Scientific cognition through senses
We talk about synesthesia and synesthetics, smells, senses, colors and letters with dr Przemysław Staniewski from the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Wrocław. Dr Staniewski has been conducting research on linguistic synesthesia for several years now. In the academic year 2023/2024, he was a scholarship holder of the Studienbörse Germanistik, which is the result of cooperation between the Hermann Niermann Foundation and the Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg.
Synesthesia, “simultaneous perception” or “cognition through the senses” – this is how encyclopedias describe a state in which experiences of one sense (e.g. sight) also evoke experiences which are characteristic of other senses. For example, the perception of low sounds evokes the impression of softness, the blue color is perceived as cold, the image of a letter or a number evokes color associations etc.
Dr Przemysław Staniewski from the Department of Applied Linguistics (Institute of German Studies, Faculty of Letters): – That is right. Nevertheless, this definition is very limited and is intended to outline the phenomenon of synesthesia for people who have not yet encountered it or do not deal with it on a daily basis. Such definitions are also found in various textbooks (e.g., those for students) dealing with the human senses. However, this definition does not fully reflect the complexity of synesthesia, as it exists in many different types and kinds.
What can be understood by the term “type” or “kind” of synesthesia?
–The term “type” or “kind” is understood as a combination, for example, hearing and sight, where an auditory stimulus causes visual impressions.
However, they do not refer only to the senses, because inducers (pol. “wrażenia wywołujące”) can belong to different cognitive domains, i.e., perceptual, cognitive (conceptual) or even emotional. It is the same for the concurrent (“wrażenie wywoałne”).
In the literature on the subject, you can find statements that there are either about 60, 100 – 120 or even 200 such types of synesthesia.
So how can such a combination be defined? When one says to themselves hot bigos and feel warmth or when one imagines a white wall and feel cold?
–I certainly wouldn’t classify it as synesthesia. I think that in such cases we can talk about associations that result from our interaction with the world, i.e., they are experiential in nature. It can also be assumed that they are based on correlation. This would mean that when eating bigos, which is usually warm, we experience a feeling of warmth primarily in the mouth, but we can also feel it on the face when the heat is emitted by bigos on the plate. We can also feel warmth in general when heating bigos. In this way, we can see that bigos and the feeling of warmth coexist, which can lead to the formation of this type of association. This is also quite an important question in the context of my research on synesthesia in language. If we look at the construction “warm smell” and if we have some additional context for it, e.g. that it is about the smell of food, we can explain the use of such a construction in such a context by means of correlation. Since we are dealing in this case with a mechanism of co-occurrence, we can assume that it is a linguistic synesthesia of a metonymy and not of a metaphorical nature.
Is a given color also assigned to a letter or a number?
–As a rule, synesthetic connections are permanent and stable, so it can be assumed that yes, a given “induced impression”, or concurrent (“wrażenie wywołane”), is somehow assigned to a given inducer (“wrażenie wywołujące”) and they are unlikely to change. However, as far as I know, it is not such a straightforward relationship between letter and color. This is how it is usually presented in research, and we – non-synesthetes – would prefer to keep it this way because then we would be able to understand it better. On the other hand, the impression or quality in terms of this impression is a bit more extensive and sometimes difficult to describe for synesthetes.
Is every one of us a synesthetic to some extent?
–Unfortunately, I am unable to answer this question with certainty. There is the so-called neonatal hypothesis of synesthesia, according to which, everyone is born a synesthete – in the sense that individual areas of our cerebral cortex are connected in such a way that a newborn feels the world synesthetically. Over time (after a few months) these connections disappear. However, I do not know whether if they would not disappear, such a person could be a synesthete from the very beginning or not. As far as I know, synesthesia is usually diagnosed during childhood, and this is also the result of the accounts of synesthetes themselves, who claim that synesthesia has always been with them. But apparently synesthesia can occur at any stage of development.
What is it like with language in this context? What is your area of scientific interest?
–When it comes to linguistic issues in this context, two things should be distinguished here: what I mentioned above, i.e. generally speaking synesthesia in perception, which is called a proper synesthesia, and within this synesthesia one can sometimes encounter the term linguistic synesthesia. It is a proper synesthesia, in the case of which the inducer-concurrent relationship includes linguistic elements/signs, like the letters or numbers mentioned above, to which colors are assigned – this is called colored graphemes.
Another kind is the so-called lexical-taste synesthesia, in which individual words evoke taste sensations. Nevertheless, it is still the proper synesthesia which is studied by neurosciences.
This synesthesia should not be mixed or mistaken with another one of their kind, the linguistic synesthesia.
What is it all about?
–It is about describing perceptual impressions from a given sensory domain using words (lexical units) belonging to another sensory domain.
Any examples?
–…sweet smell (taste + smell), warm colors (touch + color), sharp sound (touch + hearing). These types of combinations are also known as a stylistic device called synesthesia. However, such combinations also occur in everyday language and are not characteristic only for literary creation. This type of combination is an object of interest to linguists and to me as well.
I would like to emphasize, however, that a person using this type of phrase on a daily basis does not have an accompanying synesthetic perception.
At this point, the use of a given construction shows us how the person using it perceives the world, i.e., a given (perceptual) situation. By analyzing larger collections of texts, we can, for example, obtain some clues on the basis of language about how our senses function – assuming of course, that language gives us insight into our conceptual structure.
Finally, it should be noted that within the framework of linguistic research on synesthesia, we limit ourselves only to perception and to the classical model of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight).
Are you a synesthete? Or maybe you discovered someone’s original combinations?
–No, I’m not a synesthete but I think I’d like to be one. In the context of my research, this could be useful to me. I also did not discover original combinations, but I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet a synesthete who has the previously mentioned lexical and taste synesthesia, which is extremely rare. On the other hand, the most remarkable synesthetic combination that I have come across in the literature on the subject is the perception of colors caused by swimming styles (e.g., breaststroke, butterfly stroke).
Can we really hear colors? Dr Przemysław Staniewski recently talked about perception, synesthesia and language in the podcast Zrozumieć Świat/Bliżej Filozofii.
Czy naprawdę możemy słyszeć kolory? O percepcji, synestezji i języku | dr Przemysław Staniewski
Complied by Katarzyna Górowicz-Maćkiewicz
Date of publication: 31.01.2025
Added by: M.J.
Translated by Szymon Pachurka (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
