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This review provides a commentary on coloured-hearing arising on hearing music: music-colour synaesthesia. Although traditionally explained by the hyperconnectivity theory (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001a) and the disinhibited feedback theory (Grossenbacher & Lovelace, 2001) as a purely perceptual phenomenon, the review of eight coloured-hearing neuroimaging studies shows that it may not be assumed that these explanations are directly translatable to music-colour synaesthesia. The concept of ‘ideaesthesia’ (Nikolić, 2009) and the role of conceptual and semantic inducers challenge the likelihood of a single mechanism underlying the cause of synaesthesia and argue for a move away from a purely sensory to sensory explanation. Finally, music-colour synaesthesia forms a challenge for established philosophical theories and the position of synaesthesia is considered within the larger context of musical qualia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explored perceived material properties (roughness, texturedness, and hardness) with a novel approach that compares perception, image statistics and brain activation, as measured with fMRI. We initially asked participants to rate 84 material images with respect to the above mentioned properties, and then scanned 15 of the participants with fMRI while they viewed the material images. The images were analyzed with a set of image statistics capturing their spatial frequency and texture properties. Linear classifiers were then applied to the image statistics as well as the voxel patterns of visually responsive voxels and early visual areas to discriminate between images with high and low perceptual ratings. Roughness and texturedness could be classified above chance level based on image statistics. Roughness and texturedness could also be classified based on the brain activation patterns in visual cortex, whereas hardness could not. Importantly, the agreement in classification based on image statistics and brain activation was also above chance level. Our results show that information about visual material properties is to a large degree contained in low-level image statistics, and that these image statistics are also partially reflected in brain activity patterns induced by the perception of material images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the question of whether we can visually represent something as having semantic value. Something has semantic value if it represents some property, thing or concept. An argument is offered that we can represent semantic value based on a variety of number-color synesthesia. This argument is shown to withstand several objections that can be lodged against the popular arguments from phenomenal contrast and from the mundane example of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is estimated that as many as 4% of people experience some form of enhanced cross talk between (or within) the senses, known as synaesthesia, very little is understood about the level of information processing required to induce a synaesthetic experience. In work presented here, we used a well-known multisensory illusion called the McGurk effect to show that synaesthesia is driven by late, perceptual processing, rather than early, unisensory processing. Specifically, we tested 9 linguistic-color synaesthetes and found that the colors induced by spoken words are related to what is perceived (i.e., the illusory combination of audio and visual inputs) and not to the auditory component alone. Our findings indicate that color-speech synaesthesia is triggered only when a significant amount of information processing has occurred and that early sensory activation is not directly linked to the synaesthetic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author considers the phenomenon of synesthesia, defining it as intersensory association formed by similarity or "contiguity" of heteromodal perceptions. The results of this associative process (occurring mainly at the subconscious level), when coming to the light of consciousness, may be fixed either in verbal form or directly in the sensuous material of the nonverbal arts (most significantly music). Synesthesia calls forth such notions as "melody line," "the hearing space" and "tone color," and makes it possible to perceive sounds and chords as "sharp," "dull" or "high." Synesthesia (and the particular case of "color hearing") is the essential component of musical thinking, first of all, in music intended to evoke images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a universal and often unconscious tendency to mentally associate the number sequence with a spatial continuum (the mental number line). Here we study one individual who reports a strong and vivid sense of space when processing numbers. For him, the number sequence has a precise spatial form: a curvilinear right-to-left oriented line. We used various tasks to demonstrate that this numerical–spatial association is not a mere figment of his imagination, but a constrained experiential phenomenon consistent across sessions and automatically triggered by the visual presentation of numbers. We also show that this idiosyncratic representation can coexist with another implicit association, the SNARC effect (Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes, where small numbers are associated with the left side of space). This effect is present in individuals without explicit number forms and is not affected in the present subject in spite of his reversed subjective representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents some of the studies on the perception and production of music. A tentative schema of the anatomy of music perception as a result of PET, functional magnetic resonance imaging and lesion data, is presented. Clinical impairments of musical function such as amusia, synesthesia, and musical hallucinations, are described.

The authors discuss potential neural mechanisms that contribute to the developmental form of mirror-touch synesthesia and the role of the self-other representations on vicarious experiences of touch in mirror-touch synesthesia. They examine the findings of previous studies done on the subject that delineates the neural mechanisms that contribute to developmental mirror-touch.

Synaesthesia has been known to scientific research for over 100 years but has undergone something of a renaissance recently as new investigations begin to uncover its neurological basis. Rather than being an anomaly, it might offer beneficial insights into the basis of normal perception. A new study by Esterman et al. epitomises this current trend and claims to show that the posterior parietal cortex is a crucial locus of synaesthetic experience. As the posterior parietal cortex is commonly linked to normal sensory integration, Esterman et al.''s finding might lend support to the claim that synaesthesia is an extension of the normal perceptual processes assumed to occur in binding. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The author reflects on the effect of synaesthesia on one's perception. It states that a person with synaesthesia will experience letters and numbers with colours or textures as this condition comes in many varieties. It discusses a story of a woman who had synaesthesia since childhood. It suggests that physicians, parents, and educators should all be aware of this condition to avoid showing lost concern when hearing a synaesthete's unusual description of the world.

The article presents a description of a condition called synaesthesia from a woman in her mid-40s, who lived with the condition since childhood. The woman disclosed to a friend when she was about 15 years old that her numbers were colours, who thought she was weird. It is noted that synaesthesia prompted the woman to develop her own systems and methods to cope up with her condition, which was not largely ignored until she sought help for her depression. A doctor's perspective on the woman's condition is also presented.

The author discusses the common and harmless perceptual condition called synaesthesia. He describes the various forms of synaesthesia, as well as the basic synaesthetic perceptions of colors, shapes, or textures. He argues that people afflicted with the condition do not seek medical help and they do not need support groups. He also encourages doctors to learn about the condition to avoid labeling it as a peculiar type of cognitive fragmentation.

The article discusses the process of synesthesia, a condition wherein the senses are mixed. According to the author, there are new research which suggests that visual sense affects how people perceive odors, an example cited as a form of synesthesia. It also mentions that the common form of synesthesia is when people see letters of the alphabet and numbers to be shaded or tinged with colors. Synesthetes is inherited through the families, though there are no accurate information of the inheritance.

Discusses research being done on synaesthesia, a perceptual anomaly in which stimulation of one sense can cause vivid sensations in another modality. Reference to a study by Jason B. Mattingley et al., published in the 2001 issue of the journal "Nature"; Examples of a synaesthete experience; Occurrence of the abnormal binding of different sensory properties.