WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, JENNIFER RENSEL
What if every time you listened to Mozart or the Wu-Tang Clan your world began to change color. What if every time you touched a rough sandy surface, you felt an irrepressible jealousy. Synesthetes, or people who connect the perception of one sense with another unrelated sense or processing center, will commonly have strong associations such as these throughout their lives, often without realizing that their experiences are different.
Researchers have shown that this ability—or disorder, depending on how you look at it—may have a genetic basis. Around 50 percent of parents pass the trait onto their children, although it’s still unclear what genes are involved. With 2 to 4 percent of the population estimated to have this trait, David Brang and V.S. Ramachandran from ...
