Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses

Most people link senses only by way of metaphoric speech, saying, for example, that red is a "warm" color or that a certain cheese tastes "sharp." But a minority of individuals, known as synesthetes, experience the phrase "I see what you're saying" as literally true. In addition to studying the phenomenon for its own sake, neuroscientists are interested in what synesthesia might reveal about consciousness, the working of nonsynesthetic brains, subjective-objective relations, and the relationship…