Synesthesia+and+Absolute+Pitch

=**Synesthesia and Absolute Pitch**= Andy Diep
 * “I ated the purple berries! Ow…They taste like…burning!” - Ralph Wiggum**

Poor Ralph just has his senses mixed up. However, some people truly possess the special ability of receiving multiple involuntary sensory experiences from a single stimulus, a condition called synesthesia. For example, a person with this ability would be able to taste sweetness when presented with the color blue, smell the scent of vanilla when presented with the number 9, or see green when hearing the note C-sharp. It is estimated that one in twenty-three individuals have some form of synesthesia, however, the validity of this estimate is uncertain due to the fact that most studies on this subject rely on self-selection.¹ Synesthetes, those with synesthesia, are sometimes able to apply their gifts through memorization of names, telephone numbers, mental arithmetic, and most relevant to us, differentiate between pitches.¹

In his study, “Synesthesia-like mappings of lightness, pitch, and melodic interval”, Timothy L. Hubbard explores the relationship between brightness and pitch with synesthetes. For one of his experiments, T.L. Hubbard had his subjects match the pitch of an adjustable auditory stimulus to the lightness of a fixed visual target.² T.L. Hubbard’s subjects were presented with pairs of squares differing in luminance and sine wave tones of eight different frequencies. They were asked to rate how well the square and tone fit together on a scale from one to nine (one being a mismatch). T.L. Hubbard found through his experiment that a correlation did exist between luminance and pitch in his subjects. Some correlated high luminance with high pitches while others felt high luminance correlates with low pitches. Regardless, this shows that certain luminance levels and pitches are associated with each other and luminance can be used to determine a pitch for these subjects.

T.L. Hubbard’s experiments demonstrated associations between two different sensory perceptions can exist however it does not prove that they are completely involuntary. In the article “Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes” by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard, the involuntary nature of synesthesia was tested. Synesthetes who correlated numbers with colors were used as subjects. The numbers two and five were arranged in various geometric patterns (e.g. a triangle of twos in a sea of fives). Due to the perceived difference of colors, a synesthete should be able to distinguish the pattern instantaneously – which they did. Unlike non-synesthetes, synesthetes were able to point out the shape correctly 90% of the time, a success rate identical to that of subjects presented with actual color coated numbers.³

Since synesthetes experience dual sensations, it is much easier for them to recognize specific stimuli. Not only do they have a sort of built in redundancy helping them, their second sensory experience is usually something with small just noticeable differences like taste and color. For synesthetes who have other senses stimulated by auditory inputs, differentiating pitch is usually an easy task. These synesthetes have a higher probability of possessing absolute pitch.
 * Figure 1**: Depiction of image seen by a non-synesthete and synesthete from left to right respectively

¹"Synesthesia." __Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia__. 14 May 2009 . ²Hubbard, Timothy L. __Synesthesia-like mapping of lightness, pitch, and melodic interval__. Thesis. University of Arizona, 1996. __American Journal of Psychology__ 109: 219-38 . ³Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., and Edward M. Hubbard. "Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes: Scientific American." __Science News, Articles and Information | Scientific American__. 14 May 2009 .
 * References**

psy.ucsd.edu/chip/pdf/Synaesthesia%20-%20JCS.pdf http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.html
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