Anatomy of a Lecture: Part 3

So far, I’ve talked about deciding on a new lecture topic, and the prep work that went into it. This time, I’ve got a collection of links to websites on synesthesia. I know I promised a “ridiculous” number of links, but these aren’t all the resources I used; I’m not going to link you to scientific journal articles, and, er, I can’t link to an actual book. Still, there’s lots of good stuff out there (and it’s not overly technical).

Tests: Think you’ve got synesthesia? Take one of these tests and find out for sure (the first one is a “real” test, the others are not so hot).

• The Synesthesia Battery is David Eagleman’s rigorous, standardized test of synesthesia
• Synaesthesia Toolkit from Multisense Synaesthesia Research lab, directed by Prof. Julia Simner at the University of Sussex
  
• Synesthesia tests has a number of different, um, synesthesia tests (unfortunately, it’s in poorly translated English)
• Synesthesia Test assesses your grapheme → colour synesthesia (but if you simply click on the same colour over and over though, it hilariously thinks you have synesthesia!)

Simulations: If you don’t have synesthesia, it may be hard to imagine what it must be like. Here are some simulations of it.

• animator Samantha Moore's video An Eyeful of Sound  represents her visual experience of sounds, in collaboration with Dr Jamie Ward
• a sort-of simulation of grapheme → colour synesthesia: type letters and watch them change colours
• a strange Java applet that turns visual images into sound, called The vOICe
• here’s a musical sketch pad that turns your drawings into sound
• experience sound generated from watercolour paintings by an artist
• the Music Animation Machine lets you turn any piece of music into a coloured visual display

Documentaries: Here are the best documentaries I’ve found--some from TV, some web-based. If you come across a particularly good video, send it my way.

• I think the best one so far was produced by the BBC series Horizon, called “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (love that title). It also aired in the US as “When Senses Collide” and “When Senses Overlap” (available on YouTube)
• ResearchChannel has another good one, called Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World (available on YouTube). BoingBoing has an abridged version as well (available on YouTube).
• Another Discovery Channel show, One Step Beyond, has a brief video on synesthesia that features interviews with David Eagleman and noted synesthete Sean Day (available on HowStuffWorks).
• The Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast has an episode on Synesthesia
  

Magazine articles: (sorry)

• Everyday fantasia: The world of synesthesia from the APA Monitor
• “Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes” by V.S. Ramachandran and E. M. Hubbard in Scientific American
• Do you see what they see? from Discover Magazine
• The Most Beautiful Painting You’ve Ever Heard from SEED magazine

Books/book authors:

• Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia - on Richard Cytowic’s website
• Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia - on David Eagleman’s website
• The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses - by Jamie Ward
  (related animations are on YouTube)
• Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant - by Daniel Tammet
• Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens by Patricia Lynne Duffy is an older book

Organizations:

• Canadian Synesthesia Association
• American Synesthesia Association
• UK Synaesthesia Association

Websites by/for/about synesthetes: Sometimes, it’s best to hear what synesthesia is like first-hand, from those who experience it.

• Sean Day’s Synesthesia website
• The Synesthesia Tree
  
• r/Synesthesia Reddit
• otherthings.com
• Synaesthesia.com
• sensequence

Other good stuff: These links don't fit into any other category, but are worth a look.

• the Wikipedia article on synesthesia is actually pretty good--honestly (so is the page on synesthesia in art)
• the Scholarpedia article on synesthesia is also quite good
• and then there’s the synesthesia article at The Psychology Wiki
• Go Cognitive has a series of interview videos with researcher Jamie Ward
• Scientific American answers the question, What is synesthesia?
• Ramachandran and Hubbard answer some questions about synesthesia
• Ramachandran’s Reith Lecture on BBC radio, titled “Purple numbers and sharp cheese”
• Ramachandran’s TED lecture includes some of his work on synesthesia
• Crossing Sensory Boundaries from Wired Science discusses synesthesia and binding

Research groups/researchers: If you want more hard-core knowledge, you can find lots of peer-reviewed research articles here.

• Educational Neuroscience Lab -- Ed Hubbard's lab at University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Eagleman Lab -- at Stanford University
• David Eagleman -- personal website
• Synaesthesia Research -- at University of Sussex (Jamie Ward)

Qualia: “Qualia” is the term used by philosophers to mean our internal subjective experience--you know, do you “see” red like I “see” red? Synesthesia has been called “qualia becoming deranged.” If philosophy is your thing, here's some more about qualia in general.

• until Scholarpedia's article on qualia is ready, you might as well start at Wikipedia
• here's a very brief introduction
• now, here's a whole website devoted to qualia: The Qualia Manifesto
• finally, here's a really long paper on the qualia of colour experience

And if that isn’t enough for you, Crétien van Campen has collection of over 50 synesthesia websites, and a bibliography of Synesthesia in Art and Science that's over 50 pages long. Is that ridiculous enough for you?

Why aren't you studying?

(12/31/2023: Links updated)