Social Effects

 

The effect of synaesthesia, and the knowledge about synaesthesia, on understanding how our brain retains information, and even on how we interact with other people, is quite large. Synaesthesia has the ability to improve learning, memorisation, pitch, and also interestingly, tolerance and understanding.

 

Firstly, synaesthesia has been proven to have numerous mental benefits such as improved learning skills (Massy-Beresford, H 2014) because your brain is making connections between smaller ideas, bits of information and other multisensory effects so that they trigger each other and, in turn, you retain the whole idea. This is why some synaesthetes can exhibit such extraordinary memory abilities (Choi, C 2011) and, as with any brain activity, it helps “guard against mental decline” in the long run (Massy-Beresford, H 2014).

 

When looking at making connections, especially in learning music, another question arises. Is there a relationship between synaesthesia and having absolute pitch? To this question, I believe the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Even if it doesn’t necessarily prove for perfect pitch, the extra connections between sound and specific colours must prepare your brain to distinguish between the slight differences of various pitches. In saying that, some people “can’t imagine having the kind of synaesthesia… without also having absolute pitch” (Svard, L 2013), but with over 60 different types of synaesthesia, some varying only slightly, I don’t think this statement is necessarily true. Just because I can read and write English doesn’t mean I’m a perfect speller every time!

 

Another oddly beautiful point about synaesthesia is that the specific of which note is what colour (and so on) can vary between people. That is why studying synaesthesia is like “a crack in the door to the larger mystery of consciousness and the self” (Svard, L 2013). If you’ve ever tried to explain a colour to someone, as if they’d never seen it before, you’ll know that it’s pretty impossible. For all we know, one person’s colour red could look completely different to what someone else calls ‘red’. The truth is that we accept the reality presented to us and that’s why this study is a very interesting portrayal of how our brains can perceive different realities (Big Think 2012). People are different and synaesthesia is just one of the many ways to study those differences in perception (Massy-Beresford, H 2014). As Anina Rich says, synaesthesia just represents the possibilities of “how we put together information across the senses to form our cohesive view of the world” (Higgins-Devine, K 2015). This realisation can ultimately lead to acceptance of peoples’ differences and bringing everyone together.