Those researchers should determine if these people with synesthesia "hear" the sounds with their left or right ear. According to vedic science, the left ear is good for hearing the divine word(wisdom), and the right is good for hearing the phenomenal world. This vedic axiom might be related to the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Great news for psychics and mantra-yogins. Check out the video to see > if you have this ability or tendency. -V. > > Neurobiologists discover individuals who 'hear' movement > > Individuals with synesthesia perceive the world in a different way > from the rest of us. Because their senses are cross-activated, some > synesthetes perceive numbers or letters as having colors or days of > the week as possessing personalities, even as they function normally > in the world. > > Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have > discovered a type of synesthesia in which individuals hear sounds, > such as tapping, beeping, or whirring, when they see things move or > flash. Surprisingly, the scientists say, auditory synesthesia may not > be unusual--and may simply represent an enhanced form of how the brain > normally processes visual information. > > Psychologists previously reported visual, tactile, and taste > synesthesias, but auditory synesthesia had never been identified. > Caltech lecturer in computation and neural systems Melissa Saenz > discovered the phenomenon quite by accident. > > "While I was running an experiment at the Caltech Brain Imaging > Center, a group of students happened to pass by on a tour, and I > volunteered to explain what I was doing," explains Saenz, who, along > with Christof Koch, the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of > Cognitive and Behavioral Biology at Caltech and professor of > computation and neural systems, reports the finding in the August 5 > issue of the journal Current Biology. > > "As part of the experiment, a moving display was running on my > computer screen with dots rapidly expanding out, somewhat like the > opening scene of Star Wars. Out of the blue, one of the students > asked, "Does anyone else hear something when you look at that?" After > talking to him further, I realized that his experience had all the > characteristics of a synesthesia: an automatic sensory cross- > activation that he had experienced all of his life," says Saenz. > > A search of the synesthesia literature revealed that auditory > synesthesia--of any kind--had never been reported. Intrigued, Saenz > began to look for other individuals with the same ability, using the > original movie seen by the student as a test. "I queried a few hundred > people and three more individuals turned up," she says. Having that > specific example made it easy to find more people. That movie just > happens to be quite "noisy" to the synesthetes and was a great > screening tool. When asked if it made a sound, one of the individuals > responded, "how could it not?" I would have been less successful had I > just generally asked, "Do you hear sounds when you see things move or > flash?" because in the real environment, things that move often really > do make a sound," for example, a buzzing bee. > > This may be why auditory synesthesia hadn't been detected by > neurobiologists. "People with auditory synesthesia may be even less > likely than people with other synesthetic associations to fully > realize that their experience is unusual. These individuals have an > enhanced soundtrack in life, rather than a dramatically different > experience, compared to others," says Saenz. However, when asked, all > of the synesthetes could name examples of daily visual events that > caused sounds that they logically knew to be only in their minds, such > as seeing a fluttering butterfly or watching television with the sound > turned off. > > Saenz and Koch found that the four synesthetes outperformed a group of > nonsynesthetes on a simple test involving rhythmic patterns of flashes > similar to visual Morse code. Normally, such patterns are easier to > identify with sound (beeps) than with vision (flashes), so the > researchers predicted that synesthetes would have an advantage with > visual patterns because they actually heard a sound every time they > saw a flash. > > In the test, the subjects saw a series of flashes and had to guess if > a second sequence, played afterward, represented the same temporal > pattern or not. As a baseline measurement, a similar test was given > using sequences of beeps. Both the synesthetes and the control group > performed equally well when given beeps. However, with visual flashes > synesthetes were much more accurate, responding correctly more than 75 > percent of the time, compared to around 50 percent--the level > predicted by chance--in the control group. "Synesthetes had an > advantage because they not only saw but also heard the visual > patterns," Saenz says. > > Saenz and Koch suspect that as much as 1 percent of the population may > experience auditory synesthesia. In fact, she and Koch think that the > brain may normally transfer visual sensory information over to the > auditory cortex, to create a prediction of the associated sound. "This > translation might result in actual sound perception in synesthetes, > perhaps due to stronger than normal connections, says Saenz, who has > begun brain imaging experiments to study this connectivity in > synesthetes and nonsynesthetes. > > "We might find that motion processing centers of the visual cortex are > more interconnected with auditory brain regions than previously > thought, even in the 'normal' brain," Saenz says. "At this point, very > little is known about how the auditory and visual processing systems > of the brain work together. Understanding this interaction is > important because in normal experience, our senses work together all > the time." > > View the video used to identify auditory synesthetes, in a quiet > location, at http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~saenz/movingdots.html . > > Source: California Institute of Technology >
