What is synesthesia?
KO: Synesthesia is a neuropsychological condition commonly described as a ‘merging of
senses’ in which stimulation of one sense (such
as sound or smell) automatically evokes a perception in an unrelated sense (such as vision
or touch). According to the Oxford Handbook
of Synesthesia, about 4.4% of the population is synesthetic. The most common form is
grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters or
numbers induce the perception of colors. Many
forms exist, including auditory-visual (in which
sounds or music induce the perception of colors
and shapes), sequence-space (in which numbers
or dates evoke specific spatial locations), and
lexical-gustatory synesthesia (in which hearing,
reading, or saying words triggers flavor sensations).
Lauren has a rare and mostly uncharacterized
form of olfactory-visual synesthesia, in which
scents and smells induce the perception of
colors, shapes, and textures in her mind’s eye.
According to demographics collected by Sean
Day, the president of the American Synesthesia
Association, only about 6.45% of synesthetes
have odor-vision synesthesia. However, we are
anecdotally aware of multiple perfumers who
may have some form of synesthesia, including
the famous perfumer Frederic Malle. Lauren
also has auditory-visual synesthesia, in which
music or sounds trigger visual images, colors,
and shapes.
LS: Synesthesia occurs when different senses
combine. I have synesthesia and experience
sounds and smells as shapes, colors, and textures projected in my mind’s eye. While this
might sound disruptive, I have always perceived
the world this way, so it is normal, for example,
for me to not like someone’s voice because it
sounds like the smell of blue cheese. When I
hear music or smell perfumes, I also see colors and shapes. For example, when I smell the
fragrance “Carnal Flower” by Frederic Malle,
which has tuberose absolute, eucalyptus, jasmine, and coconut, I see a hazy, fuzzy sheer
green background with sheer burgundy rectangles throughout. When I hear the song ‘Ur’
by SZA, an alternative R&B singer-songwriter,
I see a watery reddish-orange background with
a lattice of small brown tubes at the bottom.
There can also be interference between sound
and smell. This can be useful in situations such
as concerts, where you don’t want to smell
SciArt in America April 2015
anything, or walking near the Gowanus Canal
(a thin cesspool of a canal that runs through
Gowanus, Brooklyn and smells like an unwashed reptile house).
What is your project?
KO: Lauren and I are exploring the question,
“Is there a connection between the synesthetic
visual experience caused by a scent or fragrance and some property or properties of the
fragrance itself ?” At the current moment, we
are focusing our energies on figuring out a way
to quantify Lauren’s synesthetic perceptions.
Because she has two forms of synesthesia (auditory and olfactory) that generate very similar
perceptions of color, shape, and texture, we are
also using music to work on understanding and
characterizing her visual perceptions.
LS: My goal with this project is to see if there’s
a pattern to my perceptions. What causes
something to smell purple? What causes something to sound acidic (a pointy texture with an
associated perception of acidic taste)? How can
different songs all have the same color scheme?
Why can I see colors in my head that I’ve never
seen with my eyes?
How did you become interested in studying synesthesia?
LS: I first met Karen as a tutor. She had
guessed that I had synesthesia before meeting
me, as she’d heard that I work with fragrances.
So we decided to do a project about my synesthesia, and quickly discovered that there wasn’t
anything written about olfactory synesthesia,
and very little about auditory. Karen had previously met a scientist who works in olfaction,
and so we went to Yale to learn more about
olfaction. I gave a presentation about my olfactory synesthesia, and the scientists there suggested a variety of projects for me to explore
my synesthesia in more depth.
KO: I always loved popular science books and
so encountered descriptions of synesthesia in
high school or before. However, it wasn’t until
college that I actually encountered a synesthete
in real life. A classmate asked to borrow my
chemistry notes, and upon realizing they were
color-coded by concept and keywords, complained loudly that my colors were “all wrong.”
It turned out that the colored words clashed
with her color-letter synesthesia. Another good
friend of mine has multiple forms of synesthesia, including auditory-visual and olfactory-visu-
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