Synesthesia And Music And Understanding The Mechanisms

Synesthesia is when any two or more senses of the human body or perceptual pathways are linked. When one sense is activated so is another. So when you are eating, you may feel as if you are tasting a color instead, or when you see a color you may think of a shape. It affects 1 out of 2,000 peopled believed to be genetic, it is demonstrated more commonly in females and individuals who are left handed. Synesthesia is not diagnosed as a disease, those affected usually have average intelligence and no greater risk of mental disorders.

There are six senses in total and these are known as languages of the mind, or ‘modalities’. These are Sight, hearing, feeling, smell and taste, although the last two can be put into the ‘feeling’ category. We use all of our senses in a particular situation but all of us will have a favourite which we are more comfortable with and are likely to fall back on in times of crisis. (Chrysalis pg. 4)

28. Synesthesia is a literary term used to describe a word using senses. For example, some people describe art to be “loud” or “quite” .

Your senses work together to let you know what’s around you. You can see, smell, and touch beautiful flowers, while also hearing bees buzzing happily nearby. You can also feel the rays of the sun warming your body. Your senses are working together. Let’s explore them!

Imagine walking past a garden with an assortment of flowers. Now close your eyes and take in each distinguishing familiar smell. As you take a whiff you smell the differences between the roses, lilies, and even tulips. We can tell the sound of a drum from that of a gong; the touch of cool, smooth marble as we run our fingers over it distinctively feeling the difference from that of sandpaper. Our everyday lives are continuous experiences of sensations. These sensations have characteristic qualitative features, which are called “phenomenal”, “phenomenological” or “sensory” qualities. In philosophical terms these sensations can be referred to as qualia, which are defined as properties of experiences that type them in phenomenological respects .

Music has been apart of society for thousands of years and an outlet for people's stress and other problems they may be facing. It helps the brain function and understand conditions better by breaking it down and trying to comprehend it. Music has made and is still making an impact on the lives of people all around the world. Because of its impact on peoples lives neuroscientist wanted to get to the source and have been looking at the brain to determine the exact effects of music and they can now answer the question, what effects does music have on the brain? Listening to music can send pleasure to your mind, decide your emotions, lower stress, and improve learning.

Imagine if you had a condition that made you have a different perception on the world than others. How would you react emotionally if you tasted something each time you heard a certain word or even saw colors when you listened to music? “Synesthesia; the neurological phenomenon that couples two or more senses in 4% of the population,” (Cytowic, Richard) can alter your senses to enhance another sense involuntarily (Dickinson, Annie). This means that two of the five senses would associate with each other to be used in sync. The five senses, sight, smell, sound, taste and touch can be used, however in this case, the senses sight and sound are combined and this is called chromesthesia. Synesthetes, those who have chromesthesia, will hear sounds

Ward and colleagues present a series of studies to examine a group of synaesthetes who associate color with music and other sounds. This first experiment aims to compare the influences of pitch and timbre on color experience in both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes. Ten sound-color synaesthetes (with the mean age of 42.4 years) and 10 control participants participated in this study. Seventy different sound stimuli that represent a range of pitches (33 Hz to 1245 Hz) and timbres (e.g. piano, string and pure tone notes) were used. Participants were seated in from of a computer and wore a pair of headphones in dimmed room. They were required to hear a sound and selected a color by using either a basic palette of 48 preset colors or a more fine-grained

Synesthesia is a neurologically induced phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sense causes an individual to also experience a reaction from another sense. For example, a person affected by the aforementioned condition might experience tactile information when they see other people receiving it firsthand or they might associate certain numbers with a particular smell, color, or taste. Some recent work done by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and coworkers (2005) show us that a phenomenon known more specifically as mirror-touch synesthesia is heavily influenced by the activity of mirror neurons that fire not only when a certain stimulus is perceived by an individual but also when they see another individual perform the action too.

The video covered three main topics. The first topic was how the brain processes music. The brain recognizes a melody as a pattern. Pitch is determined by the number of sound vibrations per second, and the tone color of the instrument being used determines the amount of harmonics. If several instruments are playing, the brain picks out each by separating the pitch of the melody. The eardrum vibrates differently for low and high notes; also, the cells at the base of the cochlea register low notes and the cells farther up perceive high.

By far and large, people tend to take it for granted that the content of individuals’ subjective sensory experiences are relatively uniform with each other. The impressions of one are generally assumed by the one to represent the common sensory experiences of others by large. To assume such, however, is to overlook the diversity in one of, if not the most, fundamental aspects effecting consciousness and behavior. Perhaps, with a minimal degree of recognition, people can accept minor differences that manifest in common variances in preference of taste, color, thermostat setting, and the like. But when it comes to more marked differences in preference of and reaction to varying types and intensities of stimuli across a number of sensory modalities, people tend to be lacking in genuine understanding and empathy.

Many tests, surveys, games, etc. use a stimulation where the person involved has to read a word, a color, but the text is written in a color that is not the color written. Someone would have to name the color the text is written in, opposed to reading the word, or identify when the color of the text and the word match. For example, if the following was displayed on the screen: green, a person would have to say “red” because that is what the text is written in, or identify that the color and the word do not match. Everyone associates the name of a color with that color. But for people with grapheme-color synesthesia, it word association goes beyond this.

Synesthesia is a disorder found in about 2% of the world's population. This is a hereditary condition, often linked with genes passing from parent to offspring. People with synesthesia are able to combine multiple senses and can often visualize words as colors or taste sounds. Scientists are still unable to understand why evolution has kept synesthesia around for so long and whether or not it has hidden benefits that may be needed in the future.

Humans have five basic senses, Each sense is responsible for processing different information such as taste, touch, sound, smell, and sight. However, when the brain doesn’t process this information correctly it can result in the senses mixing information. This condition is called synesthesia, “Synesthesia is an anomalous blending of the senses in which the stimulation of one modality simultaneously produces the sensation in a different modality involuntarily”. People that have synesthesia have the ability to hear colors, feel sounds, taste shapes and combinations of other senses. People may think that this is something that is made up as anyone can make something up and no one will know if they are lying, however, a response from a synesthete is always the same. As an

The research strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication. An active engagement with musical sounds not only enhances neuroplasticity, but also enables the nervous system to provide the stable scaffolding of meaningful patterns so important to learning.