Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive NeuroscienceLynn C. Robertson, Noam Sagiv Owing to its bizarre nature and its implications for understanding how brains work, synesthesia has recently received a lot of attention in the popular press and motivated a great deal of research and discussion among scientists. The questions generated by these two communities are intriguing: Does the synesthetic phenomenon require awareness and attention? How does a feature that is not present become bound to one that is? Does synesthesia develop or is it hard wired? Should it change our way of thinking about perceptual experience in general? What is its value in understanding perceptual systems as a whole? This volume brings together a distinguished group of investigators from diverse backgrounds--among them neuroscientists, novelists, and synesthetes themselves--who provide fascinating answers to these questions. Although each approaches synesthesia from a very different perspective, and each was curious about and investigated synesthesia for very different reasons, the similarities between their work cannot be ignored. The research presented in this volume demonstrates that it is no longer reasonable to ask whether or not synesthesia is real--we must now ask how we can account for it from cognitive, neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. This book will be important reading for any scientist interested in brain and mind, not to mention synesthetes themselves, and others who might be wondering what all the fuss is about. |
Contents
Some Demographic and Sociocultural Aspects of Synesthesia | |
Varieties of Synesthetic Experience | |
On the Perceptual Reality of Synesthetic Color | |
Binding of Graphemes and Synesthetic Colors in Color | |
Synesthesia and the Binding Problem | |
Can Attention Modulate ColorGraphemic Synesthesia? | |
A Window on the Hard Problem of Consciousness | |
Some Clues from | |
A Reevaluation | |
Developmental Constraints on Theories of Synesthesia | |
Commentary | |
Other editions - View all
Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience Lynn C. Robertson,Noam Sagiv Limited preview - 2005 |
Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience Lynn C. Robertson,Noam Sagiv Limited preview - 2004 |
Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience Lynn C. Robertson,Noam Sagiv Snippet view - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
activation adults appear areas associations attention auditory awareness background Baron-Cohen behavioral binding blue brain Cognitive concurrents congruent connections consciousness consistent correspondences cortex cortical described digits display distractors Dixon early effect elicited et al evidence evoked example experience experienced experimental explain figure findings functional given graphemes Gray green hearing Hubbard human imaging incongruent individuals inducing infants influence involved Journal language learning letter light maps match Mattingley meaning mechanisms metaphors modality musical Nature neural Neuroscience nonsynesthetes normal notes objects observed occur particular pattern perceive perception performance perhaps plate possible presented prime probe problem processing Psychology qualia question Ramachandran regions reported response Science seems seen sense sensory shape showed similar Smilek sound spatial specific stimuli subjects suggests synesthesia synesthetic color synesthetic experience target task taste theory trials types University visual volume