Learning to see sound. In March 2015, neurologists Jean-Michel Hupé and Michel Dojat studied the brain scans of synesthetes and found no evidence of any structural differences in their brains. “If none of the proposed structural or functional differences [claimed to exist in synesthesia are] confirmed,” they write, according to Discover, “this would speak against synesthesia being a neurological condition. But, then, what could be the nature of synesthesia?”
They proposed that synesthesia may be learned and arise from childhood memories. A 2014 study performed by Olympia Colizoli of University of Amsterdam supports this hypothesis to a certain extent. Colizoli trained a group of participants to associate colors with specific letters to simulate a grapheme-color synesthesia (one of the most common forms) by having participants read passages where specific letters were colored. Another 2014 study from the University of Sussex reviewed a 1944 study in which researchers successfully taught listeners to create sound-color synesthesia connections.
How exactly children learn sound-color synesthesia, and why some children retain the ability and some don’t, remains a mystery. But science is getting closer to finding an answer, and if it does nail down the process, it could prove to be a game changer for music education. In a February 2015 article for the Psychologist, Jack Dutton looked at research that found that people with chromaesthesia are more likely to engage with creative pursuits and play instruments, which would explain the long list of artists with that specific neurological profile.
“These findings imply that if scientists are able to figure out a way to teach people chromaesthesia, it may enhance how well people learn to read and compose music,” Dutton wrote.
Scientists largely declined to study synesthesia until around the 1980s, when MRIs suggested there was a legitimate neurological basis for the feeling. Early research suggested that synesthesia was simply a case of crossed mental wires. The auditory cortex, where music and sound are first processed, is close to the occipital lobe, where the brain distinguishes color and shape. Simultaneously triggered senses are examples of the brain making excess neurological connections or failing to prune existing connections. In fact, the brains of infant primates show evidence that their senses are all a hyperconnective blend until a few weeks or months after birth. By that logic, we all may be synesthetes until we grow out of it.
Neonatal theory has been criticized in recent years, though, as has all research that frames synesthesia as a neurological disorder. Researchers out of the University of London and the University of Oxford argued that the development of adult synesthesia is “better explained by their being learned” than by erroneously pruned connections.
Disorder or eccentricity? For years, synesthesia has suffered the stigma of being a mental “disorder.” Throughout the years, many synesthetes remained silent about their gifts. In some artists’ cases, they feared it would invalidate their actual musical talents.
SOURCE: Barnes, T. (2015) This Is What’s Happening In the Brains of People Who “See” Music
MUSIC PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH
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Maestra Celeste S. Sanchez, MT
Ms. Maricel G. Morales, Viva Artist
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Maestro Conrado Manuel N. Del Rosario
Dr. Peter Charles Kutschera, PhD, LMSW
Dr. Homer J. Yabut, PhD, RPsy
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