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Imagine a world of magenta Tuesdays, tastes of blue, and symphonies seen as well as heard. At least one in a hundred otherwise normal people experience the world this way in a condition called synesthesia, in which stimulation of one sense triggers an experience in a different sense. Synesthesia is a fusion of different sensory perceptions, though most synesthetes are unaware their experiences are in any way unusual.
Synesthesia is far more important scientifically than a mere curiosity. In this CHAST lecture at the University of Sydney, world authority David Eagleman explains its wild variety of forms, and shows how his laboratory studies these experiences in the brain, using tools from genetics to advanced neuroimaging.
University of Sydney, June 2009