A Feast for The Eyes: Visualising Flavour-to-Vision Synesthesia

Flavour-to-vision synesthesia is a rare neurological phenomenon, where a person consistently and involuntarily visualises abstract shapes, colours, or even textures whilst tasting the flavours of food. As this rare condition is currently still largely unknown to and misunderstood by many, this project aims to gain an insight into perceptual experiences of those diagnosed with synesthesia (also known as synesthetes), and to creatively and convey this abstract concept to the general public in the form of an artefact

The Disunity of Consciousness

It is commonplace for both philosophers and cognitive scientists to express their allegiance to the "unity of consciousness". This is the claim that a subject’s phenomenal consciousness, at any one moment in time, is a single thing. This view has had a major influence on computational theories of consciousness. In particular, what we call single-track theories dominate the literature, theories which contend that our conscious experience is the result of a single consciousness-making process or mechanism in the brain. We argue that the orthodox view is quite wrong: phenomenal experience is not a unity, in the sense of being a single thing at each instant. It is a multiplicity, an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each of which is the product of a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. Consequently, cognitive science is in need of a multi-track theory of consciousness; a computational model that acknowledges both the manifold nature of experience, and its distributed neural basis

Parâmetros para o estudo da sinestesia na música Parameters for the study of synaesthesia in music

Estudo sobre a relação entre sinestesia como condição neurológica e a metáfora sinestésica. Propõe-se uma escuta sinestésica do 5º movimento Joie du sang des étoiles de Turangalîla de Olivier Messiaen, seguida de uma análise da relação entre os elementos apontados na escuta sinestésica e a estrutura da obra. A partir desta análise e da fenomenologia, sugere-se a sistematização de categorias sinestésicas, tomando-se a sensação sonora como primária entre as sensações sinestésicas mais comuns.<br>This paper studies the relationship between synaesthesia as a neurological condition and synaesthesic metaphor. It aims at investigating synaesthesia as a way of conscious listening and proposes a synaesthesic listening of the 5th movement Joie du sang des étoiles of Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla, including an analysis of the relationship between the elements found in the synaesthesic listening and the structure of the work. Relating analysis and phenomenology, it also suggests a systematization of synaesthesics categories, departing from the sound as the primary sensation among the most common sensations