Try to imagine what happens in the minds of people who, while listening to a piece of music with their eyes closed, see three-dimensional images similar to spirals or perceive perfumes that intoxicate the sense of smell. Or in people who, when they read numbers, instead of seeing a symbol on the paper, perceive them with specific spatial positions.

We are talking about synesthetic people, that is, individuals who constantly have perceptions triggered by different sensory inputs. “According to a study by the University of Bergen in Norway, about 20% of the population has had these particular sensations at least once in their lives,” explains Antonio Cerasa neuroscientist at the Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (Irib) of the National Research Council. “Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman said in this regard, ‘when I see equations, I always see letters in color,’ describing one of the most studied forms of synesthesia called grapheme-color, a condition in which individuals perceive colors associated with letters and numbers…”

 

 

Original article by Emanuele Guerrini published on CNR Almanacco della Scienza: almanacco.cnr.it