March 4th, 2009
Inside Oxford Science Podcast
Posted by
chrislintott in
Podcasts
I’ve always secretly wanted one of two jobs; either to be Andrew Marr on Start the Week or Melvin Bragg on In our time. Beyond assassination or blackmail, I think either is a long way off but a flavour of both hangs around the first episode of the Inside Oxford Science podcast.
The format is very simple; put a bunch of talkative academics (is there any other kind?) around a table, and talk. The first episode features not only me talking about Citizen Science but the excellent Irene Tracey talking about synaesthesia.
Go and listen – and let us know what you think.
on March 5th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Great to listen to (Galaxy Zoo is the second half of the podcast)
on March 8th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
That was an incredible podcast! I now feel guilty about not having got as far as I’d like with the irregulars all over again . . .
I have synaesthesia and am surprised to hear it described as a “disorder” to be “diagnosed” in children with problems. I disagree that it’s either rare or a problem (admittedly I may not have met anyone who does find it a problem). For me, the associations act as grappling hooks, both brightening up the world and helping me remember things. I see the usual yellow Tuesday and numbers in colour and so on – there’s a thread here if you’re interested, Irene? http://www.galaxyzooforum.org/index.php?topic=273066.0
I’ll tell you about some of my more unusual ones. Chris, your name is white with green and blue tips. Irene, your name is white and light purple-grey-blue. Voices don’t arouse colours, but they do textures, sensations, hard to put my finger on . . . I think a sort of material sensation. Chris’s voice is like a very fine polished hollow wooden instrument like a harp. Pedro (sorry, was that your name?), yours is more metallic and dark. Irene’s I’m still trying to work out, a light yellowish metal perhaps.
I don’t know if this is synaesthesia because it works both ways with equal strength (and contains an adoring mummy’s bias), but I have a sweet soppy very fluffy cat called Cassie, and the feel of her fur is precisely the same as both the taste and texture of icing sugar.
I associate numbers with colours, even when the colours are contrary to the sounds I hear. The word “three” is light blue, but the colour 3 is dark pinky-red. So is the number 8, though the word “eight” is light blue, white, and beige. So it may just be the shape itself – the squiggly shape – that evokes the bright colour; a Celtic knot reminds me of it too. Or it may be the magnetic Fisher Price letters I had as a kid, though I’m sure those weren’t all quite the same. I also associate numbers with shapes, such as charts and rickety rules; I’ve always seen fractions as pie charts and use imaginary rectangles (like bar charts) for addition, which has always helped me with estimates and arithmetic if not with school maths.
Irene, I’d love to help with your research if you’re interested – but Chris, don’t forget to warn her I’m slightly mad, will you?
I’m going to have to listen to the citizen science (yay!) bit again and blog it, that stuff is right up my street! Thanks for such a great time I had listening.
on April 14th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I was fascinated to discover that synaesthesia can be linked to some disorders as I have dyspraxia, if borderline. I have synaesthesia and that too seems to be borderline! I agree with Alice that it’s not necessarily linked to a disorder and is far more common than the less than 1% stated. I would say at least 10% from my own queries.
I envy Alice’s precision synaesthesia as mine is very vague and has a tendency to vaporise if I analyse it too deeply. I can see colours and shapes but mainly black and grey swirls. The images and colours are much stronger when I’m tired and let my mind drift. I see print in my mind in mainly black and white with some colour like Monday is dark blue, Thursday is pink and yellow with a touch of brown. But the print can be in big blocks, even 3D at times, rather like the block letters in the Monty Python’s Flying Circus title sequence by the marvelous Terry Gilliam! Chris, your name is white and turned somewhat so that the ‘S’ is in the foreground with the rest of the name receding to the ‘C’. My name Alex is yellow and black.
The quality of voices can produce shapes and colours like my husband’s voice is a rich, dark brown cloud. I once spoke to a friend on the phone who seemed somewhat depressed and it produced a sharp, dart-like triangle in a nasty mustard colour. But apart from the occasional sharp image, my usual images can shift and change. This is frustrating as when I try to describe my synaesthesia it can sometimes drift away from me like trying to remember a dream.
I play diatonic accordion (melodeon) and described to a fellow musician these strange shapes I visualised when I played. His expression of nervous incredulity suggested it may not be a subject I should raise again! It’s nice to be able to write this as I mention my synaesthesia much less than my dyspraxia because the latter is more recognised and elicits less of an embarrassed response, although only marginally!
I can also get strange feelings in my throat at the thought of some shapes and my mouth waters when I see something beautiful like a baby! No, I don’t have cannibalistic tendencies!!
I have a vivid imagination which helps me to overcome my terrible memory to some extent in the use of memory techniques but I’m not sure how much the synaesthesia plays a part.
One of the weirdest experiences I had was when I walked into the office of one of my previous jobs and the synaesthesia instantly produced a dark black cloud that descended on me. I was told that one of my colleagues had broken her neck in a car accident. She miraculously made a full recovery. I must have registered the worried expressions on my colleagues’ faces and the black cloud was my emotional response before my conscious mind kicked in.