les synesthètes sont grognons

7/30/2019 Les synesthtes sont grognons

1/6

"My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character"

F E A T U R E S

F A I L U R E W E E K

How We All Become

Failures

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S T U D I E S S H O W

Peo le with S naesthesia are

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2/6

The Fruits of Failure

and How the Dead Help

the Living by Dying

B YL I N D A B E S N E R|1 5 . 0 4 . 1 3


Failure t o Launch:

Watching History Erupt

in Real Time

B YK A I T L I N F O N T A N A|

1 7 . 0 4 . 1 3


Making Friends With

Failure: The

Schopenhauer BallPlayer

B YT O M J O K I N E N|1 6 . 0 4 . 1 3

A / V R O O M

r g n g

Limiting Your Taste in Music

Sarah Nicole PrickettThe Privilege of Fucking Up

Tom JokinenMaking Friends With Failure:

The Schopenhauer Ball Player

Helen GuriLatches of Being: A User's

Guide to Anne Carson

Alexandra MolotkowValerie Solanass SCUM

Manifesto is Great Literature

M O S T P O P U L

1 2 . 0 4 . 1

Hitler's

Cartoon

Problem and

the Art of ...

BY J EET HEER

1 2 . 0 4 . 1

Cats and

Dogs and

Margaret

Thatcher

BY EMILY M. KEELER

1 2 . 0 4 . 1

GrumpyB YL I N D A B E S N E R| A P R I L 1 8 , 2 0 1 3

Synaesthesia is the mental aberration I always wish I had. It seems

as if it would make writing poetry as easy as arranging your

bookshelves by co lo ur. Sometimes Il l fake it fo r myself for fun,

imagining colours for words or personalities for numbersImpretty sure 4 is a timid younger sister and 9 is a bo ssy o lder sister.

But for a real synaesthete these experiences are involuntarythey

dont have to imagine them.

But maybe I should be careful what I wish for. A new study in the

journal Personality and Individual Difference s, co nducted by a

team of UK researchers headed by Michael J . Banissy of

University College London, suggests that synaesthetes are

different fro m you and metheyre grumpier.

We already know that synaesthetes share some atypical behaviours

in addition to having atypical neural functioning. Previous studies

conducted in the UK and Australia have shown that synaesthetes

are more likely than other peopl e to become artists, either

pro fessionall y or as a hobby. This is no surprise, since a visceral

experience o f words o r music is what all artists are gunning for.

Duke Ellington described his synesthetic experience of music

saying, I hear a note by o ne of the fell ows in the band and its one

colo ur. I hear the same note pl ayed by so meone else and its a

different col our. If Harry Carney is pl aying, D is dark blue burlap.

If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin. There

are al so famous scientists and mathematicians for whom col our-

coded numbers have revealed important patterns: Nobel Prize-

winning physicist Richard Feynman described an equation as full

of light-tan js, slightly violet-bluish ns, and dark brown xs

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V I D E O

Carl Honor on the

Slow Fix

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V I D E O

Pagelicker 5.0:

Andrew Kaufman


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V I D E O

Pagelicker 4.2:Roddy Doyle on

What It Means To

Be Irish


0 9 . 0 1 . 1 3

,

Our Fart s: In

Praise of

Public

Sexual...

BY NAVNEET ALANG

1 2 . 0 4 . 1

Race and t he

Tragic View of

David Mamet

BY MIKE DOHERTY

1 4 . 0 4 . 1

Week in

Review: Acts

of Kindness,

Act s of

Malice...BY HAZLITT STAFF

flying around.

The UK researchers wanted to f ind out whether synaesthetes also

differed from the general population in terms of their personalities.

They assembled a gro up of 81 grapheme-colour synaesthetes

(people for whom words bring on co lo ur hallucinations) of an

average age of 44 to test their personality profiles.

Banissy et al . put the synaesthetes through a number o f perso nality

and empathy tests, including the Big Five Inventory. The Big Five

are the five categories psychologists use to cl assify personality

traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness,

and neuroticism. The questions are statements you can rate your

level o f agreement with, and they ask things like, I see mysel f as

someone who tends to find fault with others, or is considerate

and kind to almost everyone.

What they fo und was that the synaesthetes sco red lower o n the the

agreeableness measure than their control group. Banissy et al.

dont include a breakdown of what average scores were on which

questions, but the questions that generally indicate a not-so-

agreeable person are the ones asking if you see yo urself as

someone who starts quarrels with others, can be cold and

aloof, and can be moo dy.

The researchers were surprised by this finding, and scratched theirheads a bit before suggesting that, maybe, negative views and

disbelief expressed by others concerning synaesthesia can diminish

Agreeableness. If you ask your mother not to say the word

corduroy, because hearing it makes yo u taste sour milk, and she

tells yo u to put your corduroys o n and stop being ridiculo us, you

feel both nauseated and betrayed.

E D I T O R ' S

0 4 . 2 2 . 1 3

I Bet Your Mama Was aTent-Show Queen

B Y C A R L W

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4/6

R E C E N T T W E E T S

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The study also found that synaesthetes scored highly o n measures

of opennessreporting yourself curious about many different

things, and liking to play with ideas. The researchers also

administered two tests measuring empathythe Inter-Personal

Reactivity Index and the Empathy Quotient. The notable difference

between the synaesthetes and the control group was that the

synaesthetes scored higher on the Fantasizing Scale of the first of

these tests, measured by level of agreement with statements like,When I am reading an interesting story o r novel , I imagine how I

would feel if the events in the story were happening to me.

The researchers proposed an explanation for why synaesthetes

were more open and more prone to fantasizing than the general

populationthat the presence of synaesthesia causally affects the

development of these particular personality traits. I guess once

you have first-hand experience of musical notes triggering a fleet

of triangles that race each other across yo ur field of vision, yo urewilling to consider any number of outlandish ideas.

Even if it comes at the price of being a moo dy, irritable person, I

think I stil l wish I had synaesthesia. It would be so nice to know the

word conundrum is bl ue rather than having to guess, and that

green is actually bright red. If it was good enough for Naboko v

(and Nabokovs mother, wife, and son), its good enough for me.

--Studies Show is a weekly column that appears every Thursday

FindHazlitton Facebook/ Follo w us on Twitter

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5/6

4 . 1 5 . 1 3

The Fruits ofFailure and Howthe Dead Help the

Living by Dying

B YL I N D A B E S N E R

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How to ReducePTSD in NorthKorean Defectors


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NaturesFrankenstein: TheClark Fork Rivers

DisturbingMakeover


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All the Bees AreDying and WeDon't Know Why


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The Quiz Book asBible


8 . 2 7 . 1 2

It' s Half-Empty,You Idiots!


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les synesthètes sont grognons

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