A synesthete is someone who, upon experiencing an input on one input, may experience an input on another input as well. Some of the best well known are those who associate colors with numbers. One of the rarest? NewScientist (26 November 2016) has the info:
WHEN you think about last April, what do you imagine? If you see a crisp image of a calendar in front of you, you might be a calendar synaesthete. …
Only a few people have calendar synaesthesia. To find out if they are having a real sensory experience, a team led by Vilayanur Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego, tested two synaesthetes.
One [synaesthete], known as ML, sees her months as occupying an asymmetrical “V” shape. When asked at intervals to draw her calendar on a screen using a laser pointer, the angles and lengths of the V shape were always identical.
ML also appears able to use her calendar to easily navigate backwards through time. When asked to recite every third month backwards, she took 1.88 seconds per month, compared with 4.48 seconds in eight non-synaesthetes (Neurocase, doi.org/bs3j). “During the task we noticed that ML appeared to be inspecting her calendar,” says Ramachandran.
The cross-connections in one’s brain are fascinating. I have to wonder if there are evolutionary implications in synaesthetes. Nothing springs right to mind, but I’d be happy to entertain thoughts on the matter.
