ABSTRACT
Wonders of cognition Cognitive psychology often seems quite mechanical and abstract but some researchers explore the more remarkable qualities of our cognition.
Synaesthesia What is the colour of the letter M, or the number 6, or a prelude in E-minor? How do red circles taste? What do they sound like? If you know the answer to one of these questions you probably enjoy (or suffer from) synesthesia. Most of us, however, do not and the questions therefore look very strange. Surely this is the road to madness if you can taste images or see colours in sounds. This is not the case, however, and we probably all have some small experiences like this. Synesthesia (from the Greek syn = together, and aisthesis = perception) is the experience of a cross-modal association. In other words the stimulation of one of your senses causes a perception in one or more different senses. According to Baron-Cohen et al. (1996) at least 1 in 2000 of the population experiences synesthesia although many suspect it is more common. It is hard to obtain an estimate because many synesthetes are unaware that what they perceive is unusual. The study of synesthesia helps us to learn more about how the brain processes sensory information and how it makes abstract connections between inputs that seem to be unrelated.
