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The Man Who Tasted Shapes (1993)

de Richard E. Cytowic

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435357,052 (3.69)12
In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation--and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human--a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.… (mais)
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I had previously bought and then culled this book, thinking I'd never have time to read it. When I found I had purchased another copy, I decided I should read it.

I've always been curious about how people with "blended senses" perceive things. The book describes one person who perceives shapes when tasting food, and another case where the person perceives colors when hearing sound. The book also contains an interesting chart showing how senses can be blended together (the technical term is "synesthesia") and its frequency. All the possibilities are quite rare.

The book has three themes: synesthesia, the biology of the brain and of perceptions, and the philosophy of perception and consciousness. Most of it is presented in the context of a detective story as the author encounters the people with synesthesia, attempts to scientifically validate their perceptions, and presents the findings to a skeptical scientific community.

An interesting read. ( )
  NLytle | May 18, 2015 |
It was very interesting and the main narrative was engaging. Towards the end though he goes off on this tangent about 'the primacy of emotion over reason' that heads straight into New Age territory. Worse the whole arguments are directed various 'straw man'.
If you just want to get an inside view on Synesthesia this is a good book for you. If your looking for trustworthy science then not so much. ( )
  Sosiles | Apr 26, 2008 |
An interesting book for synaesthetes. As the foreword suggests, it makes some provocative assertions (siting synaesthesia in the limbic system, and saying that, for humans, emotion, connected with that system, is biologically prior to ratiocination, with the cortex), based on the author's own researches up to 1993. The revised edition chooses not to amend the text in the light of more recent research (because, explicitly, that would spoil the 'story' of the reseach - emotion, here, before thought?), but places them in an afterword. Since this new research (to 2003) does alter the picture quite markedly, that is probably a wrong decision. An interesting account of one piece of fascinating scientific research, though, and Cytowic does allow himself to explore the scientific process more broadly that his precise subject might necessarily call for. Ironically, his 1993 conclusions are probably falsified to a degree by the very technological advances that he decries in the main text of the book. ( )
  Bibliophial | Jan 2, 2007 |
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In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation--and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human--a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.

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