"SYNESTHESIA: HEARING COLORS, TASTING SHAPES
How the brain finds constancy in an inconstant world"
Imagine a world of salty vision, purple odors, and wavy–green symphonies. People who experience the world like this have synesthesia—an *involuntary* linking of the senses that, for example, results in the sound of a voice being not only heard, but also seen, felt, or tasted.
Neurologist Richard Cytowic, a pioneer in the field and textbook author, explains how synesthesia is more than a medical curiosity, having challenged conventional notions about the brain and having led to new models of brain organization. One such concern is how the brain takes the constantly changing flux that bombards it and assigns constant features to objects. For example, color––so prominent in synesthetic perception––is a constant property extracted from ever changing wavelength composition.
This lecture has ample illustrations of synesthetic experience.
No special knowledge is required––only a curious mind.