Everyday Psychology

Synesthesia Art. Source

Recently during my previous quarter at the university I had the opportunity to see guest lecturer, Romke Rouw from the University at Amsterdam, give a short lecture on Synesthesia. It was a very interesting and fun topic and I will be giving a short overview in this post.

Synesthesia: A perceptual experience in which a stimuli evokes another experience. In Synesthesia these experiences are not related to neurological, psychological, or psychiatric disease. An example of Synesthesia : hearing a particular instrument causes seeing a color.

The cause of Synesthesia is not certain but there are several plausible theories which have all been backed up by research. The Cross-Activation theory suggests that there is an activation of nearby brain regions caused by excess neuronal connections.

Grapheme-Color Synesthesia:  A specific type of Synesthesia in which a Grapheme (lowest unit of written language which includes: letters, numbers, punctuation) causes the experience of a color.

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