Hearing Colours

John Harrison. Synaesthesia: the Strangest Thing. Oxford University Press, 2001. £16.99.

A leading authority on the subject of synaesthesia outlines the research and experiments conducted by his mentor Simon Baron-Cohen and himself on this curious confusion of senses. 

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Their research has largely been in the field of 'seeing' sounds as 'colours', though Harrison concludes that this 'seeing' is not the same as either a visual perception or 'seeing in the mind's eye' but an experience that cannot be readily appreciated by the non synthaesthete. He also concludes it is likely that the there is not just phenomena of synaesthesia but several. He also examines the claims of several prominent artists and writers who have been regarded as synaesthetes, but of these only Vladimir Nabokov passes the test.

It is not entirely clear to what audience this particular book is addressed, it is rather technical in places for the lay reader, yet the specialist might find, for example, the pocket explanation of genetics a little redundant.