Synaesthesia seems to underpin some savants’ enhanced memory and numerical skills. The hope is that a better understanding of its origins could help to explain savant abilities – and perhaps even shine some light on whether we are all capable of attaining them.
The condition is thought to arise when extra connections in the brain cross between regions responsible for separate senses.
…if we are genetically disposed to develop synaesthesia, does that rule out the possibility of inducing the experience? To find out, Roi Cohen Kadosh from Imperial College London and colleagues hypnotised four volunteers so that they viewed numbers as having innate colours, known as grapheme-colour synaesthesia. The volunteers then looked at a series of coloured slides, some with a black digit in the centre and some without.
Full story at New Scientist