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Unlocking Synesthesia: Bridging Language, Metaphor, and Abstract Thought

This exploration into synesthesia delves into pressing questions surrounding its nature as a sensory or cognitive phenomenon. It investigates the underlying brain mechanisms, examining aspects such as genetic factors, brain anatomy, and perceptual psychophysics. Through seven key insights, including emotional reactions and the correlation with temporal lobe epilepsy, we unravel the connections between synesthesia and language evolution. Theories from prominent thinkers provide a multifaceted view of how synesthesia might influence metaphor and abstract thought, thereby enhancing our understanding of cognition.

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Unlocking Synesthesia: Bridging Language, Metaphor, and Abstract Thought

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  1. Synesthesia: The Key to Understanding Language, Metaphor and Abstract Thought V. S. Ramachandran Center for Brain and Cognition University of California, San Diego vramacha@ucsd.edu

  2. The Four Key Questions • Is synesthesia real? • Is it a genuine sensory phenomenon or a cognitive one? • What are the precise brain mechanisms? • What are its precise broader implications (i.e., what’s the big deal)?

  3. The Seven Pieces of the Puzzle • Runs in families • Angular gyrus and dyscalculia • More common in artists & poets • Synthesthetic metaphors • Increased emotional reactions • Correlation with TLE • Evolution of language

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  6. Phenomenology • The Martian Color Effect and qualia • Patchy colors • Letter precedence effect • Apparent motion

  7. Some Striking Facts! color-blind synesthetes imagining numbers

  8. Galton’s Number Lines: real or bogus?

  9. Number Line 1 11 12 13 14 2 10 15 9 3 8 16 5 6 7 17 18 19

  10. SYNESTHESIA 1) genes 2) brain anatomy 3) perceptual psychophysics 4) metaphor, abstract thought, Shakespeare “hierarchical reductionism: NOT bad reductionism”

  11. Neural Basis of Abstraction

  12. Theories of Language Evolution • Wallace: Divine Intervention • Chomsky: Emergent physical properties • Gould: Specific manifestation of a more general purpose mechanism, such as thinking • Pinker: A mechanism evolved through natural selection as a specific adaptation for communication (i.e. “adaptationism”)

  13. Theories of Language Evolution • Wallace: Divine Intervention • Chomsky: Emergent physical properties • Gould: Specific manifestation of a more general purpose mechanism, such as thinking • Pinker: A mechanism evolved through natural selection as a specific adaptation for communication (i.e. “adaptationism”) • Ramachandran/Hubbard: Synesthetic bootstrapping theory of language

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