一つの感覚が他の異なる領域の感覚をひき起こす現象を共感覚といいます。共感覚を持つかどうかを科学的に診断できるテストを考察しながら、共感覚者の経験をどのように評価すべきか検討します。芸術的創造性や水平思考との関連を指摘する報告、創作活動に生じさせているかもしれない潜在的制限、共感覚と関わりのある神経系の働き、遺伝的要因と脳の機能面から理解を目指す試みなどについても言及します。
　　　

• Introduces the many different ways synaesthesia presents, from tasty words to colourful sounds
• Explores the fascinating stories of different individuals' experiences of the world through their forms of synaesthesia
• Discusses the links between synaesthesia and artistic creativity
• Relates our contemporary understanding of the neuroscience behind synaesthesia
• Discusses how synaesthesia can be detected and measured through specialist tests

       
Can you taste words, feel flavours as a shape, or hear colors? If so you may well have synaesthesia, a neurological condition that gives rise to a 'merging of the senses'.
    
This Very Short Introduction describes synaesthesia's many forms, and delves into the underlying neuroscience. Explaining the scientific basis for synaesthesia, Julia Simner considers how we can measure the effects synaesthesia has on the everyday lives of people living with it. Exploring the fascinating stories of different synaesthetes' experiences of the world, she also discusses the documented links between synaesthesia, childhood development, memory, personality, and artistic creativity, and the potential limitations synaesthesia might impose.