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Synesthesia is when stimuli from one sense is perceived as sensation from a different sense, as in tasting colors and smelling music. Terri Timely created this video to illustrate the concept. -via DocPop
“95% to 98% of people choose kiki for the angular shape and bouba for the rounded one… Even 2.5 year-old children (too young to read) show this effect.”
“Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary. The rounded shape may intuitively be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound, while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to articulate kiki. The sound of K is also harder and more forceful than that of B. Such “synesthesia-like mappings” suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and actions in the world.”
Link.
Space time continuum may be the stuff of Star Trek, but it’s not mere fiction to Holly Branigan. The Edinburgh University psychologist can actually "see" time:
"I thought everyone thought like I did, says Holly Branigan, also a scientist at Edinburgh University, and someone with time-space synaesthesia.
"I found out when I attended a talk in the department that Julia was giving. She said that some synaesthetes can see time. And I thought, ‘Oh my god, that means I’ve got synaesthesia’."
So what exactly does she see?
"For me it’s a bit like a running track," she says.
"The track is organised around the academic year. The short ends are the summer and Christmas holidays – the summer holiday is slightly longer.
"It’s as if I’m in the centre and I’m turning around slowly as the year goes by. If I think ahead to the future, my perspective will shift."
BBC News science reporter Victoria Gill has the story: Link
