In August of 2012, I conducted an interview with James Wannerton who has word to taste synesthesia. He is the President of the UK Synaesthesia Association. I conducted the interview in two parts. I began by asking questions about James’ personal experiences, in this case, about his taste-to-word synesthesia. After this introduction, the second part of the interview involved his own opinions about synesthesia, more precisely, the state of synesthesia in Europe and America and future endeavors for the UK Synaesthesia Association Annual Conference. How old are you? 53 Where were you born? Manchester, United Kingdom Do you have a family history of Synesthesia? My mother and younger sister both report mild forms. My sister perceives different typefaces in different colors and my mother sees days of the week in color. As far as I’m aware no other members of my immediate family have synesthesia. What is the best or your favorite definition of synesthesia? And, what kind of synesthesia do you have? For me, the most accurate definition has to be the very simple “Blending of the senses” because that’s exactly what my own synesthesia seems to do. Whenever I hear a sound, be it a word sound or an ambient sound, I experience a burst of taste and texture on various parts of my tongue – a real mouth-feel experience. This also happens when I see color. The sound may indeed trigger the synesthetic taste but this happens so instantaneously that to me it all blends together to form a whole experience. How did the synesthetic experiences affect your childhood? Did the synesthetic experiences help or hinder your abilities to perform schoolwork?  Along with the vast majority of synesthetes, I can’t remember not experiencing synesthesia so any difficulties I possibly had with pre- and early schoolwork would have been taken in my stride as does a child. It was certainly never mentioned in any of my school reports of me having any apparent difficulties. Whenever I recall any childhood memories they come back at me with what can sometimes be very intense flavors at the forefront which serve to help reel in the sound and vision of the event being remembered. So, if anything, my synesthesia possibly enhances my memory by providing me with such a strong memory hook. What I can say is that it undoubtedly affected my choice of friends. Now, when I recall the names of my childhood friends, they all have nice tastes attached. Can you give one or two names of those childhood friends? Some examples: Robert (taste & texture of a jam sandwich—with loads of jam); Simon (Sliced apple); Martin (Bakewell tart); Matthew (hard toffee)! The first time I became really aware...

We’ve received lots of inquiries about where find more information about synesthesia. Below is a list of some interesting books and websites to look at. You will see that many of the books are written by authors that have spent a lot of their careers studying synesthesia. The Robertson and Sagiv book, Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience, is perhaps the best academic source of current disputes in synesthesia research. We also included a few associations and Facebook groups dedicated to the study of synesthesia. As a bonus, check out the World Access for the Blind website. Founded by human echolocator Daniel Kish, the non-profit organization teaches the blind how to see the world based on sounds in the environment. Feel free to share other resources in the comment section below! Books Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds by Patricia Lynne Duffy Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses by Richard E. Cytowic Synesthesia: A “Golden Thread” Through Life? by Alexandra Dittmar Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience by Lynn C. Robertson and Noam Sagiv (eds.) The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia by Richard E. Cytowic, David M. Eagleman Associations American Synesthesia Association UK Synesthesia Association Facebook Groups I’m not a Freak, I’m a Synesthete. Synesthesia Human Echolocation World Access for the...

With all of the recent news surrounding the Chick-fil-A gay marriage fiasco, we thought it might be a good time to introduce one of our fictional synesthetes. Like many subjects, SM came to our site after Googling about synesthesia research. SM recently become aware she is a synesthete when she started talking with others about Chick-fil-A’s stance on gay marriage. It was during a conversation with her friend that SM realized she is a sandwich-to-sexuality synesthete. That is, she associates a particular sexual lifestyle with each type of Chick-fil-A sandwich. Since SM is a projector, she actually sees the sandwiches practicing their lifestyles out in space. For SM, the Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich is a lonely housewife who’s always regretted not letting her relationship blossom with her college roommate. The Chick-fil-A Deluxe Chicken Sandwich, the most popular among men ages 18-35, is a lipstick lesbian, while the Chick-fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich is just a plain bisexual. But perhaps the most interesting of all associations is that the Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich and the Chargrilled Chicken Club Sandwich are both gay and happily married. “I just can’t shake this image from my mind. They seem so normal and happy. That’s how I knew my synesthetic experience wasn’t veridical. Chick-fil-A would never make a sandwich like that.” SM says the sandwiches can’t help their sexuality—they were just created that way. And each sandwich is interesting. What would a menu be like with only one sandwich? SM associates sexuality not only with sandwiches, but also with a few other menu items. For example, the Chick-fil-A Nuggets do not yet have a sexual orientation but the bigger Chick-fil-A Chick-n-Strips seem to. For them, the associations sometimes change. The only monogamous straight individual on the menu is the Chargrilled & Fruit Salad. SM speculates as to why the salad is the straight one, “Salads think that because they’re mixtures of vegetables, they’re the healthy ones, but we all know that is often untrue. They’re always looking for something more. Once you add a little meat here, a little dressing there, salads can be just as unhealthy as sandwiches.” And don’t turn your back on the fries—they are the polyamorous ones, “I’ve never understood why the most popular item on every menu is always categorized as a ‘side’, says SM.” Some researchers believe that synesthesia is the brain’s way of dealing with difficult cognitive tasks. For example, grapheme-color synesthesia might be the brain’s way of learning written language. We believe the case is similar with SM. The Chick-fil-A menu is much like the alphabet—just like there are many letters that allow for the generation of tens of thousands of words, there are many possible combinations of menu items...

Synesthesia can occur between any two senses or perceptual modes. So, a synesthete might taste colors or smell sounds.  One of the most common forms of synesthesia is grapheme-color synesthesia. Grapheme-color synesthetes experience a color when they perceive a number or letter. For example, a grapheme-color synesthete may report that the number 5 is always a vibrant shade of red. When I first learned about this type of synesthesia, I wondered whether synesthetic experiences could be bidirectional. If synesthetes see numbers as colors, do they also see colors as numbers? There is a large body of research that suggests that synesthetic experiences only occur in one direction. Most of the research is supported by experiments that use a conflict situation called the Stroop task. The original Stroop tasks required participants to view color words in colors that did not match the word. The tasks considered the amount of time that it took participants to read the color word as opposed to the amount of time it took participants to report the color of the color word. Researchers found that in normal subjects, reading words is more automatic than naming the colors. A slightly different kind of Stroop task has been developed to test grapheme-color synesthetes. These Stroop tasks require synesthetes to view graphemes in a color that conflicts with their synesthetic color for the grapheme. So, a synesthete who experiences vibrant red 5s might be shown a screen with a deep blue 5. Researchers found that the when the color of the grapheme did not match their synesthetic color, synesthetes were slower to report the color of the grapheme on the screen (Dixon, Smilek, & Merikle, 2004). This suggests that the synesthetic experience of seeing a color when viewing a grapheme is automatic. Although synesthetes are capable of retrieving graphemes when shown certain colors, the process does not appear to be automatic in the same way. This difference has been enough evidence for several researchers to claim that synesthetic experiences only occur in one direction, or are unidirectional. The data from these Stroop tasks is an important contribution to the investigation of whether synesthesia is a unidirectional or bidirectional phenomenon, but I don’t think these results give us a final answer to the question. Kadosh and his colleagues believe that it is possible that synesthetic experiences are bidirectional. They have used imaging techniques to show that distinct activation patterns and time courses are associated with information flow from both directions (Kadosh et. al., 2007). Why should we care if synesthetic experiences are unidirectional or bidirectional? Well, figuring out this puzzle would be a big help to those who are trying to determine the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie...