Is synaesthesia actually ideaesthesia? An inquiry into the nature of the phenomenon (original) (raw)

Synaesthesia is traditionally described as a phenomenon of intermixed senses. This implies that both, the inducer and concurrent operate at the level of their sensory representations. For example, in the case of grapheme-colour synaesthesia, the sensory representation of one type, that of a grapheme, would induce a sensory representation of another type, a colour. This “sensory-sensory” view of synaesthesia has a long tradition as it is embedded also into the very name of the phenomenon: “syn”+”aisthesis” (in Greek: unity of senses). However, evidence has accumulated suggesting that we should break out with this tradition and adopt a different view of the phenomenon. In this view, only the concurrent operates at the sensory level of representation. The inducer, in contrast, contributes from the semantic level of representations—a processing stage at which the meaning of the stimulus is extracted and represented. Therefore, synaesthesia can be understood as an unusual type of a “semantic” association whereby, in addition to wiring up different concepts, synaesthesia wires concepts to sensory activations. Thus, a more accurate name of the phenomenon is ideaesthesia, coined from “idea”+”aisthesis” (in Greek: sensing concepts).