A Kinesthetic Explanation Of Synesthesia

Running Head: SYNESTHESIA

Synesthesia

Emma Grace Hardin

West Texas A&M University

Imagine seeing color when listening to music, tasting shapes, or even tasting words when hearing someone speak. These are just a few examples of a condition called synesthesia. Synesthesia is the input of one sense that results in the experience of another sense. For example, when a synesthete, someone with synesthesia, looks at numbers, he or she may see different colors for each number. A one can be yellow, a two can be green, a three can be blue, etcetera; however, not all synesthetes have the same form of synesthesia. Some can taste words, some can hear colors, and some can even smell shapes. Synesthetes can experience almost any combination

Another explanation for synesthesia was that synesthetes had hyperactive imaginations, or that they were just having memories from their childhood from playing with the colored letter magnets on the refrigerator (Hubbard & Ramachandran, 2001), but none of these is an accurate explanation of synesthesia. Researchers have known about it for decades but never fully looked into it. It was not until around the 1900s when researchers started taking synesthesia seriously. Synesthesia is believed to be a genetic condition and is more common in girls. About 40% of synesthetes have a relative with synesthesia (Ramachandran, V., & Hubbard, E.,

Grapheme-color synesthetes, the most common, can see letters and numbers as different colors like the picture example. Not all synesthetes see the same numbers and letters as the same colors. Someone might see a “1” as blue, but someone else might see it as yellow. In lexical-gustatory synesthesia, people are able to taste different words, like in the case of James Wannerton. Synesthesia was first thought to be from drugs, hyperactive imaginations, or childhood memories, but that doesn’t explain why everybody doesn’t have synesthesia, but this does not accurately explain the condition. Synesthesia is a rare condition that only about 4% of the world has. Even though researchers have been studying synesthesia for years, they still have not been able to understand the meaning behind why some people have it and some do