprimary — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:40:00 -0400

We Just Got Off On The Wrong Colors!:

Scientific American’s ‘06 article on the basics of Synesthesia includes this little gem, leading to a further field of inquiry — the unique dating and living compatibility issues inherent to someone for whom your name might look like moldy bread, or taste like raw fish:

[S]ynesthetes also report making computational errors because 6 and 8 have the same color and claim to prejudge couples they meet because the colors of their first names clash so hideously.

This has the potential to result in some hilarious (or tragic) stories. For the individuals in question, I’d recommend giving them a second chance … with an acceptably colored nickname.

The One Taste of the Universe, or How To Experience Synesthesia

samprimary — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 07:52:00 -0400

I tapped my hands on the table like I normally would do. But this time I noticed something different, something quite remarkable. Not only sounds but also colors invaded my awareness. Yes, there was no way to deny it, the tap on the table gave off a red color.

A self-described modern mystic at High Existence espouses the claim that it’s possible to grow into synesthesia, queues up a few gestalt mythical hypotheticals and controversies for the science of synesthetic exploration.

Testing the Colors of Love

samprimary — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:20:00 -0400

In a 2004 article in Cognitive Neuropsychology, Jamie Ward of University College London reported on emotionally mediated synaesthesia — and studied a specific emotion-to-color and word-to-color individual, “GW.” One of the more important things done in this study was to test GW for synesthetic consistency versus a group of controls. By doing so, Ward worked out what is probably a consistently useful system for reliably testing many types of true individual synesthetes versus others who are falsely indicating (whether knowingly or unknowingly) that they are synesthetes.

The studies carried out with GW were motivated by a comment that she made during one testing session. It was noted that people’s names (e.g., “James”) appeared to elicit a synaesthetic response more than other stimuli such as names of colours (e.g., “red”) or food (e.g., “strawberry”). She commented that when she gets to know new people then they often acquire a synaesthetic colour. When presented with that person’s name or face, the colour appears inevitably and spontaneously and cannot be suppressed. This was considered to be of interest because of the very similar descriptions reported in the historical literature. Before examining the nature of the synaesthesia in more detail it is important to establish, objectively, that the experiences she reports are genuine.

One “test of genuineness” consists of showing that the perceptual experiences are more consistent over time than would be expected from memory alone (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al., 1993; Harrison, 2001). Another test that has been extensively used to show that the experiences are both genuine and automatic is the synaesthetic variant of the Stroop test, in which colour naming is found to be slowed when the true colour of a stimulus conflicts with that generated by the synaesthesia (e.g., Mattingley et al., 2001; Mills et al., 1999; Odgaard et al., 1999).

I’ve had someone practice Stroop testing on me. The word that comes to mind is “insidious.”

GW was given 83 words and asked to report any synaesthetic photisms. This was repeated 1 week later, and again 4 months later. The control subjects (N = 7) were given the same list twice, separated by 1 week, but were asked to generate colours for every stimulus in such a way that might aid later memory. The words were presented in a different order on the second occasion. …

GW was given 83 words and asked to report any synaesthetic photisms. … In addition, both GW and controls were asked to note down the names of 15 personal acquaintances and generate colour associations for each person on two occasions separated by a week. GW was also assessed again after a further 4 months. The degree of personal acquaintance will be shown to be a key influence in GW’s synaesthesia and so it was considered important to assess this in control participants too. For the 83 words,GW was 82% consistent after 1 week, which is significantly higher than controls …

The high level of consistency was maintained after 4 months (76% consistent). Similarly, GW is 87% consistent for the 15 names of personal acquaintances (after both 1 week and 4 months) compared to 51.4% from controls, who were also asked to generate 15 name-colour pairs of their choice (after a 1-week retention interval). …

In summary, this section has demonstrated that there is a tendency for GW to be more consistent than controls, despite the fact that her memory for paired associations in general is not superior. We attribute this discrepancy to synaesthesia.

It’s not universally applicable to testing all types of synesthesia (what would be?) but the same principles could be creatively adapted to testing many consistent forms of synesthetic association.

Things Synesthetes Say

samprimary — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 14:30:00 -0400

That was the problem. Facebook’s colors feel horrible to me. I’m stuck with it because you can’t change it, and the only thing worse than that is if people could change it. Remember MySpace? That was a nightmarish orgy of terrible sensations.

Soundscapes 2 ♦ Ubiquity by The Orb on Orblivion My Green...

samprimary — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 13:20:05 -0400

Soundscapes 2 ♦ Ubiquity by The Orb on Orblivion

My Green Standard for synesthetic music experiences. Also the song that originally made me realize I was definitely seeing colors when I listened to certain sounds. It’s an old song, and very strange, but for whatever reason, 1:33 through 2:21 is the brightest, craziest, most potent and vivid example of green I’ve ever listened to. A lush and luminescent set of greens ranging from mossy to brilliant sparkly emerald that float, taper, grow, and undulate in front of a crisp, black void.

In The Family, Act II

amberying — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:57:05 -0400

After the conversation with my parents about synesthesia, I created their color palettes and puzzled over them. Seeing all their colors together before me, I felt that I were seeing them for the first time.

Here’s Mom and Dad, I told Sam.

Wow! he said. Your dad is “Solar” by Eastern Sun. Your mom is Tosca’s “Busenfeund”.

I blinked. I am a synesthete and I love music, but the translation from people to color to music is still a little lost on me.

COLOURlovers

amberying — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:32:05 -0400

COLOURlovers:

I first discovered COLOURlovers when I was looking for a way to easily present color palettes for a web development project, and I have since used it as a way to catalogue people’s colors. One problem: The colors I see for someone are not always the same colors on the screen. The colors from the application always have a gloss, while sometimes someone is a soft matte.

HuffPo: Sonified, Synesthesia, And Livepaintings

amberying — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:17:06 -0400

HuffPo: Sonified, Synesthesia, And Livepaintings:

Perry Hall is an architect and an artist. He is also a synesthete who developed an application that turns what you see into what you hear. The app is called Sonified, and is available for both the iPhone and iPad for the price of $1.99.

While Sonified turns images into sound, Hall does the opposite. He doesn’t paint directly what he sees from synesthesia. Instead, he takes inspiration from sound and movement. Hall’s Sound Drawings are created by channelling sound in a vessel with different kinds of paint. The results are filmed. Another form of synesthesia-inspired art is Livepaintings, where Hall creates films of paintings that change over time.