Hearing-motion synesthesia
Synaesthesia is a fascinatingly strange neurological condition in which two ore more senses are linked so that someone, for example, might "taste" sounds or "hear" colors. Now, researchers have confirmed a new kind of synaesthesia where individuals "hear" motion. In experiments conducted at the California Institute of Technology, synaesthetes heard beeps or taps when presented with visual flashes. From Scientific American Mind:
Previously on BB:
• Synaesthete's taste for music
• Technological synaesthesia
• Synesthete psychics
“I think of these people as having an enhanced soundtrack in life,” (neuroscientist Melissa) Saenz says. Her team is conducting brain-imaging studies to try to tease out the roots of that soundtrack as well as how a typical brain combines visual and auditory signals to improve perception.Hearing-motion synaesthesia (SciAm Mind)
Previously on BB:
• Synaesthete's taste for music
• Technological synaesthesia
• Synesthete psychics
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Can you hear Steve Austin's Bionics, now!?!
Huh. I had always assumed that video games had trained my brain to expect a sound with a visual signal--so my brain fills the missing sound in, the way it fills in a missig leter in a wrd. Synaesthesia is a much cooler explanation.
#1, I'd much rather hear his bionics than taste or feel his bionics.
Hearing colors, tasting sounds, and hearing motion sounds at least fun and possibly even useful... transcribing physical pain into musical notes (with specific keys and all) like I do doesn't seem to be all that popular. At least not popular enough to confirm. :P
I've smelt music before, smelt like the streets of new york. I was listening to house music at the time. I'd had three tabs of LSD and couldn't see properly so...I sometimes think i can experience fractions of the senses of the people who made the music i'm listening to at the time they made the music. Feel the vibes of their time.
I've had this all my life.
I knew it was different, but not nearly as pronounced as tasting colors or smelling words or anything.
When I see motion, I 'hear' a faint, indistinct noise that goes with it. A subvocalized whoosh or thud or bump that I hear in the same way as the voices I hear when I'm reading a book or thinking to myself.
Now all we need is a little white cane we can throw around, and a red costume with little horns...
I "sense" numerical values for the colours I see, usually 1 ordinal number and 2 decimal places... for example, 2.45 is caramel colour. it might help if you imagine the numbers from The Matrix, except I experience them the way some people might feel "deja vu" or having a word on the tip of the tongue... it's sort of tugging feeling at the brain.
it runs in my family - the women, anyway. we argue amongst ourselves about what number represents each colour, so we know it isn't a learned association (the way it would be if we all associated the colours of the visual spectrum - the rainbow - with the numbers 1 through 9). it's not-quite syneasthesia, but it's still pretty cool.
I love the brain. yay evolution!
I've experienced the opposite of this. Usually happens late at night when I am in a dark place and I close my eyes. If I hear a noise I see a visual flash or a burst of colors in my mind. After the noise goes away the colors stop. If I hear another noise I get another burst of color. It only happens rarely.
The only time I've ever tasted color is on LSD. But, that was a long time ago and purple was the best tasting color for some reason.
I watched a great program on the Science network about this .... you should try and catch it if you are interested. Had some great interviews with people with different flavors of this....
Even some brothers and sisters had the same synesthesia with colors and sounds with just a shade difference in some words while others matched.
I felt sorry for a man in England who tastes words ... some of his friends names apparently tasted like poo ...
You can watch the program here....
http://science.discovery.com/search/results.html?query=synesthesia&search.x=0&search.y=0&search=search
I thought I was experiencing this. One night as I was watching the Leonid meteor showers I remember hearing a distinct sizzle coincident with each meteor flash.
I thought I was crazy. "No way I'd hear a sound coincident with a flash of light tens or hundreds of miles away," I thought.
So figured it was either just my imagination or synesthesia.
But THEN I read this!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_6_111/ai_87854873
Off-topic a bit, but cool.
For me, colognes and perfumes have always had a "color" that I smell, in addition to the scent itself.
Much stranger things happen when chemically enhanced, though...
PFFFT@11: That is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
This isn`t normal? I hear bangs, much like falling pots and pans if light flashes... And, it goes the other way around. If I hear a very loud sound, I see a bright flash. It`s most annoying at night and something wakes me up or happens while I`m trying to get to sleep - which was it? Flash of light from the window? Something falling in the kitchen?
Drives me crazy.
When I`m fully awake, I can tell which is "real".
@Minvaren: I have the same! Perfumes usually have a color for me - and mostly it's not the color of the flacon! That really bugs me sometimes, when I'm in the mood for a purple perfume and when I apply it it smells "white".
But for me it's mostly numbers and colors. Like the three is yellow, five red etc. Long numbers like 1089 are the mix of each figure, so mostly it's an ugly brown.
Moods also cause tastes on the tounge.
But I don't have anything with sound or motion :( And as far as I know sound synesthesia is rare anyway.
my spidey sense is tingling!
I made an animated film about synesthesia. check it out if u like.
http://www.vimeo.com/1220897
i think i have this disease!! i always hear a funny sound at the same time as i smell a bad odour!